Iceland 9 years ago - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows Iceland 9 years ago. It is a beautiful country.

Yesterday on 6m FT8

Although I was spotted by fewer stations than a few weeks ago, I managed my first transatlantic 6m QSO in many years, this time with OX3LX (3283km) in western Greenland as well as being spotted by 3 stations in New England, USA. Not bad for 10W and a vertical omni antenna.

Seen earlier this week - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows what we saw at Anglesey Abbey on Tuesday.  A butterfly and bee are on a thistle.

Anglesey Abbey is a National Trust property about 5 miles from us that recently re-opened its gardens.  You have to pre-book. The house remains closed. There is plenty of opportunity for social distancing as the grounds are very big.

Online magazines

Someone kindly sent me a link to a 73 Magazine article.  All the 73 mags are there. No doubt other mags may be available too.

See https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-2003-07/page/n29/mode/2up

Just by changing the date file, other months can be accessed. If I knew this before, I had forgotten it! Hours of fun, HI.

Zoom dinners - NOT amateur radio

On the second Thursday of the month several old work colleagues would travel to different pubs in the area in turn for a meal and meet-up. The venue for the next meeting was decided at the end of each meal. We tried to vary the location so that on average most had venues near to them throughout the year. We met once a month. Attendance varied between 6 and 10.

With Covid-19 this is no longer possible so we meet instead, with a glass in hand, from our homes. These have been surprisingly successful. We meet again at 8pm tonight. I shall have a glass of whisky! One advantage is that nobody has to travel, so attendance has been good.

D4VHF (Cape Verde Is) antenna changes

John EI7GL has a piece on his blog about changes to the antennas at D4VHF.  They seem to be well equipped and the better stations in Europe, and elsewhere, are working them on many VHF bands.

See https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/2020/07/upgrade-of-d4vhf-station-vhf-microwave.html

Sunspots - Thursday July 9th 2020

Solar flux is 67 and the sunspot number 0.  A=2 and K=1.

6m FT8 (10W and the V2000 vertical omni)

For about 10 minutes I have been active on 6m FT8. It is now 0850z. Already 13 spots (mainly UK). Best DX spot is by SP7CDG (1429km). No QSOs yet.

UPDATE 1055z:  38 spots of me so far and 1 UK QSO.

UPDATE 1616z:  3 USA stations spotted my 10W to the vertical omni antenna earlier on 6m FT8. So far today, 73 stations have spotted me on 6m FT8. Best DX on 6m FT8 RX is K1OR (5258km).

UPDATE 1820z: 95 stations have spotted my 10W FT8 to the V2000 vertical omni on 6m today so far.

10m WSPR TX beacon (500mW into the indoor loop)

10m WSPR TX has just been turned on at 0840z. No spots yet.

UPDATE 1056z:  No spots received yet today on 10m WSPR.

Stations spotting me to 1920z

UPDATE 1920z:  So far today, 10 unique stations have spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR to the indoor loop.

Oscar 100 (geosynchronous) update

Every few weeks I try to give an update on activity levels on Oscar 100. I do this by checking the online SDR at Goonhilly Down in Cornwall.

My latest look suggests that activity levels are still quite low. To be honest activity levels look lower than the last time I looked. This is not scientific, more of a quick look to see how things are going.

It seems to me that people enjoy the challenge of getting a signal through the device then lose interest.

UPDATE 0856z:  On the narrowband section there were only 2 active stations just now!  I am quite surprised how quiet things are. I bet if there was a "black box" ŧhere would be far more activity. These days there are few real experimenters sadly.

See https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/