Longest day

From tomorrow, the evenings start earlier. It will be sometime before we really notice (about mid September) and I can’t tell you how quickly this has happened!! It seems no time since last Christmas 🥴.

Sunspots - Saturday June 27th

 Solar flux is 163 and the SSN 99. A=11 and K=1.

BBC longwave ending

BBC Radio 4 longwave on 198kHz ends tonight for the very last time. I think it closes down at 0100BST. 

Apparently listener numbers have been falling for some years. 

Also, much of the TX transmitters are beyond the point that they can be maintained. 

It has been a long time since I last listened to Radio 4 longwave.

Crash coming?

AI is the "big thing" at the moment with promises of big profits. 

Perhaps people are beginning to realise AI comes with costs like energy,  hardware, data centres etc..  

The danger is that people invest in big companies and then wake up to the huge risks, much like in the .com crash earlier this century. The danger signs are there that a correction is coming. 

Caveat emptor.

SDRplay RSP1B

For about 2 years I have owned an SDRplay RSP1B, SDR receiver, but it has hardly been used. In the near future I must explore it far more.  It covers 1kHz to 2GHz.

See  https://www.sdrplay.com/

10m 200mW WSPR (Friday)

We are right at the peak of the Es season in the Northern Hemisphere. Currently I am on 10m QRP WSPR, where it seems easy to get spots right across Europe. 

I suspect the P29 is a pirate sadly.

Stations spotting my 200mW 10m WSPR this afternoon

UPDATE 1844z:   99 stations have spotted me.

YouTube videos

There are lots of AI generated videos on YouTube, some of which are just clickbait and absolutely rubbish. 

As a way of countering this I try to only watch videos from trusted sources. Even then, be sure this is genuine!  Sadly, in this time, it is getting increasingly hard to separate fact from AI generated rubbish.

I urge everyone to view everything with a degree of uncertainty. I always advise getting news from multiple sources. What one outlet says may often be biased.

2m Es - missed!

 Apparently there was a good Es opening on 2m yesterday, which I missed.

Sunspots - Friday June 26th

 Solar flux is 156 and the SSN 136. A=25 and K=2.

King John's tomb

This is in Worcester Cathedral. John was not a good king.

He died in 1216.   He was immortalised in a children's poem by A.A.Milne.