16 Jul 2020

ICOM IC-705

Apart from the price (too high), this is "my" sort of radio.

It produces 5W with the supplied battery pack and 10W with an external power supply. It covers all HF bands, 6m, 2m and 70cm with all modes. It may support 4m in a later firmware update. 5W is enough to work the world, even more true with FT8, even with simple wire antennas.

It also supports wireless LANs, D-STAR and Bluetooth. It has a built-in GPS receiver and micro SD slot. It is now on sale in Japan and soon will be across the world. Often there are a few bugs in early releases that are corrected with hardware or firmware changes. It is worth waiting for these to be corrected.

If I have missed any recent videos try searching for IC-705 on YouTube.

I am quite surprised that other manufacturers have not announced a rival. At the moment ICOM have this world beating marketing scoop all to themselves, so they set the market price. If Yaesu made their version the price would drop. It seems Yaesu have yet again missed the boat. The ICOM product was announced a year ago and Yaesu would appear to have done absolutely nothing. The FT818, when it eventually appeared, was a huge wasted marketing chance. In my view Yaesu have become followers and not the leaders they once were.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/ic705

Sunspots - Thursday July 16th 2020

Solar flux is 68 and the SSN 0. A=5 and K=0.

15 Jul 2020

Anglesey Abbey earlier - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows some of the things we saw in the grounds at Anglesey Abbey earlier.

10m FT8 (5W)

Just now I decided to go on 10m FT8 with the tiny indoor loop antenna and 5W. Plenty of stations spotted across Europe and 3 spots of me already from Scandinavia.

UPDATE 1915z:  37 unique stations have spotted my 5W 10m FT8 TX today. All were in Europe. On RX, 206 stations spotted with the best DX being J69DS (6840km) in St Lucia, West Indies.

DATV in the Netherlands

According to a piece in Southgate News VERON is encouraging operators to demonstrate DATV (digital amateur TV) on 2m in August.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2020/july/datv-in-2m-band-on-august-22.htm#.Xw6884jYq00

Facebook memory

The photo shows the sky 2 years ago. It appeared as a FB memory today.

Shack photo

The photo shows the shack earlier with the tiny indoor 10m band loop antenna on the left.

Collapit - NOT amateur radio

When I lived in Devon a long time ago one of my favourite spots was Collapit Creek on the Kingsbridge Estuary. This photo is probably over 100 years old and shows some people in a rowing boat. As a teenager I regularly saw kingfishers there.

Last night on 70cm

Every 2nd Tuesday in each month the RSGB holds an activity contest on 70cm. Although I normally stop on for less than an hour because of my poor voice, I usually submit a score in the AL (low power) section. I run 10W to the 2m big-wheel as I have no suitable 70cms antenna.

In the end I managed 5 QSOs with 2 at 105km. Although I have no chance of ever winning, I usually submit a score.

10m WSPR TX (500mW to the indoor loop)

10m WSPR spots of 
me last night to 2050z
As I needed my main rig (used on FT8) for the 70cm UKAC contest last night, I decided to put my W5OLF beacon on 10m WSPR.

Much to my surprise, I was spotted by 10 different stations all after 1900z.

Sunspots - Wednesday July 15th 2020

Solar flux is 69 today and the SSN 0. A=11 and K=0.

14 Jul 2020

East Anglian skies - NOT amateur radio

A variation of this photo has been on before. This part of the UK has few hills but big skies.

Dithering - NOT amateur radio

The English response to the Covid-19 pandemic is best summarised as "dithering". Now, I have no wish to criticise our politicians who have a thankless task, but I have a few observations.
  • Politicians rarely admit to mistakes.
  • We seem to make up policies "on the hoof" and weeks too late.

Sudden spike - NOT amateur radio

Just now I looked and supposedly I had more visitors than all day yesterday and it is only 0700z!

Now, it would be very nice if these were all genuine visitors, but somehow I doubt this! I shall have to check my other blogs to see if they have had similar spikes.

Yep, several of my other blogs have similar spikes, in some cases a few days ago.  Usually this is a result of hackers probing for vulnerabilities.  Go away!

10m FT8 (5W and indoor loop)

At about 0648z, I decided to go on 10m FT8. Normally I try 10m WSPR, but today I thought I'd start on FT8. So far, at 0700z, just one spot by G0LRD (26km). On 10m FT8 RX, 1 Spanish station spotted.

UPDATE 0722z:  Now spotted strongly by IZ0GIY (1529km). Another Spanish station spotted on RX.

UPDATE 1824z: 306 stations spotted on RX with best DX RM8L (4064km) in Asiatic Russia. On TX 28 spots of me (all European)

The new normal - NOT amateur radio

We have got in the habit of shopping early on Tuesday morning. I go to the local bakers and my wife does the food shopping in "geriatric hour". She never queues and has no problem with social distancing.

The photo shows the queue outside the door of our bakers just before the doors opened.

Back garden - NOT amateur radio

Earlier I mentioned that we thought our garden would look sparse this year. In fact it has been good. The photo shows another view of the back garden.

Tenner 10m transceiver

Many years ago I designed and made a simple 500mW transceiver for 10m CW. Much DX was worked with it. These days I have not used CW for a long time. It was VXO controlled and used a direct conversion receiver.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/10m_tenner

Yesterday on 10m WSPR TX

Yesterday underlined the difficulty with 10m WSPR. Overall I am surprised that people are still using WSPR on 10m. At a guess, I would say activity levels are at most 10% of those of FT8.  Most days I get spotted on 10m WSPR, but FT8 spots and QSOs are easier.

FT8 is about 10dB worse than WSPR, but it does allow real QSOs with 15 second TX periods compared with 120 seconds for WSPR. This makes FT8 better for shorter openings.

In all, 6 unique stations spotted my 10m WSPR yesterday.

East Cambs net last night

Last night we had a record number of people on the 2m FM net on 144.575MHz. There were so many people I sometimes got the order wrong! Most people were good signals here.

This net is held every Monday night and all in the area are very welcome. We normally close the net at about 8.30pm local time, although often some stay on longer to natter.