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.