Weekend treat - NOT amateur radio

 

At the weekend and Wednesdays, I treat myself to a cooked breakfast. Other times I have cereals.

6m FT8 (Sunday)

As activity levels on 8m are very low at the moment, I am on 6m FT8 with 2.5W and the V2000 vertical omni antenna. So far, 7 stations have spotted me with the furthermost IW9FRA (1847km) . See the map.  It would appear there is some winter Es about.

10m 500uW WSPR TX (Sunday)

 My QRPP 10m WSPR beacon is again on and, yet again, I have been spotted in the Canary Islands by EA8BFK (2880km).

Sunspots - Sunday January 7th

 Solar flux is 159 and the SSN 149. A=3 and K=0.

Rick Andersen KE3IJ

In case you missed it, it appears that Rick is SK. The good news is that much of his work is archived on the Wayback Machine. His memory lives on.

See https://web.archive.org/20210430124905/http://www.ke3ij.com/radios.htm

630m QRP WSPR (Saturday)

 As 8m was pathetic, I QSYed to 630m QRP WSPR early. At 1615z, 3 stations have spotted me.

UPDATE 2214z: 11 spots of my 10mW ERP this evening.

Time and parallel lives - NOT amateur radio

We experience time as flowing from the past into the future. We are also aware of one life in one place. However, it is possible that time is an illusion created by human brains. It is also possible all possibilities exist and every "fork in the road" is followed, but were are only aware of one. Life is a mystery and our human brains are limited. 

8m QRP FT8 (Saturday)

 My 2.5W to the dipole was turned on at about 1200z, but so far no spots.

500uW 10m WSPR (Saturday)

Although my 10m QRPP beacon has been on all morning, no spots received. 

UK sub-postmaster/mistress scandal - NOT amateur radio

Usually I try to be a peace loving and reasonable person, but this makes my blood boil and I am absolutely fuming!!

For over 20 years, UK sub-postmen and women have been trying to get justice for wrongs done when money went missing due to an IT software bug. Now, in all my professional life I have rarely, if ever,  come across software that is totally bug free. The more complex the software, the more likely that it will contain rare bugs. In this case the software was called Horizon and designed by Fujitsu.

When over 700 people had issues with tallying up the money what did the PO do? Fail to investigate and LIE that nobody else had the problem. People at the PO and Fujitsu knew but covered it up. Instead, some went to prison, some were driven to suicide, some were disgraced in the papers and lost their livelihoods. These people were deeply wronged. This is a scandal of epic scale. In my view this is the worst scandal in recent UK history.

Recently, a TV drama has brought the gross injustice these poor people have suffered for many years to the forefront.  The people who knew the truth have never, yet, been brought to justice. The woman in charge of the Post Office at the time was even made a CBE (a very high honour in the UK) in 2019. Those responsible must find it hard to sleep at night.

Thankfully, there are several petitions doing the rounds and this is now headline news.

I hope all affected are given very generous payments for all the wrong done to these people and their families and I very much hope all those who knew about this injustice are given long jail sentences. If they are declared bankrupt, so be it.

See https://www.change.org/p/biztradegovuk-post-office-scandal-full-compensation-and-accountability .

See https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/strip-paula-vennells-of-her-cbe?source=homepage&utm_medium=promotion&utm_source=homepage

If you feel able, please sign both petitions so this is headline news and justice is done.

 See also https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67899189 .