Swallows return

Today we spotted our first swallow (bird) this year flying N-S over the allotments behind Burwell Museum at breakfast time this morning. In a few weeks they will be common!

April 7th is one of the earliest times I have seen these up here, although there have been reports in Devon a few weeks ago. There were days when I thought I would never live to see this day. The cycle of life goes on.

See https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/s/swallow/

10m JT65 again

G4KPX (14km) spotted me earlier this morning. I shall be sticking with 10m JT65 most of today again, although I am unsure of HF conditions. 10m has been quite good of late.

UPDATE 2200z: G6SSN (75km) spotted me on 10m JT65 and called me this afternoon, although I was beaconing at the time.

Alien planet with atmosphere - NOT amateur radio

The BBC reports they have detected a planet in a distant solar system that has an atmosphere. With a surface temperature of 370 deg C it is unlikely to support life as we know it.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39521344

Cambridge Concert - NOT amateur radio

My wife's concert is coming up.

Cambridge Grand Arcade - NOT amateur radio

A few days ago we walked through the Grand Arcade in central Cambridge, UK. This is a covered pedestrian area, so ideal for wet weather shopping. As usual, there are plenty of stores which you find in most big cities and very few independent shops. Probably the business rates are too high?

Return to 10m JT65 (2W)11448km

Quite late this morning, I returned to 10m JT65 transceive running 2W. As yet no spots.

UPDATE 1400z:  Still no 10m spots today so far.

UPDATE 1530z: Still no 10m JT65 spots here today. The rig and PC will be on for several hours yet.

UPDATE 2114z: G0LRD (25km) is my best TX DX today. LU1ECO (11448km) was the most distant station on RX.

Sunspots and 10m - Thursday April 6th 2017

Solar flux is 83 today and the sunspot number is 37. A=10 and K=1. Yesterday was good on 10m JT65 with my 2W spotted in Brazil for the first time this year.

Eating out - NOT amateur radio

Most of the last week we have had the "London" grandchildren staying. A few days ago we went to Cambridge and ate out at a small independent café called Le Patissier which is opposite St John's College. The food was good, prices reasonable and staff friendly and this is the fourth time I have eaten there.

New amateur record at 970Hz

From Stefan DK7FC:

"Hi ULF friends,

Saturday night i build an active E field receiver optimised for ULF. It is using a BF862 front-end as a source follower and a LT1028 with 20 dB gain. There are 3 RC filter stages cutting off at 10 kHz. Furthermore there are two isolation transformers in series, 4:1=>1:10. In the center they are parallel resonated. This gives a further good low pass filtering and some additional gain below 3 kHz. It was a quick construction without thinking to much, soldered at night, 02 AM local time. The antenna probe is a 1m long steel rod (for welding) with 2 mm diameter. The antenna height above ground was just 2m. There were no trees in a radius of 20 m.

For transmitting i'm again using the modified 5 kV mains transformer. At 970 Hz, the antenna impedance is 342 kOhm! So i can just run 15 mA antenna current which means 3 nW ERP. The new ALC build inside SpecLab holds the 15 mA accurately and protects the transformer that way! SpecLab is a very well usable tool for transmitting on VLF/ULF, thanks to DL4YHF!!
The transmit frequency was 970.005 Hz.

I didn't expect much, thought that this distance may be to optimistic. The last signals were very weak on my tree grabber in 3.5 km distance. But that tree grabber is using loop antennas and they are not sensitive in that frequency range. So there was a certain chance to see a trace, maybe in 212 uHz???
I drove to JN49JL00EB and built up the receiver there because it is a quiet location, a nice region for a walk and, there is a good restaurant not to far!!!!!! So it was easy to spend some time there and let the Raspi (using a GPS module on the right soundcard channel, with PPS+NMEA) record for nearly 3 hours at 24 kS/s.
This is the path between TX and RX: http://no.nonsense.ee/qth/map.html?qth=JN49JL00EB&from=jn49ik00wd  A distance of 7.2 km, or 0.023 wavelengths or 14% of the distance to the far field border. So it is still a near field experiment.
It is about twice the distance i've managed in the last test.

Now i'm back in the shack, analysing the recording and to my surprise i can see a strong trace of 30 dB SNR in 424 uHz!!! See attachments in 424 uHz and 3.8 mHz.

All this makes me much more optimistic to reach farer distances. I tell you i will crack the far field border on that 309 km band! That would be a distance of 49.3 km.

There must have been some local thunderstorms not to far away, because there was QRN in the observed spectrum. So the SNR can be improved a bit by doing the next test in the late morning hours. Also the resonance of the transformers seem to be a bit to low, so maybe i can reach a bit more sensitivity when optimising that resonance. It could further help to rise the effective height of the antenna. Flat fields rather than the deep forest is the region to select now....

73, Stefan"

OFCOM and mobile repeaters

OFCOM is consulting on mobile repeaters.

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/26E022FC8AA20F74/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

Tawny mining bee - NOT amateur radio

For several days now, I have seen little mounds of soil with a hole in the middle in my grass. For a while I thought this was ants then I saw a bee. Further research has pointed me to Tawny Mining Bees. These are solitary bees that don't live together. They are small bees with ginger hairs.

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

10m JT65

Although no spots seen as yet, I have been on 10m JT65 today. We are nearing the start of the Es season which should see 10m and 6m open to lots of Europe from the UK even with QRP SSB.

UPDATE 1920z:  No spots all day, at least not showing on PSK reporter maps. Still running overnight, so might catch some aircraft reflections later?

UPDATE 2032z: PY2RSA (9473km) spotted me on 10m JT65 not too long ago. Not shown on PSK reporter maps was a spot of an N0. This may have been because I lost internet connectivity for a period. I have since gone QRT.

Sunspots and 10m - Wednesday April 5th 2017

Solar flux is 93 today and sunspot number 75. A=20 and K=2.

OFCOM Update

Every month, OFCOM produces a "Communications Update". This is the latest version.

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/8EAFA4273AD97B72/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

St Johns, Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

The colleges at Cambridge University are always worth a visit, but they look so good in spring. This was the view of St Johns this afternoon. We just missed the rain.

Sunspots and 10m - Tuesday April 4th 2017

Solar flux is 106 today. Sunspot number is 97.  A=4 and K=3.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/ for a summary of the latest solar data. Last month, the smoothed sunspot number declined to 22.6, but this month has got off to a promising start.

2m UKAC this evening

A further reminder that the RSGB organised 2m leg of its activity contest is this evening from 8pm(1900z) UK clock time. The contest runs for 2.5 hours. Activity levels are good on SSB and it is a great way to work new squares. Although a contest, I have always found people very friendly. I usually stay on for well less than an hour because of my poor voice.

See http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/contest_rules.pl?contest=2mukac

UPDATE 2032z: Just a few QSOs as my granddaughter was in the next room so I stayed on even less than usual. Best QSO was 183km (with my 5W QRP and omni), but I heard further and could have worked more if I had stayed on a little longer.

10m JT65 transceive

As conditions were quite decent yesterday, I stayed on 10m JT65 and am still on that band and mode. No spots this morning so far, although it is very early.

UPDATE 1635z: DL5XL (567km) spotted me this morning. Es?

QRP and QRP Club

More from Oleg:

Dear Club 72 members and friends,

Weekly QRP Rendez-Vous Report (April, 2, 2017)
Reminder about new Rendez-Vous schedule:
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays
9.00 UTC - 14060 kc
18.00 UTC - 7030 kc
alternative 10116 kc if QRM or poor condx
+/- QRM, QRL, keep RIT for xtal QRPers
Strongly recommend to use QRP Chat during "rendezvous"!

Visitors  of  the  week:  R1OA,  US3EN, UR5EFD, RV3GM, DK1HW, US5WAF,
G3XJS,  OH6NPV,  UR0ET,  UA1CEG, DL6YYM, US7IB, RU6UR, UR7VT, OK1DNZ,
R1CAN, IK2RGV, UA0SBQ, HB9CBR/p, R2AJA, RU3NJC, R2FAE, DJ5RE, UR5LEH,
ON6KZ, UA4NU, US5ERQ, RD2A/p, R4NX, UR8QV, DL7YY/p
Congrats!
RU6UR and RD2A became Honor Frequenters (regular visitors)
New Visitors - US5WAF, DJ5RE - you are welcome!
Some comments...
See full WQR Report on the blog page - http://qrp-club72.blogspot.ru/

72! Oleg RV3GM / KH6OB "Mr. 72"

This is a periodic Newsletter of the Club 72. Don't reply to Newsletter address! Send any requests or news to mr72@club72.su please.

RSGB's 2m UKAC tomorrow evening

Tomorrow evening is the 2m leg of the 2m Activity Contest. As we have grandchildren staying, I will have to make my entry even briefer than usual.

Grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

Most of this week we have our "London" grandchildren, although we spent most of the afternoon with our granddaughter having an x-ray! She fell over the weekend and hurt her arm. We were afraid she'd broken it but all was well.

The photo shows her looking pretty happy!

Sunspots and 10m - Monday April 3rd 2017

Solar flux is 107 today and the sunspot number 75. These are high numbers. A=8 and K=1. All these figures are better than yesterday. I urge you to try 10m digital modes as propagation could be quite decent.

10m JT65

Quite late on yesterday, I moved to 10m JT65. Last evening several South Americans were spotted on 10m JT65, so conditions were quite decent on 10m. I am on 10m JT65 now.

UPDATE 1937z:   Lots of South Americans and Italy on 10m JT65 today.

Windmill next door - NOT amateur radio

We are very lucky to have a good view of our local restored windmill from our home. Every day usually someone comes to take a photo. It is about 200 years old and fully restored. Not many are lucky enough to look at a working 4 sailed windmill whilst eating breakfast! It is literally "over the garden fence". The hedge is in our garden.

10m JT65 after 20m JT65

After all day on 20m JT65, I have (rather late) moved to 10m JT65, changing at about 1615z. On 20m most of the spots of my 2W were from Europe with a few from North America. On RX the best was Brazil.

UPDATE 1622z:  No spots on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 2112z: EU7FBB (1931km) spotted on 10m JT65 earlier this evening. I left things running on 10m overnight.

Sunspots and 10m - Sunday April 2nd 2017

Solar flux is 99 today and the sunspot number is 79 (both are high figures). A=16 and K=3.

Devon Birds - NOT amateur radio

Certainly swallows (birds) are being seen in increasing numbers in Devon. Cattle egrets are also being increasingly seen. The cattle egret sightings remind me of the first  little egret sightings in Devon 30-40 years ago.

I suspect several species will become far more common in the years to come e.g. bearded tits, bee-eaters. At the same time, some will be lost. Before 1955 to see a collared dove in the UK would have been amazing. Nowadays they are one of the most common birds in our garden.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eater .

472 and 137kHz allocations in the USA nearer

The latest news from the FCC suggests the USA is nearer allocating the LF and MF bands to amateurs at last.

I used to think OFCOM was bad, but the FCC seems even worse. It is years since most countries had access to these bands. If the FCC was concerned about other users they could have set very low ERP levels and allowed amateur operation on a strictly "non-interference" basis.  Instead they waited and waited. They are still waiting!

The FCC seems, at least to me, to be a bunch of pen pushing idiots who know little about radio. Perhaps I am being unfair? In many ways I think of the USA as having fairly liberal policies on the use of the spectrum, but the FCC seems to do themselves no good at all over these bands.

See http://www.arrl.org/news/new-bands-fcc-issues-amateur-radio-service-rules-for-630-meters-and-2-200-meters

See also http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0329/FCC-17-33A1.pdf

April Fool's Day - NOT amateur radio

Certainly here in the UK, April 1st is April Fool's Day when people usually play tricks. Often there are spoof news items in the papers or on TV. Apparently one UK paper did a piece on Prince Harry saying he had got married in secret.

Sorry, but all here will be "straight" with no April fools stories.

10m JT65

Just before 0900z I QSYed to 10m JT65.

UPDATE 0910z: No spots as yet on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 1330z: Still no 10m JT65 spots today.

UPDATE 1350z: With no spots at all on 10m JT65, I think it is time to QSY.

Sunspots and 10m - Saturday April 1st 2017

Solar flux is 91 (quite high) and the sunspot number 65 which is also good. A=28 and K=3. 10m is again forecast to be "poor".

Blog Hacking - NOT amateur radio

It looks possible that my blogs are being probed by hackers. This seems to have been attempted much of this week.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39401637

UK Pound against Euro - NOT amateur radio

Yet again, the UK pound is stronger against the euro. Some were expecting it to tumble. The last time I looked it was up another 0.5%. Early BREXIT days. but my gut feeling is the euro will weaken further later this year.

20m JT65

Hoping the band is still usable, I have QSYed to 20m JT65 (2W). So far I have only been spotted by S52NR (1318km).

UPDATE 1734z: Spotted by 5 Europeans so far, but nothing further afield.

UPDATE 1755z: Now 8 Europeans spotting me, although I think the band is closing now. I may leave it running overnight to see what happened early Saturday.

UPDATE 1810z: Now 14 Europeans spotting my 2W 20m JT65. The band is still open.

UPDATE 1848z: Now 18 Europeans spotting my 2W on 20m JT65.

UPDATE 2020z:  K1GUY, in the USA, spotted me on 20m JT65 about an hour ago.

MUF

It certainly seems that HF conditions get better nearer the equator. http://www.hamqsl.com/solar3.html shows a diagram of MUF (maximum usable frequencies) and going closer to the equator does seem to help. I am definitely no propagation expert!

"Near miss" asteroids - NOT amateur radio

http://spaceweather.com/ gives details of asteroids that are quite close to Earth. Most, thankfully, are quite a way away. Near miss is being a big generous!

Rally News

APRIL 2nd 2017 : HACK GREEN HANGAR SALE

Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, French Lane, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 8AL
Doors open 10am. Sale of amateur gear, electronic equipment, comps, military radio sets and vehicle spares. Refreshments are available on site. More details from Lucy Siebert on 01270 623 353 or by email to lucy@hackgreen.co.uk

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

Food in North Norfolk - NOT amateur radio

If I have posted this before, please accept my apologies!

When in North Norfolk, about 1 hour from here, we usually eat at "The Old Reading Room" in Kelling. The food is nothing special, but the service is by the same good Norfolk people who have been there for years. The place is filled with second-hand books, chutneys and jams. Lots of locals eat there. We love it and have been going there for years.

Sunspots and 10m - Friday March 31st 2017

Solar flux is 86 today (not bad). Sunspot number has dropped back to 33. A=23 and K=5. Yet again 10m is forecast to remain "poor".

Remember though that 10m often surprises and some of my best days on 10m WSPR have been on days when the forecast suggested otherwise!

10m WSPR transceive (2W)

In the end, I decided to go on 10m WSPR this morning. I have been active since breakfast running 2W (20%) with the rest of the time on RX. As yet, no spots.

UPDATE 1024z: Some life!

UPDATE 1148z:  Just local G spots of late on 10m WSPR.

UPDATE 1348z: No further spots, yet, on 10m WSPR. I wonder if the high Doppler on local spots is a result of aircraft approaching Lakenheath, Mildenhall or Cambridge?

UPDATE 1644z:  No further spots all day on 10m WSPR.

UPDATE 1810z: With no further spots, I think I am going to QSY, maybe to 20m WSPR or 20m JT65.