Brain injury - NOT amateur radio

On the news yesterday was a piece about brain injury research at Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge. Two things stuck out to me. 

One was brain overload which I experience especially when driving: it seems everything needs processing and this causes my brain to be overloaded. All the time whilst driving I am looking for possible hazards and it is really exhausting. 

The second thing is profound tiredness or exhaustion. I want to sleep in the daytime far more.

My stroke was in 2013 and it is hard now to know what is old age (I am 75) and what was my stroke. My constant giddiness all my waking hours is exhausting and is a result of my stroke.

Weather - NOT amateur radio

 We usually do housework every week on Mondays. My wife has a U3A course on Mondays. We decided to do it today instead as the weather is so foul!

Sucker for punishment? 10m QRPP WSPR (Wednesday)

 Yet again I am on 10m WSPR with 500uW (0.5mW). 

UPDATE 1431z:  No spots. At the moment, I get spotted on this tiny power a few times a week.

USA puzzle - NOT amateur radio

The USA puzzles me. It looks likely that the biggest democratic country will be led for 4 more years by two very old men (both are years older than me!). 

What puzzles me is why can't the USA find a younger set of candidates? Surely, in the USA there are some charismatic younger potential leaders. 

This must say a lot about the people of the USA. Individually, every American I have met has been kind, warm and generous.

King's Parade, Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

Occasionally the sun does shine in an English winter, although we have had far more rain than normal. Please don't say we have a hosepipe ban this summer!  

The photo shows King's Parade on Monday when the sun was shining. King's College is out of shot on the left and the church is Great St Mary's, the university church.

630m QRP WSPR overnight

 

23 stations spotted my 10mW ERP 630m WSPR in the last day and overnight (see map from wspr.rocks by VK7JJ) with the furthermost again OH1LSQ (1733km).

Sunspots- Wednesday February 21st

 Solar flux is 153 and the SSN 50. A=6 and K=0.

Mild, wet winter? - NOT amateur radio

In this part of the UK we are on track for a very wet and mild winter. Things can change. Daffodils are out early. Unless things dramatically alter, we are unlikely to see snow. Perhaps as the world warms this is how it is going to be?

22m ISM band WSPR receive - the so called hifer band (Tuesday)

It is my view following emails with OFCOM that in the UK we are all free to experiment on the ISM bands without a licence or callsign as long IR2030 and any other rules are followed. We have to cause no undue interference and must accept any interference. 

In the UK, this band is mainly used for RFID tags and short ranges. In the UK on this band the power limit is 10mW ERP. Clearly it helps if you use a unique callsign that WSPRnet can use so you can see where your QRPP signal is being received.

On 10m, I have gone QRT and moved to the hifer ISM band at 22m, RX only.  I am monitoring 13.5539MHz WSPR, as always hopefully. 

Pretty sure than those that can transmit are limited to mW powers.

I am not sure what time is optimum to spot USA station on this band.

500uW 10m WSPR (Tuesday)

Yet again, my beacon is on with the PA off.  The output is 500uW (0.5mW).  No spots today, but I shall stick with it and see what today brings. 

In the last few weeks I have only been spotted by 2 stations at this tiny power.