My 2.5W 8m FT8 to the low dipole has been on since mid-morning. Yet again, my signal has been spotted in the Caribbean. In the last 2 days I have had 8m FT8 exchanges with both ZF1EJ and PJ4MM. In all today, my 8m FT8 signal has been spotted by 7 stations with 5 "across the pond".
Whilst I am sure a small beam, higher up, and more power would help, this proves to me that even 2.5W can make it when F2 conditions are good.
In the UK there is a row growing about the return to Greece of the Elgin Marbles . These were originally in the world famous Parthenon.
In my view these should be returned.
Although I stand to be corrected, these were essentially stolen! My suggestion is a copy of these should be made and displayed (this has been done before e.g. the Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolian Museum in Oxford). Their proper home is in the Parthenon in Athens, which is visited by millions.
Around the sunspot maximum we can see the MUF going much higher than we are used to. Take for example the 8m band, which is allocated to the Amateur Radio service in some countries and available to some on an experimental basis. Quite regularly, my 2.5W 8m FT8 is copied in the Caribbean, USA and Canada. This is on 40.680 MHz USB dial. This suggests the MUF is probably at 41 MHz quite often even on E-W paths. The MUF is usually higher on N-S paths.
For a long time, I have been advocating that 5 kHz at 8m be made available to the Amateur Radio service, narrow digital modes only, strictly non-interference, secondary, in the ISM band, low power, by application only. I can see this only really appealing to true experimenters. It would appear the FCC and OFCOM (and the RSGB) are dead against, but I struggle to understand why when so much propagation research could be done. Even it permits were limited to around the solar maximum it would be useful. Instead, in the UK we have to pay to do research - total madness and stupidity.
This was the selfie we took last Saturday with my wife, son and grandson.
My son had Asian Eggs Royale, which is like Eggs Benedict, but with gin and salmon (see photo).
Overnight I was spotted by 12 stations when using my 10mW ERP from the earth-electrode “antenna “ in the ground.
Around teatime, I QSYed to 630m QRP WSPR with my 10mW ERP from my earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground. At 2030z, 7 stations had spotted me.
The BBC reports that New Zealand is to reverse moves which (hopefully) would have phased out smoking. They have supposedly done this to fund tax cuts. This would appear to be a step backwards. I do not know all the facts.
My local radio club is advertising some faulty AVOs for free . I have no idea what is wrong, but this looks like a steal. At one time AVOs w...
