10m 500mW WSPR TX (Saturday)

The stand-alone beacon was turned on just before tea.

UPDATE 1914z:  7 stations have spotted me with several in North America.

6m 5W QRP FT8 (Saturday)

 

As we were in Cambridge, my gear was not turned on until shortly before teatime.

UPDATE 1907z:  18 spots of me so far including 3 in Scandinavia. See map.

Where we live

 

This is the view from our lounge window down our close. In the other direction is the windmill. 

CQWW SSB contest - LAST weekend

At one time I never missed this as a chance to work a few new countries and states. Since my voice has been poor I rarely go on this contest now. In fact I totally forgot it was on last weekend!

To me DX chasing is no longer important. I worked 10m QRP SSB DXCC back about 40 years ago, so I leave it to others these days. 

Solar data

It is good to see the updated solar data. We are now clearly on the downward slope of the solar cycle, although we can expect conditions on the higher HF bands to be good for quite a while yet.

See https://www.solen.info/solar/ . 

AI dangers

Recently I have been watching several videos on YouTube supposed to be the sayings of Albert Einstein. The trouble is we can’t be sure he ever said these words! 

It is now very easy to make videos, photos and texts with AI, The trouble is these AI generated images and words are often believed. So, disinformation is spread. 

I am sure there are lots of good things that become possible with AI where lots of data has to be processed quickly, but there are also great dangers. 

We now have to treat EVERYTHING we see with scepticism sadly. 

Sunspots - Saturday November 1st

 Solar flux is 125 and the SSN just 34.  A=25 and K=2.

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Friday)

My beacon was turned on at 1339z.

UPDATE 1730z: Several stations from the USA and Canada spotting my QRP as well as V51RS (8481km).  See map from WSPRrocks.

6m 5W FT8 (Friday)

 My gear was turned on at 1340z.

UPDATE 1729z: So far, spotted by 28 stations in the British Isles. No continental stations have spotted me yet today.

8m operation

Although I did not renew my UK 8m TX permit, there is still activity with stations in the Caribbean getting licences and Spain getting permits for another 18 months.

Instead, I have QSYed to 6m FT8 and been surprised to find real continental DX stations spotting my 5W FT8 to the omni vertical antenna on every day I have been operating. The moral is do not give up on 6m.

In my view, 8m deserved special permits in very many countries around solar maximum to allow real propagation research. Instead, very very few bothered. I was disgusted.