Every day on social media I seem to get most ads about electric cars. I am interested, but feel we are not quite there yet. Prices are too high. Range is too short. Lithium is in short supply,. Charging away from home takes too long and there are too few charging points. Prices need to be halved, ranges doubled, and a technology that does not require slave labour is needed. 2027?
22 Aug 2023
8m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)
As 6m looked encouraging, I went on 8m FT8 QRP at about 0830z.
UPDATE 1040z: Quite a strong (for me!) spot by HC02 (1808km) in Portugal.
10m QRP WSPR TX (Tuesday)
It looks like G4KPX (14km) is monitoring as I have already been spotted with my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon. It is only now 0516z!
UPDATE 2011z: 19 stations have spotted me today.
6m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)
Today, I am currently on 50.313 MHz vertical on FT8 with my 2.5W. Already 2 G spots of me shortly after 0500z. My antenna is the V2000 vertical omni.
8m between seasons
My experimental licence has been held since April 2022. So, I have experienced two Es seasons and F2 last autumn and winter. My 2.5W to a low dipole has been copied widely in Europe by Es and in the USA, Caribbean and Canada by F2.
On RX I have spotted S.Africans on several occasions. In the autumn it would be great to be copied in South Africa with my QRP FT8. Last summer was disappointing with fewer active TX stations than in 2022.
At the moment, we are between seasons. The big Es openings have all but ended and F2 has not really started. Better equipped stations are tapping in to TEP either directly or with F2 linking up with Es.
Overall, I am disappointed in 8m. I was hoping there would be far more activity by now, but if anything there are fewer stations active on TX. Where are the experimenters?
21 Aug 2023
Dahlias - NOT amateur radio
The area in front of the dahlias is grassed and this gets very churned up after wet weather.
The next solar peak
In the past, there has been a lot of doubt and uncertainty over the timing of this. The site I mostly use has been predicting the next maximum in November or December 2023 for some time.
Quite often we get a second peak after the first. What is clear from other cycles is that conditions could be good for several years after the peak.
In the past I have worked stations in Argentina on QRP 10m SSB when the sunspot count right at the minimum has been zero. Quite often 10m propagation is there but there is a lack of activity. With FT8, we can now monitor the higher bands and see. Stand alone 5W FT8 transceivers for 10m can be obtained quite inexpensively freeing up "the big rig".
See https://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png .
Said on FaceBook in 2012 - NOT amateur radio
This was said by me on FaceBook in 2012. Nothing changes!
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