18 Jan 2024

A lot of grass! - NOT amateur radio

The colleges in Cambridge have a lot of grass to cut. King's College (shown in the photo) is no exception. 

The college lawns are always immaculate. Mind you, I doubt they are short of money!

500uW (0.5mW) 10m WSPR (Thursday)

Although my QRPP 10m WSPR beacon is on, no spots today. 

It looks like conditions have to be really good for this tiny power to be spotted. A low local noise level is also needed and this is getting harder.

UPDATE 1334z: Still no spots today.


UPDATE 1426z:
  3 spots by EA8BFK (2880km) in the Canary Is.. This station spots my 500uW (0.5mW) 10m WSPR most days.

630m QRP WSPR overnight


A good session on 630m WSPR overnight. In all, 25 stations spotted my 10mW ERP (measrued) from the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground.

Sunspots- Thursday January 18th

 Solar flux is 174 and the SSN 158. A=4 and K =2.

17 Jan 2024

630m QRP WSPR (Wednesday)


My 10mW ERP from the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground was turned on at about 1645z. So far,  7 stations have spotted me this evening..

Time to stop - NOT amateur radio

What happened in Israel on October 7th was appalling. It was understandable that the people of Israel and its government were angry. It is clear they want to stop such attacks in future.

However, I am unsure of the real motives of Israel in Gaza.  

There were lots of people killed or taken hostage on October 7th, but the destruction and deaths in Gaza are surely out of proportion. Many there are starving, and you can understand why many are calling the actions of Israel genocide. 

If, as was the declared intention of Israel, they want to decimate Hamas, then surely there are more clinical ways of going about it? I am not impressed from a population that was so badly impacted in WW2.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68004449 .

QRP 8m FT8 (Wednesday)

My 2.5W FT8 on 40.680 MHz has been on for about 30 minutes. 

Better equipped stations are regularly getting across the Atlantic again. It is much harder with just 2.5W and a low dipole! As the F2 season is good in February and March, we can expect even better times ahead.

UPDATE 1515z:   No spots yet today.

10m 500uW WSPR TX (Wednesday)

My 500uW (0.5mW) signal has already been spotted by EA8BFK (2880km) . 


The beacon is pre-programmed to report 500mW even though the actual output is just 0.5mW!! The QRPP power is confirmed by spectrum analyser.

UPDATE 1152z:  Now spotted 5 times today by EA8BFK. USA afternoon?

UPDATE 1519z:   No further spots of me. Not surprisingly, single hop F2 is the most successful. I guess the USA is at least 2 hops, so there is far greater path loss, so the USA would require conditions to be exceptional with 0.5mW.

Punting on the Cam - NOT amateur radio




The last few days have been crisp and cold in Cambridge. If you wrap up warm, ideal weather for punting. The photo was yesterday outside King's College. 

630m 10mW ERP WSPR overnight


My 10mW ERP (measured) from the invisible earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground was spotted by 20 stations with the furthermost OH1LSQ (1733km).