Sunspots - Wednesday August 21st

 Solar flux is 244 and the SSN 200. A=7 and K=3.

8m or 6m?

In recent times, I have not been on 8m much, even though I have a UK T&I permit to TX on the 8m band. 

The main reason is I know what the band can do with Es. It is possible to span the European continent with just a few milliwatts of FT8 on 8m. 

The 8m band, being between 10m and 6m, comes into its own when the F2 MUF just exceeds 47MHz. 

With the sunspot count being good recently, it has exceeded 50MHz, especially on N-S paths.  Activity on 6m is much higher, so getting spots is easier than on 8m currently. 

As the F2 MUF goes down, I expect 8m will be more useful showing how the F2 MUF can reach 8m, but not 6m. I shall probably try again on 8m this autumn It would be great if more PTTs allowed amateur access. 

I hope the FCC, OFCOM and the RSGB are listening!

Moulton flowers - NOT amateur radio

As mentioned before, Moulton (near us) is a delightful village to walk around, with an old packhorse bridge, the church, river, thatched cottages and flowers.

6m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)

My QRP 6m FT8 was turned on after breakfast.

UPDATE 0824z:  12 stations have spotted me. I think there is some Es.

UPDATE 0901z:  IS0AWZ (1598km) has spotted me. See map.

UPDATE 1521z: 24 Europeans plus one CN8 have spotted me so far today. See map.

Changing images on my blog - NOT amateur radio

Quite often I need to change an image on my blogspot blog. I find this very "hit and miss". Sometimes I can do it easily and other times I struggle.  I can't help thinking I am missing a trick and there must be a better way. 

Does anybody know a method that just works please?

6m super DX

As well as being spotted in Namibia 🇳🇦 yesterday with 2.5W FT8 to the V2000 vertical omni antenna a PY way down in Brazil 🇧🇷 (Sao Paulo) was spotted on 6m FT8 yesterday. See map.

Sunspots - Tuesday August 20th

 Solar flux is 239 and the SSN 213. A=10 and K=1.

FETer transceiver (2008)

This was another of my attempts to get something for nothing! 

It worked remarkably well, but I struggled with netting the RX onto the TX frequency so I was afraid of clobbering someone else. It was an adaption of a circuit for 40m by W2UW but made even simpler. It appeared in SPRAT some years ago. 

Some have duplicated it and achieved some remarkable DX.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/80m-feter-transceiver .

Crickey - 2008! I must be old  HI 😀

Over the horizon on 481THz (optical)

Before my 2013 stroke I enjoyed experimenting at optical frequencies and was amazed that I could decode my QRSS CW well over the horizon with no clouds in the sky. Sadly, my stroke put an end to this. The circuit diagram shows the beacon I used. As you can see it is simple.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/optical-nanowaves/over-the-horizon .

Winter in Brisbane, Australia - NOT amateur radio

Yesterday our son sent us this photo showing Brisbane in winter. Even in winter it was 30 deg C!