Is Russia heading for recession?

With oil prices falling and increasing sanctions causing China and India to think twice before buying Russian oil (its major export) there is a danger of the Russian economy being in serious trouble.

Solid state batteries

Most agree that electric cars are not there yet. 

Early adopters have to contend with lithium-ion batteries, where lithium is in short supply (and often mined by children), limited range, high prices and long charging times.

If ranges were significantly improved, charging would be needed less often.  Also price puts many off currently. One answer that always seems to be "just around the corner" are solid state batteries. These promise greater ranges, lower prices and no rare materials.

These seem nearly there, but not quite. With all the research it is likely this will come, but when?

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/.