Rally and BATC convention at the weekend

9 SEPTEMBER 2017 : CAISTER LIFEBOAT RADIO RALLY
Doors open 9.30am to 3pm, traders get access at 8am. Indoor tables £10 per table, outside pitches £5 per table. There will be a raffle. A cafe and gift shop is onsite. Contact Zane, 0771 1214 790 or email m1bfidx@ntlworld.com www.m1bfidx.wixsite.com/cl-radio-rally

9 & 10 SEPTEMBER 2017 : BATC CONVENTION (CAT 17)
Finningley Amateur Radio Society, The Hurst Communications Centre, Belton Road, Sandtoft, Doncaster DN8 5SX

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

Canterbury - NOT amateur radio

Earlier this week, we took our "Kent" grandchildren into Canterbury on the bus. Whilst there, we bought them a drink and a bun in a café near Canterbury cathedral.

6m FT8 RX

Since before breakfast I have been on 6m FT8 RX. So far, just G and ON spotted. These are probably tropo or aircraft reflections.

UPDATE 1158z: LA7DFA (1312km) just spotted on 6m FT8. Es?

UPDATE 1350z: Already 5 countries spotted today on 6m FT8 RX as far apart as southern France and Norway.

UPDATE 1650z:  So far, on 6m FT8 RX 8 countries today.

10m WSPR TX (500mW)

Since before breakfast, I have been on 10m WSPR TX. No spots as yet, although there were late spots last night from Germany and Italy.

UPDATE 0936z: Just one spot so far on 10m WSPR by OF3NE (1737km) in Finland.

UPDATE 0956z: EA8BFK (2880km) is now my best report DXwise on 10m WSPR today. South America later?

UPDATE 1652z: So far today my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon has been received by 7 unique stations. Considering the Es season has (supposedly) ended this is not at all bad.

Sunspots - Thursday September 7th 2017

Solar flux is 127 (high) today and the sunspot number 79. A=11 and K=4.

Pye PF8

Many years ago I was part of the design team working on the PF8 transceiver. In its day (before mobile phones) it was a radical design and probably "ahead of the game" as they say. It used a radical internal antenna (a skeleton slot) which I designed along with the TX audio. In those days we had no real competition and it took a long time to overcome the noise issues with the DC-DC converter. It was the first Pye Telecom unit to use a multi-layer PCB. It became famous as the transceivers used in the TV series "The Professionals". PF8 units are very hard to find these days, but some have been converted to 70cm amateur use.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/pf8 .

ICOM IC7300

It still surprises me that the price of the IC7300 has not dropped. I guess the dealers are playing "chicken" to see who blinks first. If people are happy to buy at the current figure they have no incentive to drop the price. Meanwhile, they all make lots of profit.

10m WSPR TX

As usual, I am on 10m WSPR TX (500mW), although no-one has yet spotted me.

UPDATE 1400z: Two 10m WSPR spots so far today with DG7RJ (916km) the best DX report so far. I assume this is Es.

UPDATE 2202z: With late DX (Es?) spots from EA, I and DL I decided to leave the 10m WSPR beacon running overnight. I have gone QRT on 6m FT8 RX.

6m FT8

As well as G3PXT, I am spotting Germany and Slovenia on 6m FT8. These could be Es or random MS. For random MS, the 15 second periods must help. There was slow QSB on G3PXT (79km), so I think this was tropo.

UPDATE 0942z: G4VXE (136km) now being spotted, although no further non-G DX spotted.

UPDATE 1358z: S51AT (1250km) is the best DX spotted so far on 6m today, with 5 countries spotted on 6m FT8 so far today.

UPDATE 1545z: 9A4ZM (1292km) in Croatia brings the total to 6 countries spotted so far today on 6m FT8.

Sunspots - Wednesday September 6th 2017

Solar flux is 122 as is the sunspot number. These are massive figures this late in the cycle. A=12 and K=2.

OFCOM

The latest OFCOM report has been published.

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/FC9A6652345C41492540EF23F30FEDED/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

Es on 10m and 6m

Although I was away at my son's for a few days, I went on 10m WSPR TX and 6m FT8 RX on my return. There was Es on both bands.

2m UKAC activity contest (September)

A reminder that tonight is the RSGB's 2m activity contest. It runs from 8pm to 10.30pm UK clock time.

UPDATE 2050z: Although I was only of for about 15-20 minutes, best DX was M1MLM/P (181km) in the Peak District. As usual, I was using 5W QRP to my big-wheel 2m Omni.

Sunspots - Tuesday September 5th 2017

The solar activity is incredible for this part of the cycle. Solar flux is 144 and sunspot number is 122 (incredible). A=18 and K=2.

QRP and QRP Club

Oleg's usual report:

Weekly QRP Rendez-Vous Report (September, 3, 2017)
Visitors  of  the  week:  G3XJS, IK0IXI/p, DK1HW, RW3DF, S57TX, RA1M,
UR5EFD,  UA1CEG, G3JFS, ON6WJ, HA7NE, UY1IF, OM6TC, UR5IFM/p, RU3NJC,
UA6ME,  UR7VT,  YO3BL,  OH6NPV,  US3EN, SM7ZDI, UR5FA, RV3UF, UA1CEX,
RV3GM, F5SYC, R1CAN, UA1AV, ON4ADR, UA0SBQ
Congrats!
UA1AV became Frequenter (regular visitor)
See full Visitors and Frequenters lists on the Club 72 page
Comments (as is, not edited)...
See full WQR Report including a lot of comments and pictures here -
https://qrp-club72.blogspot.ru/
Thanks all for activity and reports, see you on next Rendez-Vous!

Wish you all the best, 72!
Oleg "Mr. 72" RV3GM / KH6OB


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.

Low noise VLF pre-amp

In recent days there has been quite a lot of work on different VLF frequencies (as low as 970Hz) by amateurs trying to receive carriers and short messages at great range, including from Germany to the UK. In a recent posting DG4RBF gave details of his latest pre-amp. I have no idea if it does the job. The text is in German, so you have to translate if you want it in English. Use Google translate?

See

http://dg4rbf.lima-city.de/Ultra%20Low%20Noise%20AMP%20V1.7f%20_WebSeite.pdf

BBC Local Radio - NOT amateur radio

Southgate News reports a recent outage that affected a lot of the BBC local radio stations.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2017/september/eighteen-bbc-local-radio-stations-fall-silent.htm#.Wau-cLpFzIU .

10m JT65

From Facebook, I see that I was copying LUs on 10m JT65 last year at this time. I was speculating the propagation was Es linking with F layer nearer the equator. I guess the mode to try now is FT8? With good propagation, I guess this is still possible.

Sunspots - Sunday September 3rd 2017

Solar flux is 103 (high) and the sunspot number 71 (high for this part of the cycle). A=26 and K=3.

Cambridge Leper Chapel - NOT amateur radio

After an age, I have updated the churches blog at https://eachurches.blogspot.co.uk/ with the Cambridge Leper Chapel that dates from the 1100s. We visited this for the first time today, although we have been past it many times.

ICOM IC9700

My thanks to Steve Wigg for alerting me to this new ICOM radio being previewed at the Tokyo Ham Fair this weekend. This will be a VHF/UHF/23cm rig.

See http://www.icomuk.co.uk/News_Article/3508/19388/ .

They still try! - NOT amateur radio

Already, there is hacker activity on this blog again. Should the blog suddenly behave oddly, you will know why. Already this blog has had more visits than it often gets in a whole day. Bots I suspect.

I see another of my blogs also has high visitor numbers.

Usually they look every month, then play their nasty games elsewhere. It always comes from the same sources. I see high numbers, check the map, and I know it is hackers rather than genuine visits.

Sunspots - Saturday September 2nd 2017

 Solar flux is 93 today. Sunspot number is 62 (quite high). A=19 and K=5.

10m WSPR today

As usual, I am on 10m WSPR TX with my 500mW beacon. Apart from local G4KPX (14km) the only DX so far today is EI3RCW (505km). This could be Es or aircraft reflection.

UPDATE 2022z:  10 unique spots today with the best DX 1812km. If this is still Es, then this is very late in the season. Now QRT.

6m FT8 again

I have been RX only on this band/mode since before breakfast. Although most spots are of G stations, there has been one Es spot so far of HG9SM (1508km).

UPDATE 1950z: 6 countries spotted in the last 12 hours. Now QRT.

10m WSPR (TX)

Although only active for about 1 hour, OH2VMP (1734km) has spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon several times. Is this Es or even single hop F2?

UPDATE 1725z:  With OZ9QV (864km) just spotted, I suspect this is Es.

UPDATE 1938z: With 16 unique spots since teatime, another great Es day on 10m WSPR. This season seems never ending!

6m FT8

All yesterday and most of today I have been QRT. I turned the rigs and PC on at about 1625z today. Even though it is September, there have already been lots of Es spots.

UPDATE 1942z: Yet another great day on 6m with stations spotted from all over Europe again. It is now September and we still have great Es on 6m FT8.

Sunspots - Friday September 1st 2017

Solar flux is 92 today and the sunspot number 59. A=31 and K=4.

Rainbow's End - NOT amateur radio

After a great day with the grandchildren including a picnic, this evening we had thunder and lightning. Once the storm had passed we were treated to a double rainbow. One end was on our museum and the other on a bungalow called "Rainbow's End". Pure coincidence.

Hackers? - NOT amateur radio

Blog numbers were way above normal yesterday, indicating possible "probing" for vulnerabilities. It will be interesting to see if numbers remain high today. Certainly visits from the usual suspect country are up.

Normally, if I think there is any danger, I change my password. So far, I have not been hacked.

QRT - storm risk

Today there was a risk of thunderstorms, so I decided not to turn the rigs on and leave everything disconnected.

See https://www.lightningmaps.org/blitzortung/europe/index.php?lang=en .

UPDATE 1640z: The storms are currently 5 miles NW of here and it has started to rain.

Hamfest and GQRP Convention this weekend

2-3 SEPTEMBER 2017 : TELFORD HAMFEST & G-QRP CONVENTION
Enginuity Technology Centre, Coalbrookdale, Telford, Shrops. Combined social, Buildathon, guest speakers and Radio Rally. www.telfordhamfest.co.uk
A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

Sunspots - Thursday August 31st 217

Solar flux is 87 today. Sunspot number is 42. A=5 and K=2.

Es propagation late in the season

It is very easy to generalise, but my experience is that 10m openings to more northerly stations become more common later in the season. If this is statistically significant (and I could be wrong) I have absolutely no idea why this should be so. As an example, there have been lots of 10m WSPR spots from the Faeroe Islands, Denmark and Germany today, but few from southern Europe.

Am I wrong? Have others seen this?

October QRP days for your diaries

From Oleg:

"Dear QRPers,
keep in your diaries the period of October 4 to 17.
This is a Sputnik QRPp Activity Days.
Categories:
- Sputnik
recommend  to  use  old  type  valves (preferably 1950-60-th), output
recommend  1  watt  or  less.  Series of "beep-beep-beep..." required
before or after transmission session;
- Vanguard
recommend  to  use  simplest  TX  with  Ge old type p-n-p transistors
(1950-60-th),  output  recommend 100 mW or less. Series of "V V V..."
required for identification;
- SWL
they must to log any TX sessions of Sputnik/Vanguard. High profile to
use  old type receivers (50-60-th produced) or home made RXs with old
type components;
Beacon  TXs accepted as Sputnik/Vanguard, identifications "beep-beep"
or "V V V" required.
Every  day  log  send to the "Center of Deep Space Communications" to
duty operator "mr72" :-) The each days totals will be published on the
Club 72 page daily.
Memorable  certificates of "Cosmonaut" or "Astronaut" will be sent to
each participants.
See  full  rules  on  the  Club  72  page, please. Last years results
with comments/pictures available on the page.
We have enough time before Sputnik Days. Turn-on your solder irons and
melt the solder. Enjoy and good luck!

Wish you all the best, 72!
Oleg "Mr. 72" RV3GM / KH6OB"

Iceland - NOT amateur radio

Some years ago now we visited Iceland and were surprised just how beautiful it was. The photo shows where the first Icelandic parliament was held. I think this was 960AD.  This is on a fault line. There were lupins everywhere.

10m WSPR TX (Wednesday)

After several days now of decent Es on 10m, we are due for a quiet few days this late in the season. As usual, I am on 10m WSPR TX (500mW) ever hopeful.

UPDATE 0848z: Lots of Es spots by OY1OF (1164km) and some of his reports were very strong.

UPDATE 0950z: 3 unique spots so far this morning of my 500mW 10m WSPR beacon. Best DX is currently EA1KV (1304km).

UPDATE 1218z: Lots of Es again, with 7 unique 10m WSPR spots so far.

UPDATE  1345z: Now 13 unique spots of my little 500mW 10m WSPR beacon today.

Reach - NOT amateur radio

Our nearest village is Reach. This has no shops, one pub owned at one time by the villagers and is at the end of an earthwork built about 1400 years ago called the Devil's Dyke. At one time it was an important Fenland port. It still has one of the oldest fairs in the land opened by the mayor of Cambridge. The village green (shown in the photo) is in the centre of the village.

Just how do they do it?

The Banggood portable BF-UV8D retails on eBay for just  £14.25 with free shipping to the UK from China. In all honesty, just how can anyone compete?

This is a 5W RF 400-480MHz transceiver and comes complete with charger, back clip, antenna and battery. If I was Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood I'd throw in the towel now. Once the Chinese really wake up, the Japanese manufacturers have no chance of surviving. The Japanese will be driven more and more to niche markets, then die. I cannot see them staying around in the amateur market for too long.

At the moment the Japanese have quality on their side, but the Chinese will soon be as good. At the moment it seems everything, just about, is made in China. Recently I bought some Olympus binoculars - these said "Made in China". The Chinese seem to be able to make most things at prices that simply cannot be matched.

20 years from now we'll be living in a very different world.

You can buy a 433MHz module for just over £1 with free shipping from China!!

They make profits too, so how do they do it?

Drone - NOT amateur radio

Last night we had a drone above our house. I think it was taking photos of "our" windmill next door. I have mixed feelings about drones. They allow some very good photos and videos to be taken, but their uncontrolled use could be dangerous. Personally, I am in favour of some sort of licence.

UPDATE 0840z: Apparently the drone was inspecting the windmill sails (next door) to make sure they are safe.