10m 200mW WSPR (Sunday)

 My beacon was turned on at about 0905z.

UPDATE 1730z:   3 European stations spotting me.

We haven't seen anything yet

We can all agree (I think), that the world is now more dangerous than at any point in the lives of most people born after WW2. It is my view, sadly, that things are going to get far worse.

Most trade is now dependent on long supply chains. If any link in the chain is disrupted or broken the trade collapses.  

Likewise energy. Many things depend on energy. As well as food, think about transport, the internet, water, sewers, money, etc.. If one link collapses the whole of society could collapse.

I sincerely hope we don't reach this stage, but we are far more interconnected than we think.

Let's hope we wake up.  The model that has served us for many years is creaking.

Meshtatic, Meshcore and LoRa

It seems to me that very few radio amateurs now experiment. 

Most just want to talk or tick off more DXCC entities using modes like FT8. Most have no idea how their expensive black box works! Sadly, very few now embody the true spirit of amateur radio. 

In 20 years there will be little left of our hobby.

The new challenge seems to be LoRa, Meshcore or Meshtatic . This is licence free technology. It seems to be in its infancy, much like amateur radio was in the early days. I have not dabbled in this...... yet. 

The problem at the moment seems to be there are few nodes in rural areas. As this system relies on meshes, not the internet, the more users the better.

USB issues on PC

 Yesterday, I tried a different transceiver with my Windows 10 PC. That didn't work either! 

I have come to the conclusion that my USB connector is not working, or working correctly. This needs further investigation. At the moment it means I cannot use FT8, just WSPR with my 200mW beacon.

Sunspots - Sunday May 17th

 Solar flux is 109 and the SSN 83. A=34 and K=2.

10m 200mW WSPR (Saturday)

My beacon was turned on at about 1445z.

UPDATE 2131z: No spots of me today. Now QRT.

Crisis in Cuba?

It would seem that Cuba is now in deep crisis. It was dependent on fuel from Russia and then Venezuela , both of which have essentially gone. 

It goes to show how heavily dependent we are on energy. It could happen in the UK and the EU.

Quantum computing

Whoever gets there first will have an enormous advantage, being able to run calculations so much faster than conventional computers and do analysis fast on a truly huge scale.

Perhaps Microsoft is first? I did not realise this was a year ago!!

See https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/innovation/microsofts-majorana-1-chip-carves-new-path-for-quantum-computing/

UPDATE  1112z: Some scientists appeared to be sceptical about Microsoft's claims pointing to Google's Willow chip. I do not know, but can understand just how important a breakthrough will be to companies and governments.

8m FT8 RX (Saturday)

For fun, I might go on 8m FT8 RX later in the hope of spotting some EAs by Es. If things are dire I may try 6m later.

UPDATE 1225z: Monitoring 8m FT8 RX. Nobody spotted. I may try 6m FT8 later. For now, I shall continue on 8m FT8.

10m FT8 (Saturday)

Today I hope to get to the bottom of why there is no TX audio on FT8 using the IC-705.