Solar flux is 79 and the SSN 11. A=4 and K=3.
22 Jun 2021
21 Jun 2021
Family outing? - NOT amateur radio
These swans and cygnets were seen at Anglesey Abbey this afternoon.
Millionaire - NOT amateur radio
If some of the SPAM emails I get (filtered out) were true I would be a millionaire many times over. Every day I get told there is nearly £300k coming to my account if I just share my details. As for Bitcoin, I get told every day I am due for so much!
I do not share my details!!
All of these are, of course, scams.
Oh, and how to get a 15 inch penis......😁
10m FT8 grabber
One of the new features that is possible on the new Google Sites is embedding. Some browsers do not support this for fear of viruses or malware on the embedded sites. I have embedded PSKreporter maps on my new web pages which normally points to what I see on 10m FT8 RX. So you can see what I am spotting here.
Just occasionally I may be looking at something else.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-ft8-grabber .
Storms
Amateur radio gear can be badly affected by nearby storms. Often, when there are storms nearby, there can be damaging power surges. I am always nervous with nearby storms. My normal practice is to disconnect everything until the storms have well passed. At the moment, the immediate risk seems to have passed.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/other-amateur-radio/lightning-maps .
10m FT8 RX
As usual, whilst doing some housework, I am monitoring 10m FT8 RX with the tiny indoor loop. At 1030z, 106 stations spotted.
UPDATE 1104z: 136 stations spotted with the furthermost CT3MD (2521km) on Madeira.
UPDATE 1902z: 402 stations spotted on RX with the furthermost PT2GTI (8866km).
Rain - NOT amateur radio
The BBC weather is often wrong unless there is a big high pressure system over us. The weather radar app has rainfall forecasts in mm to 3 decimal places for hours to come. My own view is a wet finger and look out of the window is often just as good.
East Anglian skies - NOT amateur radio
20 Jun 2021
10m FT8 RX
There is widespread Es on 10m this morning. A few moments ago (it is now 0917z) I turned on 10m FT8 RX with the FT817ND and the tiny indoor loop antenna. Already, 49 stations have been spotted.
UPDATE 0948z: 85 stations spotted on RX.
UPDATE 1214z: 198 stations spotted on RX. The furthermost is VO1CH (3737km).
UPDATE 1604z: 325 stations spotted on RX.
UPDATE 1904z: 467 stations spotted on RX with the furthermost PY5BH (9903km).
UPDATE 2130z: 547 stations spotted today. Soon QRT.
Facebook Photo - NOT amateur radio
G3XBM videos
A reminder that a lot of the projects on my main website have videos on my video channel. These often provide more detail. The video below , of my Sixbox, is an example.
See https://www.youtube.com/user/G3XBM
Sixbox 6m AM QRP transceiver
This was missing from my main website. It has now been added. I did not realise it was missing!
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/homebrew/sixbox
Laurel hedge cutting - NOT amateur radio
Whereas I could do it all in one go, I now have several goes over several days. I am getting older and get tired more quickly. After about 10 minutes, I need a rest.
The laurel hedge provides a good screen from the path by the windmill, but it is hard work!
19 Jun 2021
Pasties - NOT amateur radio
As a Westcountryman, I like my pasties! The ones shown in the photo are vegetarian, but I also tried meat ones.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/non-amateur-radio/pasties.
"Over the horizon" optical experiments
One of the things I enjoyed was experimenting with weak signal optical signalling over the horizon. My own tests used QRSS (slow CW) received on a PC . There was absolutely no sign of the optical signal in the sky, yet there was a clear trace visible on the PC.
Had I been well, these experiments would have continued and far greater ranges would have been possible.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/optical-nanowaves/over-the-horizon .
Watery - NOT amateur radio
However, we get some great skies and there is a unique beauty as the photo collage shows.
These are the various waterways near where we live.
10m FT8 RX yesterday with the tiny indoor loop antenna
In all, 380 stations spotted yesterday. Not too bad.
I am still not sure how far down the loop is compared with a reasonable outside antenna.
Dealer profits
For a long time I have thought dealers aimed to make excessive profits. We all know that they have costs such as wages, premises etc.
Maybe I am being unfair?
I am all for fair profits (after all, this is their business), but I object to excessive profits. In my opinion many dealers and magazines will go out of business in the coming years as most amateurs get old and buy fewer radios. Magazines will suffer as there will be fewer dealers and less revenue.
Maybe the strategy is to make as much money as possible whilst they can?
18 Jun 2021
How far down is my loop?
As you may know, I have no external antenna for 10m at present. Instead I use the 50cm loop on the shack windowsill.
It is extremely hard to measure the difference in performance of, say, a dipole and my loop. Even over quite small distances signal levels can vary greatly. There are many factors: location, time, directivity, polarisation, radiation angle etc.
The best I could do is compare signal levels at similar times in the best and worst directions of the loop with that received by others locally. The best I can work out is that the loop is up to 6dB down. There are quite wide errors bars on this.
Overall, the loop is performing better than I expected.
If there is F2 DX from the USA or South America later, I shall try again. With lower angle signals the differences might be greater.
G0LRD (26km from me) copies far more, although if he can copy signals that are 6dB weaker, I would expect this to make a considerable difference on FT8.
It will be interesting to see my results later with an external antenna. The impression I get is that the small loop is not too bad on Es signals from Europe, but it performs less well with low angle DX signals.
UPDATE 1915z: Well there's a surprise! CX2CC (11128km) was coming through just now. I was getting him 5dB S/N better than G0LRD (26km). This may just be the momentary polarisation being optimum. Still it proves the loop cannot be too bad.
UPDATE 2101z: At the moment I am confused: many times G0LRD is copying better than me and he certainly is spotting far more stations than me. Nonetheless the loop is not at all bad considering its small size and being indoors!
10m FT8 RX in the last day
These include North and South America.
10m FT8 RX with the indoor 50cm loop (Friday)
At 1325z, I turned on my 10m FT8 RX with lots of Es evident. I see Spanish stations are calling the USA. So far, at 1328z, 25 stations already spotted.
UPDATE 1430z: So far today, 103 stations have been spotted on 10m FT8 RX.
UPDATE 1648z: 242 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX with the furthermost XT2AW (4478km).
UPDATE 1815z: 294 stations spotted so far.
UPDATE 2106z: 362 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today.
UPDATE 2132z: 379 stations spotted today on 10m FT8 RX. Have to go QRT shortly.
Amateur? radio
MLS has been appointed as the dealer of the Hilberling transceiver which retails for just under £12k. Yes, you read correctly - twelve thousand pounds!!
I am sure it would be very good and some will buy it. At that price it should be superb. Add a linear, tower, rotator and beam and you won't see much, if any, change from £20k. To me this is not amateur radio.
OK, each to their own, but I prefer to spend my money more modestly. Even for a professional radio, this is stupid money in my view, but we are all different.
If you want to spend this on a hobby - go ahead. Just remember you can communicate just as well across the planet with amateur radio spending a tiny fraction of this and you can video chat for free across the world with a low cost tablet or PC.
Wicken - NOT amateur radio
Motherhood?
There have been radio amateurs for over 100 years.
Like many things today, I can understand why somethings are done - to protect people - yet often the unintended consequences make things worse, not better.
Take for example the EU rules on data protection. Now most web pages have a pop-up about cookies. Most people either just say "yes" without reading or use a pop-up blocker so the message never appears. Most find these very annoying! The intention was good, but in reality by not reading the small print we could be accepting all sorts of rubbish!
It is a bit like the recent licence changes to protect the general public from harmful EMF. Yes, of course, this is admirable, but how have we managed for over 100 years?
I am not sure what the answer is. What is missing is common sense.
Before agreeing to any changes, think of the unintended consequences. If overall things could be more harmful, think again. We seem to be moving ever more in a more stupid direction.
Pound versus Euro
We left the EU completely some months ago. The EU is far from perfect, but I voted in 2016 to remain "in". Overall we voted by a small margin to leave.
Despite the difficulties of trading with the EU, the UK Pound seems to have appreciated against the Euro.
Personally, I would have preferred a softer BREXIT especially as the vote was close. I suspect the EU misses the contributions to its budget from the UK.
We will have to find our own way in the future. Only time will tell if we were right or wrong.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cx250jmk4e7t/pound-sterling-gbp
Nuclear fusion - NOT amateur radio
For almost my entire life, the gold at the end of the rainbow was nuclear fusion (not fission) with its promise of almost endless low cost energy with no pollution. At every point we seem to have hit hurdles and I cannot see it being reality in my lifetime. I hope in the end the technical issues can be overcome.
Things may have moved a step closer with a new research facility at Oxford funded by Jeoff Bazos. This is reported by the BBC to cost £400M.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57512229 .
MeSquares
For "one-off" projects, MeSquares can be a good solution. The photo shows my 10FT8R RX using MeSquares.
These are simply snapped out and glued down to plain copper clad board. The copper clad board makes an excellent RF ground plane and the MeSquares excellent islands.
If glued down carefully (unlike mine!), a very neat layout is possible.
See www.qrpme.com .
17 Jun 2021
Lightning
We escaped the storms last night. It rained, but that was all. We missed again last night the storms are creeping up from France and thunderstorms and heavy rain are forecast for tomorrow.
See https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=0.00;ts=0;z=6;y=50.6182;x=0.3762;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
2m activity contest (June) published
Every month, if I am free, I go on the UKAC activity contests organised by the RSGB. Although I submit entries running 10W SSB to a 2m omni antenna I have no chance of ever winning!
I only enter the 2m and 70cm legs. Mostly I go on for fun and the activity. Without trying at all hard I see I am still about third down the table in the low power section. Activity levels on SSB are very good. I think these sessions are primarily for clubs, although I just go on as me. There is no compulsion to submit a score.
See https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?Contest=144MHz%20UKAC&Date=&year=2021 .
WebSDR in the Netherlands
Tjeerd PA3GNZ has a webSDR online. It is interesting to listen to.
See http://77.170.220.27:8073/#freq=144174000,mod=usb,secondary_mod=ft8,sql=-150
10m FT8 RX on the tiny loop in the shack
For a change I am on 10m FT8 RX with the FT817ND and the tiny indoor loop (50cm diameter) antenna.
Plenty of Europeans being spotted by Es. After just a few minutes, 51 stations spotted with the furthermost being 5T5PA (3791km) in Mauritania, West Africa.
UPDATE 1246z: 150 stations spotted.UPDATE 1515z: 281 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today.
UPDATE 1815z: 465 stations spotted so far in 4 continents.
UPDATE 1913z: 524 stations spotted so far today.
UPDATE 2146z: 682 stations spotted today. Furthermost is PP5JD (10072km). I now have to go QRT and disconnect everything.
12 year old grandson's art page updated - NOT amateur radio
We have a very talented young artist in the family. No, he does not take after granddad! I have just updated his page on my G3XBM website to include his YouTube tutorial.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/non-amateur-radio/grandsons-art for a direct link to this page.
10FT8R in RadCom (August)
All being well, my simple, low cost, RX for 10m FT8 should appear in RSGB RadCom in August. This is not certain.
My thanks go to Jay W5OLF for kindly doing the schematics. Jay is developing the circuit further. I hope it brings him success.
Exhaustion or laziness? - NOT amateur radio
It may be old age or an artefact of my stroke in 2013.
These days I seem to be exhausted after doing very little. People who do not know me probably think I am just lazy, whereas at times I am totally exhausted. A particular time is after breakfast (like now) when I really really need a quiet time.
At one time I was a very active person whereas these days I absolutely need breaks.
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