Sunspots- Monday November 10th

 Solar flux is 176 and the SSN 126.  A=8 and K=2.

Monday plans

At the moment I am not sure about Monday. I may try 23cm beacon hunting with my SDR receiver or even lower power on 10m FT8. If there is thunder around I may just stay off the air.

Spitting Image

 This was originally on terrestrial television, but is now on YouTube.  I imagine they avoid some of the censorship this way. 

50mW 10m FT8 (Sunday)

Just for fun, I am trying 10m 50mW FT8 with the IC-705 with the attenuator right on the output (see photo).  Almost immediately it was received by an IT9 over 2000km. 

I have used the GE3 prefix to distinguish the 50mW signals.

UPDATE 1304z:  59 stations have spotted my 10m 50mW FT8 today. Furthest is OX3HI (3173km).

UPDATE 1449z:   84 stations spotting me. Nothing from the USA or Canada yet.

UPDATE 2012z:   97 stations have spotted me with the furthest KW7MM (8476km) in Arizona. See map.

Sunspots - Sunday November 9th

 Solar flux is 172 and the SSN 107. A=36 and K=2.

Day off the radio?

 Today, I shall probably not go on the radio. On Sunday I may give 10m FT8 a try with 50mW.

Obscene?

I have just heard that the richest man in the world has just got a salary package that could be worth an extra $1trillion. 

When some in the world are starving, I find this obscene. Meanwhile the poor get even poorer. 

Some advert for democracy - NOT.

Web SDRs

There are quite a few SDRs (software defined radios) connected to the internet often with extensions so you can decode your favourite modes. It is fun to take a listen to these.  

I was listening on 10m FT8 via http://sdr.gb0snb.com:8073/ which uses an active loop by George Smart M1GEO called the Wellgood loop. See https://www.george-smart.co.uk/projects/wellgood-loop/ .

A search on Google or similar will produce a list. of webSDRs.  Alternatively see https://rsgb.org/main/operating/web-sdr-receiver/.

Sunspots - Saturday November 8th

 Solar flux is 166 and the SSN 133. A= 32 and K=5.

USA government shutdown

Not being a politician, I am unclear about the government shutdown in the USA, but it must be costing a lot to the USA economy. I can see this becoming a massive issue.