10m 200mW WSPR TX (Saturday)

 My beacon has been on since about 0945z. 

UPDATE 1440z:   17 spots of me with the best a spot from a station in Brazil.

70cm in the early days

This transverter has been on before, but we forget just how much things have changed in 50 years. I built a version of it to get me active on 70cm. It produced about 100mW AM.   It was used with either a 4el or 8el beam made from PCB material.  Best DX was 160km.

Back then 70cm was almost a frontier band with little commercial gear, so if you wanted something you probably had to build it rather than buy it. Most people (like me!) were fixed on a crystal frequency and people tuned across the band to get a contact. In those days, activity was higher , so you had a much better chance of a QSO. Most contacts were AM.  

70cm SSB? Never heard of it back then!

Sunspots - Saturday February 14th

Solar  flux is 117 and the SSN 50. A=14 and K=2.

10m 5W FT8 (Friday)

At about 1440z, I decided to go on 10m FT8 with my QDX-M transceiver. 

Currently I am 10m FT8 RX only.  

On TX it was widely spotted across Europe and North Africa. 

The map shows the stations received at about 1500z.

UPDATE 1848z:  21 stations have spotted me. See map.  Now QRT.

Leper Chapel, Cambridge, UK

This photo was taken from a moving bus earlier this week. The Leper Chapel is the second oldest complete building in the city and dates from the 1100s when it was a hospital.

See https://cambridgeppf.org/leper-chapel/.

10m 200mW WSPR TX (Friday)

 My beacon has been on since about 0940z.

UPDATE 1011z: Just EA8BFK (2880km) spotting me

Sunspots - Friday February 13th

 Solar flux is 129 and the SSN 82.  A=9 and K=2.

Seen on Facebook

 

This was seen on Facebook recently.

UberSDR

Many people get lots of fun from web SDRs experiencing amateur radio in various locations around the planet. Although I have yet to try it, you can also make your own SDR into a webSDR so others can use it too I believe.

See https://ubersdr.org/ .

Winter Olympics controversy

A Ukrainian athlete has been banned for wearing a controversial helmet showing people killed in the war with Russia.  Usually sport and politics don't mix. He has made his point.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c309pj8d8qqo .