My beacon was turned on before breakfast.
UPDATE 0837z: Spotted in Finland and Sweden.
UPDATE 1310z 58 stations have spotted me. When Es is good it gets all over Europe. Indeed some reports suggest low mW would have been enough.
UPDATE 1913z: Now QRT. 62 stations spotted me today. Mostly Es.
My IC-705 still produces no audio on USB-D TX but does on USB! For now I am using USB for FT8 rather than USB-D which seems to work fine. I assume the RX filtering is different?
It would appear that lithium-ion batteries look optimal for range and weight. The disadvantage is that lithium is a rare earth material with limited supplies.
It looks like sodium-ion batteries might be answer. Sodium is widely available. CATL, the worlds's largest battery manufacturer, has a huge order for sodium-ion batteries.
Often you hear that renewable energy is OK, but what happens when there is no sun for solar panels or no wind for wind farms?
These are fair comments. Of course, this energy could be stored in chemical batteries, but people are looking for other solutions. One of these might be using old mines for gravitational energy storage. Around the world there are millions of abandoned mines.
As technology improves, I am sure solutions will be found.
When I was younger and fitter, I enjoyed experimenting "at the boundaries". These days I cannot do that much.
In the past I have enjoyed amateur radio below 10kHz, over the horizon with 481THz red light, experimenting with earth-electrode antennas, earth-mode VLF TXing with 5W, 8m, extreme QRP, etc.. Most of my fun has been pushing the boundaries.
Sadly, few in our hobby are interested these days, which is sad. At the moment I try to do things I can experiment with at home. I just wish I was younger and fitter!
Because of falling numbers and costs to keep it going I understand that the BBC is turning off its longwave broadcast transmitters towards the end of June. Sad, but understandable. I am not sure what is happening to the utilities that depended on the 198kHz signal
I wonder what will happen to LW spectrum? Maybe they will introduce a service like in the USA where anyone (part 15?) can operate a station as long as they run less than 1W to short antennas? Probably not in the UK!
Today I shall probably stick with 8m FT8 RX.
UPDATE 0500z: Just G8VER spotted so far.
UPDATE 0830z: 2 stations have been spotted with the best S57TW (1237km).
