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.