"Boomers" lucky?

 "Baby boomers" is a term (certainly here in the UK) to describe the children growing up after WW2 into the 1960s. Later generations have been termed Gen Z, Millennials, etc..

We were lucky enough in many cases to have final salary pensions, come out of university without debts and the ability to afford houses. Jobs were often for life.

Certainly here in the UK things are harder. Few people have guaranteed pensions and few can afford houses without rich parents. Most leave university with huge debts. Jobs are hard to find.

At the same time, what is accepted by one generation is different. When I was young we had no phone, no car, no microwave, no mobile phones, no takeaways, no fridge and one TV channel (by the way no TV at all until I was aged 8!).

Yes, overall I think we were lucky, although the threat of nuclear war was always there. 

I think life was simpler and we were happier than the young of today. I think we owe the next generations all the help we can give them.

Hallicrafters

This was a very popular company back when I was young. 

This (very American!) video looks into the history of the Company. Back in the early 1960s I nearly got a Hallicrafters RX from G4PJ.

"Just Have A Think" on climate change

In recent times there have been a raft of scientific papers about climate change. Many point to a world that is warming faster than we once thought.

I get very annoyed with those who deny climate change as "fake news" when the evidence is self-evident.  We risk leaving our children and grandchildren a damaged world.

The "Just have a think" video is about this this week.

Is Russia in trouble?

The Russians have published figures which downgrade the growth in the Russian economy. Structural weakness?

YouTube AI

It is sad that what you view these days may not be true. 

Using AI videos supposedly by a famous person may not be by this person at all! This is why I never trust a channel I don't know to be genuine as there are a lot of fakes around. 

People can make lots of money by visits to their sites, even if the contents are a load of rubbish.

10m 200mW WSPR (Monday)

 My beacon was turned on just before breakfast.

UPDATE 1335z:  Spotted widely by Es. So far, spotted by 17 stations.

Sunspots - Monday May 18th

 Solar flux is 104 and  the SSN 86. A=8 and K=2.

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.