Tuesday plans

 Probably more 10m 500mW WSPR and 6m 5W FT8, but I may decide differently! In the end I went on 10m FT8 with 1W!!

Fog of war

Always in times of war opposing sides slag the other side off. 

It is hard to see through this “fog” and get at the truth.

The measure of a good politician is to be able to see through this and steer the right course. 

Sunspots - Tuesday December 30th

Solar flux is 196 and the SSN 138. A=9 and K=2.

6m 5W FT8 yesterday

 

In all, 19 stations spotted me. See map.

Uncertain times?

There was an interesting piece on the BBC website this morning about the state of the world. After a relatively peaceful time since WW2, it looks as if we are entering more troubled times. Since WW2 we have lived under the shadow of atomic war.

It looks like future wars will be more hybrid with enemies trying to disrupt the lifestyles of those they are wishing to hurt. As with the Cold War, whatever one side wants to do, the other side could do similar.

Like all periods, humans adapt.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4qp17e1lqo

6m FT8 5W (Monday)

My gear was turned on at 0942z.

UPDATE 1100z: So far, spotted by many English stations and one in Denmark 🇩🇰.

UPDATE  1335z:  Spotted by 12 stations including one in Germany and Denmark.

10m 500mW WSPR (Monday)

My gear was turned on at 0942z.

UPDATE 1054z:  So far, spotted by stations in Finland and the Canary Islands. 

UPDATE 1328z:  14 stations have spotted my 500mW WSPR. See table.

Sunspots - Monday December 29th

 Solar flux is 188 and the SSN 143. A=9 and K=2.

Digital Voice (DV) transceiver

This was on Facebook yesterday, It looks like Crawley club members have been busy.

ICOM IC705

In my view the IC-705 vastly beats the Yaesu FTX-1. Certainly in the UK, the FTX-1 is very expensive and still lacks many of the features that the IC-705 had years ago. It was introduced about 5 years ago.  In my humble view Yaesu is playing catch up ... and losing badly.

It would not surprise me at all if ICOM announced an IC705A later this year in a portable form factor aimed at SOTA and POTA users with internal auto ATU and maybe 4m in European versions. It could sell well.

Yaesu have made some great kit and the majority of my commercial transceivers have been Yaesu. But I get the distinct impression Yaesu have "gone off the boil".