Joe Blogs video

These videos are usually about economics or politics. I watch them most days. 

UPDATE 1152z:  Apparently the airman was rescued by the USA.

Classic QRP rig

The Heathkit HW8 was a classic HF transceiver. As I recall it was about 2W CW and covered 80m, 40m, 20m and 15m CW with a direct conversion RX. I owned one for a while and (I think) sold it back to the original owner. This was about 40 years ago, so my memory is not clear!

The image was found on the internet, but I cannot remember where!

A few years ago Heathkit tried to make a comeback. The original Heathkits were excellent, but later products were expensive and nothing exciting in my view.

See https://shop.heathkit.com/collections/products.

The advent of Japanese rigs led to there being no real advantage to building a kit.

Ephemeral

Our ornamental cherry tree comes into blossom in the spring.  I can see the white flowers appearing now. 

 Usually it lasts 1-2 weeks only. Whilst it lasts, it is great, but it soon goes.

This photo was from a few years ago.

Oscar 100 geosynchronous satellite - narrowband

It is a while since I gave an update about narrowband activity on this geosynchronous satellite. Activity remains low. 

I appreciate that some have risen to the challenge of producing a microwave base station, but overall I remain surprised how low activity remains. 

The latest snapshot was mid evening in Europe on Easter weekend when I expected activity to be good.

Sunspots - Sunday April 5th

 Solar flux is 128 and the SSN 113.   A=16 and K=3.

Times News

At the time of writing we do not know the fate of the second US airman missing in Iran.

10m 5W FT8 (Saturday)

My gear (IC-705 at 5W and low end-fed antenna) was turned on at about 0950z.

UPDATE 1852z:  Spotted by 36 stations. 127 stations spotted on RX, but nothing from South America. See map of stations spotted here.

QRPGuys digital transceiver

On the DX Explorer website is a series of videos about building and testing this rig.  He mentions that it is no longer available. I must check the QRPGuys website.  It is a reminder that very simple gear can result in worldwide contacts using FT8.

UPDATE 0934z:  It looks like the earlier version is still available.  I wonder if they had too many PAs failing at high power?  From my experience , I am sure plenty of QSOs will be possible at the lower power.

10m 200mW WSPR (Saturday)

 My beacon is on.

UPDATE 0847z:  No spots yet today.

What next?

As I write this the war in Iran could go either way. 

On the one hand President Trump could be angered by the loss of that airman and escalate the war. He is in danger of committing war crimes to say nothing of Iran’s backlash.

Alternatively, he may fear the backlash at home and just walk away and de-escalate.

We’ll see.