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| Stations spotting my 6m FT8 until 1602z |
At the moment (1510z) I am on 6m FT8 with the FT-710. So far, spotted across the UK with the furthermost MI0BOT (478km). Was this aircraft reflection?
29 Mar 2023
6m FT8 (Wednesday)
At the moment (1510z) I am on 6m FT8 with the FT-710. So far, spotted across the UK with the furthermost MI0BOT (478km). Was this aircraft reflection?
King's College flowers - NOT amateur radio
At the moment the spring flowers on the lane towards King's College in Cambridge from Queens Road look a picture. This photo was taken on Monday.
FT-710 on 8m TX?
Luckily, I have one of the few legal permits in the UK to TX on 8m. For the last year, I have used my FT817ND on 8m FT8. So far, with just low power and a low wire dipole, I have been copied on 4 continents and in 21 countries (it may be more now).
I am curious to know if the FT-710 can be simply modified to TX on 8m just with button presses. Although I have no plans to use my FT-710 on 8m, I am just wondering. I am sure there will be wideband mods by changing diodes internally, but I do not want to do this.
4m FT8 (Wednesday)
Once again on 4m FT8. So far, no spots.
UPDATE 1508z: After a whole day with absolutely no 4m FT8 spots (and apparently no monitors either!) I have QSYed to 6m FT8 and was immediately spotted across England. Probably I shall give 4m a miss until Es kicks in. It is unlikely I shall bother with a halo for 4m as my "ad hoc" arrangement seems to work perfectly. This will certainly get me Es contacts into Europe on 4m FT8.
28 Mar 2023
4m FT8 (Tuesday)
At about 1810z, my 4m FT8 was turned on. My compromise antenna is again the 2m big-wheel and coax tuned via the auto-ATU in the FT-710. After about 50 minutes, no spots.
UPDATE 2000z: No spots.
South Devon - NOT amateur radio
As mentioned many times, I originally came from the South Hams in South Devon. I lived here until we came to Cambridge in the early 1970s. I get back there most years. My brother still lives there and I stay with him usually and travel down by train.
Cambridge spring - NOT amateur radio
This is the view of the university church, Great St Mary's yesterday. Cambridge is a fine city, especially in spring sunshine. This is the view from behind King's College Chapel
Operating on 10m
At the moment, 10m is again in great shape. Most days DX from across the world may be copied. Come May, June, July and August we see the peak Es season in the northern hemisphere which will allow DX up to about 1500km almost daily and some times further. F2 is currently very good. 10m is usually best for DX in the sunlight hours.
There even some single band multi mode 10m rigs available. These are based on CB radios, but can be very good as 10m radios.
There is little doubt that 10m (28MHz) is my favourite band of all. In the past I have used these with CB verticals very successfully on 10m.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-operation .
OFCOM
A reminder than OFCOM usually updates the data it holds on licences weekly. It has also published several documents this week. See the OFCOM website for details.
8m QRP FT8 (Tuesday)
At 0955z my 8m FT8 was turned on. I am not really expecting any spots. Currently, no spots!
UPDATE 1455z: No spots.
Italian food - NOT amateur radio
My son and grandson are away on different school trips to southern Italy. This is an example of the food.
27 Mar 2023
630m transverter
This was designed some years ago, but has appeared in QST and the RSGB book "LF Today".
I wanted a simple way of getting on this MF band and this was the result. Several have since been successfully built.
It produces about 10W into 50 ohms, but the ERP will be considerably lower depending on the antenna used. In my case, my "antenna" was just an earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground with the electrodes about 12m apart with the wire back to the shack along the fence not very high. I tried the wire on the ground and it made little difference. My theory is this forms a loop in the ground. The actual loop diameter will get larger as frequency is reduced. Such an antenna has been used for far field amateur TX tests (successfully) at well below 10 kHz.
Most nights my measured 10mW ERP was spotted in Norway on WSPR. It used the FT817ND in split mode TXing on 80m but receiving directly on 630m.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/630m-472khz-transverter .
Cambridge Backs today - NOT amateur radio
This was the view towards King's College chapel this morning. Spring is on its way with several trees bursting out.
Spain on 8m?
Recently, a station in the Caribbean has reported a sudden increase in contacts on 8m with Spain. He wonders if the authorities there have granted access to 8m to radio amateurs.
It would be good if more countries were granted legal access, if only for a limited time. This next year or so, around the solar maximum, a great deal of useful research could be done.
Does anyone know the legal situation in Spain please?
8m QRP FT8 (Monday)
After being off for about 10 days playing with other things, I am back on 40.680 MHz QRP FT8 again at 1430z. No spots. It will get much easier for QRP stations when the Es season gets going.
Today has been disappointing on 8m. It looks like conditions have to be very good for my QRP FT8 to get through. I would probably do better on 8m WSPR, but I think there are fewer monitors? I expect many are also fighting high local noise levels that make decoding weak signals hard.
UPDATE 1550z: No spots. Are there many monitoring 8m WSPR?
UPDATE 1610z: Trying 8m QRP WSPR near 40.680 MHz in the WSPR window. TXing 30 %.
UPDATE 1651z: No WSPR spots so back on QRP FT8.
UPDATE 1743z: No spots, so QRT on 8m soon. I think QRP 8m stations are unlikely to get too far now until the Es season.
On guard - NOT amateur radio
This heron was opposite King's College in Cambridge earlier. Punts were going by within a few metres.
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