Sunspots - Wednesday October 15th

 Solar flux is 154 and the SSN 108. A= 8 and K=3. 

10m 500mW WSPR (Tuesday)

 When on 6m FT8, I can go on 10m WSPR with my stand-alone 500mW beacon.

UPDATE 1322z:  So far,  9 spots with the beacon in the last hour.

UPDATE 1345z:  At the moment, 16 stations have spotted me in the last hour. All reports suggest 10dB weaker would be decoded, although I guess this assumes a low local noise floor.

Where I have been spotted today with 500mW 10m WSPR

6m 5W FT8 (Tuesday)

At 1226z  I QSYed to 6m with 5W FT8.

UPDATE 1328z: So far, 15 stations in the British Is. have spotted my 5W.  

UPDATE 2041z:  22 stations have spotted me including 2 in Portugal and one in Kuwait. See map. Now QRT.

How times change

Today, we found a book we bought years ago from a second hand bookshop.  It was published in the late 1800s.  

At that time the British Empire was at its height.  

Today, things are different, but we must all remember that we are frequently wrong. We have been in the past and frequently are today. 

Every nation must be respectful of others.  

10m and 12m QRP WSPR (Tuesday)

Today I am trying 2W frequency hopping WSPR on 12m and 10m.

UPDATE  0938z: Plenty of spots on 10m, and 2 stations spotting me on 12m with the furthest Brazil.

WSPR and frequency hopping

Yesterday I tried WSPR frequency hopping at 10, 12 and 15m with 2W. Furtherest was Antarctica. This could be really useful. 

24GHz radar module

 Yesterday I mentioned a very low cost 10GHz radar module ripe for hacking into a 10GHz WBFM transceiver. I see there’s a 24GHz version too! If only I was fitter 😢. 

Outside St John’s, Cambridge

 This was outside St. John’s College in Cambridge yesterday.

Sunspots - Tuesday October 14th

 Solar flux is 141 and the SSN 122. A=23 and K=1.

10GHz radar module

These are available very inexpensively (just £1.25 on Ali-Express!), so I am wondering has anyone adapted these to 10GHz wideband FM (WBFM) transceivers? These look as if someone will "hack" them!

WSPR and band hopping?

As we approach declining sunspot numbers, many just give up on the higher HF bands. 

Often, these bands are "open" (just listen to the CB band next door to 10m!) whereas a lack of activity is the real cause. Especially on N-S paths the bands are open far more often than we think. 

With WSPR we can check how good our higher HF bands really are. WSPR is widely monitored so we could send WSPR on several bands in sequence into an antenna that covers these bands (like an EFHW) and watch who spots us around the world on various bands using WSPRnet.

FT7 Yaesu transceiver

My very first HF commercial transceiver was the 10W Yaesu FT-7 bought second hand in the late 1970s. 

It was a great rig and allowed me to work 10m QRP DXCC with 10W SSB back in the 1980s. This was with low wire dipoles and a CB  half wave antenna. 

By comparison with modern rigs it was big but it was very quiet on RX. If I had to rate it I would give it 11/10. In all my years it was the best transceiver I have ever owned. No synthesisers, no memories, fully analogue …just great.

Sunspots - Monday October 13th

 Solar flux is 143 and the SSN 127. A=29 and K=4.

Times Radio

Quite often, I watch Times Radio on YouTube. They interview some interesting characters on the world stage and often, their views are full of incite, even if you may not agree. 

In my view it is worth getting world news from several sources as often one source  may be biased.

10m 500mW WSPR (Sunday)

My beacon has been on since about 0910z.

UPDATE 0935z:  Spotted in the Canary Is. by 2 stations.

6m 5W FT8 (Sunday)

My gear was turned on at about 0910z.

UPDATE  2010z:  29 spots of me so far today.  See map.

The current station

Mostly I am active on 6m QRP FT8 and 10m QRP WSPR with my beacon (which is out of shot). The photo shows my current setup.

Sunspot predictions

We are now on the downward slope of the solar cycle. NOAA has a graph showing their predictions.

See https://www.noaa.gov/

Rooster transceiver

Kanga UK make a range of simple QRP transceiver kits for either 40, 30 or 20m CW. All the SMD parts are already fitted leaving about 20 parts to be added. They are very reasonably priced. I have no idea how they perform.

Sunspots - Sunday October 12th

 Solar flux is 131 and the SSN 108. A=17 and K=4.