Sunspots- Friday August 23rd

 Solar flux is 231 and the SSN 175. A=10 and K=2.

10m QRP FT8 (Thursday)

 About an hour ago, I decided to go on 10m FT8 instead of WSPR. 

UPDATE 1715z:  43 stations have been spotted and 4 stations have spotted me. See map for the stations spotted here today.

UPDATE 1905z:  Spotted by 9 stations with the furthermost ZS1TX (9753km). 69 stations spotted here on RX.

Rallies this weekend

For many in the UK, Monday is a public holiday, so Monday is also a rally day. As always, check the details are correct before going on a long drive.

• Sunday August 25th - Milton Keynes ARS Rally, Milton Keynes, MK8 9AA. Contact rally@mkars.org.uk .
• Sunday  August 25th - Torbay Annual Communications Fair, Newton Abbot , TQ12 3SF. Contact rally@tars.org.uk .
• Monday August 26th - Huntingdonshire ARS Rally, St Neots, PE19 2SH . Contact henry_hirst@hotmail.com .

Tenner - QRP CW on 10m

This rig is many years old. It is simple, but it worked lots of DX. 

As I recall, it produced about 500mW of CW.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/10m-tenner-qrp-cw . 

Baby crocodile - NOT amateur radio

 

When I saw this twig on our walk yesterday, I immediately thought of a baby crocodile. 

I know it is not, but it is funny how the mind works.

Solar peak - cycle 25

My favourite site for solar data is now showing the smoothed peak of cycle 25 as this October at 162.8. At one time they were showing a much smaller peak last November. 

This suggests good F2 conditions this autumn and spring.

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Thursday)

My beacon was turned on at about 0800z. 

UPDATE 1525z:  No spots. I suspect fewer people use WSPR now preferring FT8. Perhaps I should try 10m FT8 tomorrow?

6m QRP FT8 (Thursday)

My QRP 6m FT8 was turned on about 0800z.  

UPDATE 1046z:  10 English stations have spotted me See map.

UPDATE 1255z:   11 stations spotting me.

UPDATE 1518z:  12 stations have spotted me. See map.

Websites and dates

This really annoys me. It would be really helpful if people put dates when webpages were updated. I can’t tell you how often I have seen data only to see it was created some years ago and the data is out of date!! 

As an example CQWW contest website. Dates are shown for 2024, but were these written last year? The last blog update was April. 

This has happened so many times. All it needs is a footer saying when the webpage was last updated.

Sunspots - Thursday August 22nd

 Solar flux is 239 and the SSN 176. A=8 and K=2.