22 Oct 2026

10m 1W FT8 (Thursday)

 My gear was turned on at about 0445z

UPDATE 0647z:Just 1 local station spotting me.

160m FT8 overnight

Last night I did not go on 160m FT8 overnight. The evening before lots of stations spotted on this side of the pond. 

Sunspots - Thursday October 22nd

 Solar flux is 115 and the SSN 66. A=19 and K=2.

21 Oct 2026

Sunspots - Wednesday October 21st

 Solar flux is 121 and the SSN 66. A=8 and K=3.

20 Oct 2026

160m FT8 RX (Tuesday)

 My gear (IC-705 and earth electrode "antenna" in the ground) was turned on at about 1655z.  As it is wet outside the effective loop will be slightly smaller so results may be down on yesterday.

UPDATE 1708z:   22 stations spotted.

The start?

There was an outage (allegedly) of some Google Cloud services according to the BBC.  This may be an innocent technical issue or it could be hacking by a foreign power out to do mischief.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c58jd2kjp93xt

UPDATE 1227z:  They claim it was "a power event".  Hmmm.

Ukraine

President Trump wants a fast end to the Ukraine war. 

Allegedly, he seems more allied to Putin and less to Zelensky. The midterm elections are fast approaching and gas prices in the USA are still too high.

10m 1W FT8 (Tuesday)

My gear was turned on at about 0815z.

UPDATE 0902z: So far, spotted by 5 stations several by F2 I think. 

Stations received

UPDATE 0936z:  44 stations spotted here on RX (see map).

UPDATE 1015z:   My QRP has been spotted by 14 stations so far with the best RA0SMS (6428km) in Asiatic Russia.
Stations receiving my 10m FT8 QRP

UPDATE  1650z: Spotted by 133 stations today (see map) on 5 continents.

160m FT8 RX overnight


Overnight, I left my gear on.  241 stations were spotted mostly before midnight. Nothing transatlantic again. Once again using the IC-705 and earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground (totally invisible!!).

Sunspots - Tuesday October 20th

 Solar flux is 121 and the SSN 66. A=2 and K=1.1