How? ATS-20+ RX

Just now I saw a Chinese RX on Amazon. 

At £44.99 I just cannot see how they do it.  

What is the world coming to? - NOT amateur radio

When my wife was young she took a wolf whistle as a compliment. These days even just a touch is an infringement of civil liberties and is a sackable offence! Get real, please.  I really hope a judge somewhere says, "case dismissed, stop wasting my time".

Yes, everyone regardless of race, sexuality, colour and nationality has a right to be treated properly and with respect, but there is a vast difference between abusing someone and just a friendly and unharmful touch or comment.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce30l5497x2o .

8m QRP FT8 (Monday)

My FT817ND to the low dipole was turned on at about 0915z on 40.680 MHz with a DF of about 1960Hz. 

UPDATE 1017z:  Spotted by a couple of stations in the Canary Is at about 3000km.

UPDATE 1458z:   7 stations have spotted me today on 8m FT8 with the furthermost ZR1ADI (9777km).

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Monday)

My 500mW 10m WSPR beacon was turned on at 0914z.  EA8BFK (2880km) and local G4KPX (14km) spotting me.

UPDATE 1019z:  4 stations spotting me with the furthermost ZD7GB (7607km).

UPDATE 1535z:  31 stations spotting me including JW1ITS Jan Mayen  (2945km) in the frozen north. Best DX is a spot from Brazil.

Monday plans

 Shortly, I intend to try 10m QRP WSPR TX and 8m QRP FT8 TX.  The solar forecast is quite promising.

Reach walk - NOT amateur radio

Yesterday, we went for a walk at nearby Reach, which is very old. In fact it has a fair charter that goes back to the 1200s. At that time there was already a fair there. In Roman times, it was an important inland port. We stuck to the roads to avoid the mud

Sunspots - Monday February 24th

 Solar flux is 210 and the SSN 186. A=7 and K=2.

The dangers of AI - NOT amateur radio

There is no doubt that AI can be very good at analysing lots of data very fast and can be much better than a human. Large language models are trained and GPT4 is vastly bigger and better than the last version. Mistakes still occur, yet many people believe it is true!

Recently I have seen several things on Facebook that may have been done with AI. The trouble now is telling what is real and what is not. As time goes by, AI will only get better. All I can advice is you take great care and assume anything a person is supposed to have said is AI unless you know for certain it is real.

Latest FTX-1F news

This was recently on the FTX-1F IO group...

"Talked to the folks at the Yaesu Booth, at the Orlando Hamfest, today. They said the FTX-1F was ready to be released, worldwide. The current holdup is type acceptance, by the FCC, here in the United States. They want to release the radio simultaneously, around the world. They said they could not even bring a radio to look at, because it was not type accepted, yet.

Buddy WB4OMG”

What surprises me is that better specs have not been released giving more detail.

 

4m and 60m

When I briefly owned a Yaesu FT710 I tried 4m FT8 and was copied all over the UK and mainland Europe despite not having a "proper" antenna and loading up my 2m big-wheel via the auto ATU. Outside the Es season activity was very disappointing. I was surprised.

Also, it is a pity we don't have the WARC 60m band like many others. Many are probably put off by the "bitty" nature of the UK allocations. No doubt we share this with the military who keep saying "no". I bet if we look at all the bands kept "just in case" for the UK military, it would be huge chunks of spectrum.

I fail to understand why radio amateurs cannot gain limited secondary access to some of these with very low power, by NoV, and us being asked to go QRT at any time there was heightened tension, war or interference. After all they know our callsigns and location! In the meantime huge swathes of spectrum ripe for experimentation stay fallow.

If you ask me .... stupid.

8m QRP FT8 (Sunday)

 My gear was turned on about 0730z . 

8m monitors earlier

UPDATE 1505z:  No spots yet. There are more people monitoring 8m FT8, although I think I miss out with just a few watts and a low dipole. I imagine if I had 20W to a Moxon beam I would be copied more easily and more widely.

UPDATE 1954z:   QRT.  Just one station spotted me today EI3KF (574km).

10m QRP WSPR (Sunday)

 My 500mW beacon was turned on about 0730z . 2 stations spotting me at 0822z .

UPDATE 1957z:  49 stations spotting me today. QRT.

1930s TX

 

Someone made a very close copy of this 1930s TX for 40m CW.

Sunspots - Sunday February 23rd

 Solar flux is 199 and the SSN 215. A=6 and K=1.

FT8

Some like it and some hate it. 

I agree that if you believe amateur radio is about 2-way chats, possibly with stations across the world, then FT8 is not for you.  Also, with FT8 people will not chance upon amateur radio as many of us did on AM years ago.

In my own case, I have little alternative as my voice is very poor these days!  FT8 works with very weak signals and only occupies about 50Hz whereas SSB takes about 2.3kHz. With FT8 exchanges are very basic.

I am "on the fence" over FT8. There is no way without FT8 nearly 900 stations would have copied my 5W on 10m  today. 

At the same time, I really believe modes like FT8 could lead to the end of amateur radio as we know it.

LORA DX

On Amateur Radio Weekly yesterday was a small yagi to extend the range of LORA systems. They were claiming a range of 40km, although I expect that was line-of-sight. LORA is a long range, licence free, data system using spread spread spectrum techniques.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa .

Norwich - NOT amateur radio

 

Yesterday, I mentioned going to Norwich by train. It is a journey of about an hour. We love Norwich. The photo shows the arrival at the station in Norwich. It is about 1km walk to the splendid Norman cathedral.

Almost spring - NOT amateur radio

 

After what has seemed like a long, wet and dull winter, today felt more like spring. 

For the first time in months it felt mild outside so much so that I pruned my roses. Every year they grow well for a hard prune early in the year. Opinions vary about when and what to do, but I shall stick with what works.

We have had no snow, but several frosts. It is also wetter than I remember. I am sure we have not done with winter yet, but at least there is a hint of spring.

10m QRP FT8 (Saturday)

 At the moment I am on 10m QRP FT8 with 5W from the IC-705.

UPDATE  0958z:  So far, I have been spotted by 39 stations, despite only being on for a few minutes.

UPDATE 1030z: Spotted by 114 stations. On RX the furthermost is the Solomon Is H44MS (14814km) in the Pacific.

UPDATE 1803z:  774 stations have spotted my 10m 5W FT8  today. 1549 stations have been spotted today on 10m FT8.

Sunspots - Saturday February 22nd

Solar flux is 197 and the SSN 138. A=6 and K=0.