Activity continues to disappoint me. Whilst for some this has been an introduction to microwaves, I was expecting far more DXers to make use of this.
As I have said before, I think it is just too hard for many. The main markets of the USA and Japan do not come within the satellite footprint. This means there are no mass market "black boxes".
In my opinion we have just passed the solar peak. We can expect a few years of good conditions, but I expect the trajectory to be slowly downwards.
Some of my time after lunch was spent browsing the Internet Archive. This is an absolute treasure trove of old material. Some time back I found a snapshot of my very first website dated 1996. If you want to look at old material about anything it is worth looking here. I am pretty sure much old stuff is on this archive.
There is a radio archive at https://archive.org/details/dlarc .
It would appear most things from the past may be found if you look hard. I have only scratched the surface.
If my QMX+ initiates (it hasn't yet!) I intend to try 6m QRP FT8.
UPDATE 0945z: Well, the QMX+ eventually did initiate. Probably this occurred in the first 20 minutes. The secret seems to be just to leave it. I would have expected this to happen within seconds. This is not fatal, but definitely needs fixing or explaining. Otherwise the QMX+ works really well. So far, spotted by 7 English stations on 6m QRP FT8 this morning.
UPDATE 1238z: 19 English stations spotted.
My 500mW WSPR beacon was turned on at about 0915z. No spots.
UPDATE 0947z: Spotted by 4 stations so far. These look like by F2 propagation.
UPDATE 1243z: Spotted by 9 stations.
Lots of people are talking about the new Yaesu FTX-1F transceiver due "in early 2025". Very little is known about it yet (as far as I am aware) and some are describing it as an FT817/818 successor or a replacement to the ICOM IC705.
At the right price ( I expect they are thinking hard about this) and with the right features it could be all of these, but it could "bomb". Expect prices to drop later. Also, early products sometimes have software and hardware bugs that get corrected later.
The video below is similar to many. I expect this will be the same until we know more about it ..... and the all important price.
In the news today was the sacking of 4000 people from Ford because of disappointing sales of electric cars. In my view we will see a major shift to electric cars when:
After leaving the QMX+ for 30 minutes it initialised. I have no idea how long after initial switch on this happened.
Anyway at about 0735z I went on 6m FT8 QRP with the QMX+.
UPDATE 0925z: 27 stations have spotted me so far today.
UPDATE 1222z: Spotted by 95 stations. See map.
My 500mW 10m WSPR beacon was turned on about 0700z. My QMX+ failed to initialise again. I have left it for now to see what happens!
Don't ask me when, but the QMX+ initialised. As it is quite late (so 10m and 6m are probably dead) I am on 17m QRP FT8 with about 3W.
She says the secret with orchids is just a thimble of water once a week. Whatever, she has the touch!
My beacon has been on most of the morning. 14 stations have spotted me.
After trying for about 10 times, my QMX+ (which is great once initialised!) has failed to initialise. Probably Wednesday, I shall go on 6m FT8 with the IC-705 instead.
UPDATE 1440z: Although both the QDX and QMX+ rigs are very good, I am very disappointed that I am having so much trouble with Windows 10. It takes several goes to get the PC to "see" the audio on the QDX and the initialisation of the QMX+ is "flaky" at best: when it works great, but it should not be this hard to get started. I hope this initialisation is better with more recent software. It lets down an otherwise great radio.
My QRP beacon has been on since just before breakfast. So far, just 25 spots by EA8BFK (2880km).
Overnight I monitored 50.280MHz MS144, which was supposed to be the best place to lurk for 6m MS in the Leonid meteor shower that was due to peak November 17th. In total, I spotted precisely nothing at all! It was a total failure.
I was wondering if my internet connection had failed but there was nothing on my screen either, suggesting nothing had been received. Perhaps people have moved to a different mode or it was a poor shower?
The example shown in the photo is the Lady Chapel in Ely Cathedral.
We are still doing this in the world! These are part of our history. We may not agree with our forefathers but we have absolutely no right to destroy it.
Having confirmed that most 6m MS activity is around 50.280MHz in Europe, I am again monitoring this overnight.
One of my Facebook memories today was of a report from the USA 🇺🇸 when I was using my ultra-simple CW transceiver on 10m.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/10m-lesser-chirpy .
OFCOM is to auction off chunks of mm wave spectrum near 25GHz and 40GHz. It also updates the information it holds on licences etc.. See the OFCOM website.
For many years, I have been aware that my perception of speed is "different". When I drive (locally only) it is as if I am doing 20 mph faster than I am. I glance down at my speedometer and it feels like I am doing about 65mph whereas I am doing about 45mph only and there is a stream of traffic behind me!
Earlier in the week I was a passenger in a car with a friend. He seemed to be going fast, but was only doing about 50mph.
In the past I put this down to my 2013 stroke, but perhaps it is old age. It is getting worse.
My QRP beacon has been on most of the morning. So far, 13 stations have spotted me.
UPDATE 1420z: 26 stations have spotted me.
The windmill next door has been on the blog many times but this is an unusual view over the allotment gardens .
This peaks on November 17th.
Usually meteor showers result in VHF reflections. Although some manage QSOs with random meteors, the duration of reflections is usually longer in showers, so QSOs tend to be easier.
Pings tend to be strong, but of short duration. MSK144 is a popular mode.
UPDATE 0942z: No spots overnight. I hope I am on the correct frequency.
Thanks to Amateur Radio Weekly, I have been watching a video showing how someone uses a microcontroller as a TX and RX just by writing code. These chips are not intended to do this at all. To me this is magic!
I would not know where to start, HI.
At 137kHz I have only dabbled, but I was surprised and delighted at the performance of this little EFP RX antenna. I was mag-mounted on the ...
