Sunspots - Tuesday August 7th 2018

Solar flux is 69 today and the SSN still zero. A=4 and K=2.

The next few years

We are entering the sunspot minimum. Some expect this to happen in 2020. What is certain is the higher HF bands will seem very quiet as people look to lower frequencies to work DX.

Even at the quietest of times 10m can open on N-S paths, so never give up. With FT8 it is even more probable that openings will be found. Es is good in the spring and summer (northern hemisphere) and often real DX can be spotted. FT8 will be invaluable.

As for the next peak, this is anyone's guess. Some say it will be similar to the last cycle. Earlier predictions talked about a very weak cycle with no real peak. Conditions rapidly improve after the minimum, but just what will happen is hard to know.

My recommendation is stick with 10m FT8 and put out the odd CQ. Someone, somewhere may spot you!

Cape Verde Is worked on 2m from Eire!

It had to happen, but this is a mighty long way! Southgate News reports on this record breaking IARU region 1 contact.

At some point it will happen on 432 and 1296MHz. Even 10GHz would not be out of the question. Hawaii to California has been spanned many times on bands up to 1296MHz, I believe.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2018/august/ei3kd-sets-new-144-mhz-dx-record.htm#.W2hHq_ZFzIU

Es season ending?

Although in the past I have worked 6m Es with QRP SSB way into September, we are reaching the point now when Es openings start be become less frequent. FT8 may be transformative and it is worth using FT8 to probe for those elusive openings. Nonetheless, it is probable that Es openings will become less frequent in the northern hemisphere. For reasons I don't know there is a smaller peak near Christmas.

6m FT8 RX

There seems to be Es about with spots mainly from a south west direction so far. I was on TX very briefly before breakfast on 6m FT8 (2.5W), but only G spots.

UPDATE 1042z: Es seems to have moved with plenty of Balkan stations now being spotted on 6m FT8.

UPDATE 1220z: Best DX today on 6m FT8 RX remains S01WS (3075km) in Western Sahara. Funny, I'd have thought Ukraine was further, but it isn't. Must be the map projection.

UPDATE 1233z: 13 countries spotted so far today on 6m FT8 RX. Too many stations to count!

UPDATE 2100z: QRT. Quite a decent day on 6m FT8 RX although no "real" DX spotted here. I guess Es is going to become less frequent. Also, the level of activity is likely to drop off too.

10m WSPR TX (500mW)

Since before breakfast I have been on 10m WSPR TX. No spots so far today.

UPDATE 1731z: Still no spots yet today.

UPDATE 2005z: 10m WSPR sprung into life after tea, with more northerly stations favoured. 7 unique stations spotted with best DX OY1OF (1164km) in the Faroe Is..

UPDATE 2100z: Now QRT. OK in the end, although I had to wait!

Old windmill - NOT amateur radio

At one time there were several windmills in our village. The "intact" one is next door. The base of another one still exists, but a thatched roof now replaces the mill body.

More network radio

Up to now I have just used my Inrico T320 network radio on Wi-Fi. Somewhere I have a Virgin "pay as you go" SIM with some credit, I think. Maybe I should put this in. If I remember correctly this lasts until the credit expires, which could be some while in my case! I need to check what Virgin charge for data on "pay as you go".

Harvest home - NOT amateur radio

Generally farmers in the UK have been busy cutting the corn making the most of the dry, hot weather. This is a field not far from me in our village.

Sunspots - Monday August 6th 2018

Solar flux is 68 today and the sunspot number zero. A=4 and K=1.

Tomorrow

All being well, I think I'll go back to 10m WSPR TX (500mW) and 6m FT8 RX tomorrow. The last time I was on 10m WSPR TX, 17 different stations spotted me. Today I was on 10m FT8 RX and there was Es but no "real" DX spotted here. The furthest spotted was Bahrain.

Mackerel Sky - NOT amateur radio

Today has been another hot day, but there was a cooler breeze this evening when this sky was visible over "our" windmill next door.

Dry, dry, dry - NOT amateur radio

Most of Europe has had a very hot and dry summer. Oh, sorry, climate change is a Chinese plot - I forgot those wise words.

I have never seen our garden so parched.  It was the same at Ickworth, Suffolk yesterday with a pond there drying up. Normally it has plenty of water. We had a very wet winter. It would not surprise me if the USA soon experiences "dust bowl" conditions again. Climate change is a reality. The world is warming.

The photo shows the sky, and parched grass, at Ickworth yesterday.

Es'hail 2 - will it succeed?

Assuming this is successfully put into orbit (due Q4 2018), this Qatar satellite will open up a new era in amateur radio. Southgate News has a piece on this today. 2.4GHz uplink and 10GHz downlink. Fixed dish, modest powers, band always open. Predicted 15 year life.

There is another satellite due to cover the Americans as E'hail does not cover the Americas.

See http://www.amsat-dl.org/index.php/es-hail-2-p4a

and

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2018/august/coordinated-frequencies-for-p4a-es%27hail-2.htm#.W2bCMfZFzIU

Sunspots - Sunday August 5th 2018

Solar flux is 70 today and the SSN has returned to zero. A=5 and K=1.

6m and 10m FT8

Last night 21 different stateside stations were spotted on 6m FT8 RX.

Today, I am on 10m FT8 RX. Already, the logbook is filled with Europeans via Es. Best DX so far on 10m FT8 RX this morning is EK1KE (3581km) in Armenia. Not sure if this station is multi-hop Es or F layer single hop.

UPDATE 0944z: Well, I have stopped counting how many stations spotted already on 10m FT8 but it is a lot. 3 continents already spotted on 10m FT8. Not bad as we approach sunspot minimum.

UPDATE 1109z: Best DX on 10m FT8 RX is A92AA (5069km) in Bahrain.

UPDATE 2010z: A couple of USA stations logged.

Ickworth (National Trust) - NOT amateur radio

Today, we went to Ickworth near Bury St Edmunds hoping to see the wild flower meadow in all its glory. What a total disappointment.

It looked as if, this year, they just did not bother. Afterwards we were told they were trying to fully restore the walled garden to as it once was. Does that mean vegetables next year? Luckily we spotted a bee, as the photo shows.

10m antenna

10m seems to be going out of fashion as we approach sunspot minimum. A few years ago, 10m was the band of choice for many to work worldwide DX. Now it is much harder.

For at least a quarter of any year Es brings 10m to life and DX across Europe or the USA is relatively easy.  On FT8 I am finding some amazing worldwide DX on 10m still. 10m is also a decent band for local QSOs often with far less noise than bands like 160, 80 or 40m. A horizontal antenna is generally less noisy than a vertical.

I know this has been on this blog before, but if you want a decent, simple, horizontal polarised antenna for 10m, you could do worse than make my Homebase-10 design. This was in PW and is on my main website. Buying all parts new, it will be hard to spend more than £10. It works well and is small as the picture shows.

The same design will scale for other bands like 6m or 4m.

10m WSPR TX (I almost forgot!)

Most of the morning my little 10m WSPR beacon has been on (500mW) and I have had 134 spots so far. Reports have come in from all over Europe including Sweden and the Faroes. No DX reports from outside Europe as yet today.

Actually, I almost forgot this beacon was on!

6m FT8 (mainly RX)

Yet again, I am back on 6m FT8. After a very brief CQ call earlier (2.5W, 2 UK spots) I am now RX only. There appears to be plenty of Es about.

Best DX currently on 6m FT8 RX is S01WS (3075km) in Western Sahara. So far, 21 different stations spotted in 9 countries on 6m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1646z: 6m looks more like 20m! Plenty of Es again today and yet again more northern latitude stations logged. At the moment 6m FT8 is still good.

UPDATE 1725z: 21 countries spotted on 6m FT8 today. I have lost count of the number of stations.

UPDATE 2137z: Yet again I am spotting stateside stations on 6m FT8 RX. So far, on my very basic system, I have spotted 4 stations in the north of the USA or in Canada. Es? I somehow doubt this, but some sort of chordal E layer? Maybe. Signals are quite strong although I expect these stations are running high power and big beams.

July solar data

This is now available and shows how quiet the sun was last month with low sunspot numbers and low flux.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/

Insurance crappery - NOT amateur radio

Every year I get the same nonsense. I have never made a claim on my home insurance, yet the amount creeps up.

Yet again, I rang up and said it was too much. At first they offered to increase the excesses to which I replied , "no, I want the same policy but for less". Yet again I was offered a "loyalty bonus" and the premium dropped 15%. Such rubbish!!! Why not offer loyal customers decent premiums in the first place?

No doubt I shall have to do the same with my car insurance.

It really p**sses me off. It is all so unnecessary. They depend on customers just paying up and not complaining. No doubt I shall have to ring up next year too.

Miracles do happen on 6m

This is probably my most treasured QSL card. It is for a transatlantic 6m CW QSO in 2007 when I was running about 1W ERP. That evening 6m sounded like 20m and was filled with stateside SSB and CW signals. That was before FT8! The propagation was summer Es.

More recently, I have been mainly looking on 6m FT8 RX with the occasional TX period. I am using my FT817ND (at 2.5W out) and the V2000 vertical omni antenna fed with cheap CB coax.

Sunspots - Saturday August 4th 2018

Solar flux is 69 today and the SSN 11. A=6 and K=1.

BOTs? - NOT amateur radio

Visitor numbers to one of my other blogs suddenly shot up. Guess what, this coincided with a great increase in visits from Russia. Now, the Russians could suddenly have taken a great interest in one of my other blogs, but numbers up by five times? Suspicious.

It is some time since those with malicious intent have taken an interest in this blog. I keep a pretty close eye on all my blogs and change passwords often. If anything does slip through that looks like bots or irrelevant rubbish, it gets deleted.

Moral - my blogs are a waste of time for BOTs and those after free adverts.

Go away.

No rallies?

Maybe it is the time of year, but notifications I used to get about UK rallies seem to have stopped. Perhaps the person who did this (at the RSGB?) has stopped sending them out. As it is August and the UK weather is good, I would have expected to have been swamped. The other explanation is the person is on holiday.

No 6m today

Tomorrow I expect someone will tell me, "you should have been on 6m yesterday as conditions were the best for years".  It always happens!  Still, 10m FT8 RX has been good and much better than I dared hope, so all is not lost.

One thing our hobby has taught me: this is just a hobby and there is always tomorrow. The main objective is to have fun whatever "turns you on".

HF conditions

For the next two years we can expect HF conditions to deteriorate still further. The most probable time for the next solar minimum is sometime in 2020, although we have to be some way past to be sure. Luckily, modes like FT8 have come to the rescue allowing us to find openings that in the past might have been missed. At the moment the "experts" are expecting the next peak to be similar to the last one, although no-one can be sure.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/hfcondx .

Quiet lane - NOT amateur radio

When on holiday last week at Home next the Sea in Norfolk we had glorious weather. Most mornings we did a walk before breakfast.

For a change - 10m FT8 RX

For the last few hours I have been on 10m FT8. As well as lots of EU Es, there is some good DX about, despite summer, low flux and low SSNs. For example, HS0ZIV (9309km) and 3B8CW (9751km) as well as a couple of Gulf states. Pretty sure these are genuine judging by where they were spotted.

My very brief TX period (2.5W) before breakfast on 10m FT8 was spotted in Estonia and Finland.

This afternoon and this evening it would not surprise me to spot South Africa and South America on 10m FT8.

258 different stations spotted here on 10m FT8 RX in the last 6 hours alone. My antenna is poor and I am, frankly, amazed. There is no doubt that FT8 is transforming things with openings that would have been missed now caught. Sadly, SSB and CW "chats" will suffer. Amateur radio is changing - better in some ways and worse in others. With a poor voice these days, FT8 suits me fine, although I miss ragchews.

UPDATE 1228z: No South Americans or South Africans, but a couple of North Americans spotted on 10m FT8.

UPDATE 1238z: Now 4 North Americans spotted today on 10m FT8 RX.

UPDATE 1426z: Although still no South American or African spots, I have already spotted 10 North American and 1 Caribbean stations.

Sunspots - Friday August 3rd 2018

Solar flux is 69 today and the sunspot number still 11. A=6 and K=1.

Icom IC7300

This is a fine HF/6m/4m transceiver which I am tempted to buy, but still feel it is over priced. In all the time it has sold, the price has hardly changed. Some are offering free covers or reduced priced PSUs. What I want is just the radio, but for less money!

The trouble is people are prepared to buy at the current price and, like the FT817 from Yaesu, it has no real competition. It is almost as if the dealers have been "got at" to hold the current price.

One thing is certain: if I buy at the current price they will all offer it for far less within 6 weeks!

10m WSPR TX (500mW)

Although not on very long, I have already been spotted by IZ3LCH (1149km). I assume this is Es.

UPDATE 2105z: Lots of spots from OZ9QV (864km) this evening.

Excellent Moonraker service

Well, I succumbed and decided to buy an Inrico T320 network radio from Moonraker. The first unit had faulty software loaded. Without quibble, Moonraker despatched a replacement unit and collected the first unit. I cannot fault their customer care and I am very inclined to use them again. Well done!

Some are very sniffy about network radios saying this is not real amateur radio.  They use the internet (via wifi, 3G or 4G to connect with Echolink or similar services). Basically they are Android phones with a PTT in the style of a 2m or 70cm handheld. The beauty is they have full Android functionality as well (like BBC News, GPS, camera and email). This is not the same as traditional amateur radio, but I have already had great fun with mine. My first QSO was via GB3SD near Weymouth, Dorset.

I still prefer "traditional" amateur radio, but these have a definite place. One thing is very apparent: repeaters the world over have fewer stations using them. I am still exploring.

Late on 6m

It is now mid-afternoon and I have only now turned the gear on. As well as EU Es there is WP4G (6803km) in Puerto Rico calling CQ on 6m FT8.

HAARP WSPR tests

Last night, I decided not to bother with looking for WI2XFX in Alaska on 80m WSPR. They got no spots at all on 80m. They got 330 North American spots on 40m. I don't think they were spotted elsewhere.

My overall impression was they were HAARP experts but very amateur amateurs. I may be very wrong of course and if I am please accept my apologies. With 1GW ERP I would have expected global spots by the thousand, even on 80m.

UK Licences

Southgate News has a piece about the number of UK licencees based on numbers held by OFCOM. I am not sure how this compares with earlier years, but I would expect numbers to fall in the years ahead.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2018/august/ofcom-release-uk-ham-radio-callsign-figures.htm#.W2LhK_ZFzIV

OFCOM Communications Market Report

This is an annual publication. It shows spending has slightly fallen.

From their news release:

• Ofcom study shows how a decade of technological revolution has transformed our behaviour
• One in five people spend more than 40 hours a week online
• Brits now need constant connection to internet, and are checking their smartphone every 12 minutes.

See http://ofcom.createsend1.com/t/ViewEmail/i/CED64A205777B6672540EF23F30FEDED/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

Sunspots - Thursday August 2nd 2018

Sunspots!

Solar flux is 71 today and the sunspot number a massive 11. Yes, NOT zero!!! A=6 and K=3

Es going "off the boil"?

Today, there seems to be less Es on 10m and 6m.

Es can occur at any time, although May, June and July are the peak months in the northern hemisphere. I suspect with greater use of FT8, we'll find openings that in the past would have been missed.

I have certainly had QRP 6m SSB QSOs way into September by Es. Things are far from over. My recommendation is stick with 6m FT8 and be prepared to be surprised.