Sunspots- Wednesday May 8th

 Solar flux is 204 and the SSN 144. A=7 and K=2.

630m QRP WSPR overnight

 My 10mW ERP 630m WSPR was spotted by 4 stations only.

Cambridge Botanic Garden - NOT amateur radio

These bluebells and forget me nots were at Cambridge Botanic Garden last week. 

10m 10mW WSPR (Tuesday)

My 10mW 10m  WSPR has been re-synced to internet time. No spots.

UPDATE 1432z:  Several spots by local G4KPX (14km). No DX.

UPDATE 1802z:  It is quite a surprise to find out I am struggling with 10mW 10m WSPR when on 6m with 2.5W FT8 I am being widely spotted. Once again EA8BFK (2880km) is spotting me. No Es spots.

6m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)

My 6m QRP (2.5W to the V2000 vertical) is on and 4 stations have spotted me at 0816z.

UPDATE 0838z:  7 stations have spotted me. All of these are in England.

UPDATE 1430z:  40 stations have spotted me. Plenty of Es.

UPDATE 1826z: 49 stations have spotted my QRP FT8 today.

sBitx V3

Steve G1KQH has reminded me of this low cost HF kit. Sadly, building it would be beyond my fine motor skills these days, but I see it has a built-in FT8 decoder, so no PC is needed. I am not sure if it can be bought ready built, but Ashar makes some great kit. His designs always use readily available parts.

See https://www.hfsignals.com/.

Sunspots - Tuesday May 7th

 Solar flux is 171 and the SSN 148. A=15 and K=2. 

630m QRP WSPR overnight

 No great DX but 7 stations spotted my 10mW ERP overnight.

8m or 6m 10mW WSPR?

My intention was to try 8m WSPR with 10mW with ISM rules but I was concerned by the lack of monitors on 8m. 

Then it occurred to me that I could try 10mW WSPR on 6m instead during the Es season and be assured of a reasonable number of monitors.

If it works on 6m it would work on 8m in the ISM band. So, my proposal is to try 10mW WSPR on 6m instead of 8m knowing that if it works on 6m it would work licence free on 8m.

630m QRP WSPR (Monday)

My 10mW ERP WSPR from the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground was turned on at about 1845z. So far, 2 stations have spotted me.