29 Oct 2023

Spooky moon - NOT amateur radio

 


It is almost Halloween. This was the moon rising over a neighbours' house.

Sunspots - Sunday October 29th 2023

 Solar flux is 128 and the SSN 70. A=19 and K=4.

28 Oct 2023

630m QRP WSPR

Even though the output power judging by the antenna current seemed normal, I was getting no spots. Moving down in frequency and spots came immediately. Was my transmission just outside the WSPR window?   Last night I was about 16 Hz inside the top edge.

UPDATE  1815z:   4 stations have spotted my 10mW ERP tonight.

CQWW SSB

This is the biggest contest in the world. At one time, I used to be very keen on this as a way of working some new DXCC countries. I have never submitted a score. These days I just take a peek, and give it a miss. It is on all weekend.

All change - NOT amateur radio


We have one garage in our village selling fuel. When we came in 1975 there were 3.   Attached to the garage was a very useful Co-op shop. Both the garage and shop are now Asda. Luckily, the same staff seem to be there.

10m QRP WSPR TX (Saturday)


My tiny 500mW 10m WSPR TX has been on most of the morning. So far,  25 stations have spotted me.

8m QRP FT8 (Saturday)

Apart from a very brief transmission early this morning - spotted by local G4WSZ (12km), I have been RX.

UPDATE 1530z: This afternoon, I have been on 40.680 MHz QRP FT8 TX. 4 stations have spotted my 2.5W to the  dipole including 1 in the USA and 1 in the Caribbean. On 8m RX,  3 countries have been spotted.

Back garden - NOT amateur radio

Yesterday, I cut the grass. I usually cut it for the last time of the year in late November or even December. I think the grass often grows over the winter and I am always pleased to do a "tidy up" cut in March. The photo shows our back garden yesterday. 

The leaves are still on the trees mostly, but they will soon be gone until spring.

630m QRP WSPR overnight

In all, 13 stations spotted my 10mW ERP from the earth-electrode antenna in the ground on 630m overnight with the furthermost SM6NOC (1054km).


In the last 2 weeks I have been spotted by 33 stations on 630m QRP WSPR TX as the table shows. 

Sunspots - Saturday October 28th 2023

 Solar flux is 128 and the SSN 66. A=11 and K=1.