Late swifts - NOT amateur radio

We went for a walk around the village this afternoon. Much to my surprise I saw a swift on two separate occasions. It is possible this was the same bird. Most swifts fly south weeks ago, so this was a straggler(s). As far as I remember, this is the latest date I have ever seen swifts in the UK. 

8m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)

At about 0942z, I QSYed to 40.680 MHz FT8. I had already had plenty of QSOs on 6m and the band looked open in the direction of Iberia. As usual my gear on 8m is a modified FT817ND (2.5W) and a dipole.

UPDATE 1757z:  No spots today. I suspect there are very few people monitoring. 

UPDATE 2056z:  QRT now. No spots all day. Disappointing. 

10m QRP WSPR TX (Tuesday)

 

My 500mW WSPR TX beacon was turned on before breakfast. So far spotted by 9 unique stations.

UPDATE 0951z: I see my 500mW WSPR beacon has been spotted in Antarctica by DP0GVN (13685km). See the photo of this permanent German base.

UPDATE 1727z: 17 spots of me today.

UPDATE 2050z:  QRT  now. 19 unique stations spotted me today.

6m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)

Today, the early start on 6m FT8 QRP resulted in 3 QSOs across Europe. My gear is 2.5W to the omni V2000 vertical antenna. 

UPDATE 0803z: 45 stations across Europe have spotted my QRP 6m FT8 today.

Sunspots - Tuesday August 29th 2023

 Solar flux is 142 and the SSN 68. A=6 and K=0.

That kiss - NOT amateur radio

The man in charge of football in Spain, Luis Rubiales, is at the centre of a media storm. 

The fact that the media has created such a fuss has taken the focus off the women's team that won the world cup and onto this man instead. 

Now, I do not have all the facts and stand to be corrected. My reading of the situation is that this is a story whipped up by the media. Yes, he was carried away by the excitement of the moment, made a mistake, but it would have been better just forgotten. He is also in trouble for scratching his crotch. This took about 1 second! I am pretty sure he just had an innocent itch.

The media has a habit of creating stories. Personally, I do not think he should be made to resign.

Tired, giddy and exhausted - NOT amateur radio

It is almost 10 years ago I suffered my brain bleed/stroke and was in hospital for 3.5 months. Thankfully, I made an almost complete physical recovery and was able to get back to an almost normal life. I was given a second chance, unlike many.

My main issues are my poor voice, being giddy nearly all the waking hours, and getting exhausted very quickly after physical or mental exertion.  Whereas before I enjoyed going out in the car doing experiments, I no longer feel able. I still drive, but do not enjoy it. Driving seems to require so much more concentration for me nowadays. All the time I am reading the situation, looking for stupid drivers. It is almost as if my brain takes longer to process things. Driving at 50mph feels like 70mph.

The net result is trying to find ways to enjoy things differently. These days, my experiments are at home rather than "in the field".

Although I long to be as I once was, I know this can never be, so we have to make the best of life.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/non-amateur-radio/stroke .

6m QRP FT8 tomorrow?

As an experiment, I may try 50.313 MHz QRP FT8 tomorrow. The main Es season is over, but Es still occurs, but less often. FT8, which is better than CW, uses a 15 second TX period. If propagation lasts this long, one has a great chance of being detected. Often Es signals can be quite strong, if short-lived.

I like to experiment on 8m FT8, but there are too few monitors sadly.

Optical Experiments

One of the fallacies going around is that optical communication is just "line-of-site" and that both the TX and RX have to be able to see each other. This is just not true! 

With very low power and simple, homemade, gear I could detect my beacon on a PC way over the horizon. In Australia, the "over-the-horizon" (NLOS) distance record is way over 100km. With my own very modest gear, I can well believe this. 

My tests were done on cloudless nights, suggesting the propagation was scattering off atmospheric dust. There was no sign of the light from the TX in the sky at all.  This is definitely where everyone, licenced or not, may experiment. It would be good to find out how far we could achieve non line of site (NLOS) in the UK. Incidentally LEDs are generally considered better than lasers due to scintillation (look it up!).

My own beacon and optical gear were made in the back of the garage. If I was fit, I would be experimenting now.

My optical gear used LEDs bought off eBay. Far more powerful ones are available. I used 100mm lenses used in magnifying glasses bought at Poundland. Better equipped stations used Fresnel lenses. My tripod was hopeless. With better LEDs, lenses and tripods, ranges could be increased a great deal. Even with my system ranges could be considerably greater than the nearly 9km I managed.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/optical-nanowaves/over-the-horizon.

Isleham priory - NOT amateur radio

Until the Reformation this was a priory. Afterwards, it was used as a barn. 

In my view the Reformation did a great deal of harm in England. Looking back, it seems pure vandalism. 

In my view, we have to look at history, reflect on it, but not destroy it.