Volta's battery

 

This dates from the very early 1800s. It may be the first battery ever made.

Faroe Islands - NOT amateur radio

 

This  photo was recently put on 365project by a friend in the Faroes. It looks very Icelandic.

Sunspots declining?

 Sometimes we see a second peak that can be higher than the first, but at the moment it looks like we are on the downward slopes of solar cycle 25. My favourite site for solar data has just been updated.

Conditions should still be good for several years yet.

Kings Lynn park - NOT amateur radio

 

We saw this on Saturday on our way back to the railway station.

6m QRP FT8 (Monday)

My 2.5W FT8 to the V2000 vertical omni antenna has been spotted by 5 English stations at 0835z, although I have spotted none.

UPDATE 1509z:   5 stations spotted on RX with the best EI3ISB (452km) on the outskirts of Dublin. 11 UK stations have spotted me today. No signs of DX today.

UPDATE 1702z: Guess who spoke too soon!! A station in Norway has spotted my 2.5W QRP 6m FT8.

10m 500uW WSPR (April 1st)

My 500uW 10m WSPR is on, but no spots by 1410z. 

UPDATE 1707z:   Unexpected spots by EA8BFK (2880km). Conditions were good, but not exceptional. I was honestly expecting today to pass with no spots of my 500uW (0.5mW) 10m WSPR. I must see if there is a correlation between solar conditions and being spotted by DX stations on 10m WSPR with exceptionally low power.  My guess (unfounded) would be that this is possible only when conditions are exceptionally stable, although today rather puzzles me. Sadly, I am not great at Excel! I can use it basically, but can't do clever things with it.

UPDATE 1852z: EA8BFK (2880km) has spotted me again!

UPDATE  1900z: I have created a spreadsheet to see if I can discern any patterns.

UPDATE 1935z:  This is the last week with 500uW (0.5mW) 10m WSPR.   Although this is just a few days, it suggests my best chances are when A and K are low.

Sunspots - Monday April 1st

Solar flux is 134 and the SSN 50.  A=8 and K=2.

SSN 50? - not too promising?  I can remember day after day with SSN=0 and there was still plenty of N-S DX on 10m. With FT8 now, QSOs should be even easier. I worked LU with QRP SSB at the bottom of a solar cycle with just a low dipole. Never give up on the higher HF bands!

British Summer Time (BST) - NOT amateur radio

Last night the UK clocks went forward an hour. This means BST is an hour ahead of GMT. Quite often at this time I forget!

6m QRP FT8 (Sunday)

My 2.5W FT8 to the V2000 vertical omni antenna was on until I QSYed to 630m WSPR.  Stations that spotted me were from across England. On RX, my best DX was a station in Germany.

Kings Lynn port - NOT amateur radio

As mentioned yesterday, Kings Lynn was one of the most important ports in England centuries ago when it was a Hanseatic League port.  

These days, it would appear to be mainly a few fishing boats.