Sunspots - Saturday June 13th

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

Where I come from

As a child I was brought up in the South Hams in Devon, UK.  

My father's line can be traced without break back to the mid 1500s in Hope Cove, Devon, UK. 

In the next parish I have one record from 1427! 

We have probably been hereabouts for thousands of years.

Breakthrough in chip design?

 Huawei has announced a technique that could revolutionise ICs.

6m 3W FT8 (Friday)

After the last few days, I think it is unlikely that 6m will open again today as it has for the last 2 days to North America. 

Early in the mornings some have been lucky enough to catch those seasonal openings on 6m from Western Europe to the Far East. These openings seem to coincide  with the formation of noctilucent clouds high in the atmosphere. I think I read somewhere that these are becoming more frequent with global warming, so maybe these openings will become more frequent?

In a few moments I expect to be on 6m 3W FT8

UPDATE 1936z:  191 stations have spotted my 3W FT8 and I have spotted 237 stations here. For the third day running, the USA has been spotted here on 6m FT8. This could be multiple hop Es, but I think some sort of chordal hop E is more probable personally. Signals were strong.

10m 200mW WSPR TX (Friday)

Very shortly (it is now 0845z) I expect to go on 10m QRP WSPR for most of the day.

UPDATE 1939z: 27 stations around Europe have spotted me today.

Heathkit HW8 tested

"How the mighty are fallen". 

Years ago I was able to work on complex circuits and anything involving soldering was trivial. 

All I had to do today was solder 2 off 6.35mm mono plugs to allow me to test my HW8 bought recently. 

After about 15 minutes I was totally exhausted yesterday!

The good news is the HW8 appears to work on RX and TX.

Sunspots - Friday June 12th

 Solar flux is 127 and the SSN 81. A=18 and K=3.

Comfort food

 

Today is wet and miserable, so we had real comfort food for lunch.

10m 200mW WSPR (Thursday)

My beacon was turned on at about 1055z.

UPDATE 1117z: Spotted by 7 stations.

6m 5W FT8 (Thursday)

 My gear was turned on just after 1100z. It would appear that 6m is again open to the USA.

UPDATE 1305z:   So far, 130 stations have spotted me and I have spotted plenty of Europeans and 3 stations in the USA. My best report is from D4L (4517km) in the Cape Verde Islands.