ICOM IC-705 USB drivers

This afternoon I had every intention of loading the USB drivers for the IC-705 on my shack Window 10 PC. However, every time I tried recently it said the site for ICOM Japan was "not available" and I got pointed to the Wayback Machine.

This must be a temporary glitch as I managed to upgrade the firmware OK from this site recently. I can wait.

Perhaps I should learn a new schematics capture package instead!

Japan from Western Europe on 6m

As regular as clockwork, stations in western Europe make contact with Japan on 6m in June. I was reminded of this by mention of sprites in the USA on Southgate News. 

Personally I believe these Japanese openings are due to E layer ionisation as a result of noctilucent clouds.

Japan worked on 6m

Yesterday, I gather Japanese stations were being worked on 6m from the UK. I presume this was FT8 although I am not sure. I spotted nothing on my modest set-up!

These openings seem to happen every year at this time. I am sure big antennas must help.  It is 2 years now since I last spotted Japanese stations on 6m. That was JT65. In the last 2 years I have concentrated on FT8.

There seems to be a correlation between these openings and noctilucent clouds in the mesosphere.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/noctilucent

No Japanese here on 160m FT8

So, the evening passed and not a single Japanese station spotted on 1.908MHz FT8. Seeing how every time I go on 160m FT8 I spot North Americans this surprised me, as I expected to see at least one. What surprised me was the high number of Europeans on FT8 in that part of the band.

Later, more in hope than expectation, I shall probably revert to 10m FT8 RX on 28.074MHz.

Dayton disapointment

So it looks like, better late than never, Yaesu and Kenwood are joining the SDR club.

However, what I see looks like a couple of expensive transceivers aimed at those with deep pockets rather than those with more modest budgets to spend on the hobby.

Will we ever see the Japanese produce a low cost SDR (portable?) transceiver? The Chinese are coming up fast and will soon have truly competitive products in terms of performance and build quality at much lower prices. Unless they are very careful, the Japanese will be too late to the party.

Japanese amateur allocations

Southgate News has a piece today linking the Japanese amateur allocations in English. I could see no mention of the WRC 60m allocation in Japan, although I may have missed this.

Incidentally Southgate News is taking a 4 day break. I wonder if the complier is off to Dayton? 😊

See www.tele.soumu.go.jp/resource/e/search/share/2013/t1.pdf

13 Japanese stations spotted today on 6m JT65

This is the best day so far this season on 6m JT65 with 13 (thirteen) different Japanese stations spotted around breakfast time today. Interesting that none at all was from Tokyo or its suburbs. Sadly, no spots of me from Japan.

I am amazed how easily I am spotting these with my poor setup here.

At the moment, I am still on 6m JT65 in beacon mode sending "B G3XBM JO02" near the top of the JT65 sub-section.

UPDATE 0932z: as well as all the Japanese spots on 6m JT65 I notice 7A7YYZ (13582km) was spotted early on 6m JT65. If genuine, this is long way on a VHF band. I have spotted different Indonesians several times, and find it hard to think they are all pirates. There were so many Japanese that I am sure Far East 6m propagation is genuine.

Japan (again) and South Korea on 6m JT65 this morning

For the third morning in a row Japan was again coming in on 6m JT65. Today there were 10 Japanese stations copied! Also a couple of South Koreans. Amazing conditions for a VHF band! All this was around 0830-1000z.

There was also a spot of C3NY/UM0NGN, but I was not sure if this was Andorra or Turkmenistan!

The best DX on 6m JT65 RX was 9495km - quite an incredible distance for a VHF band.

Japan again copied on 6m JT65

Although not reported to PSK reporter maps I again spotted Japan on 6m JT65 this morning when JH6VXP (-23dB S/N) was copied calling a European at 0749z. There is plenty of European Es on 6m this morning as well as 4X4.

UPDATE 1420z:  Although there is reasonable amount of Es on 6m JT65, I think there is a bit less than yesterday.

UPDATE 2126z: 6m JT65 has opened to the USA this evening after an excellent Es day. My 1W ERP JT65 was widely copied across Europe.

Tokyo Ham Fair reminder

Often this is the place where new rigs are first announced. I doubt many outside Japan will be able to go, but it is often worth keeping an eye out for announcements and videos after the event.

20 & 21 AUGUST : TOKYO HAM FAIR

Tokyo International Exhibition Center, 3-11-1 Ariake, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan 135-0063.

UK prices for Japanese radios

My comments on UK prices for Japanese radios was also reported on www.amateurradio.com yet not one dealer or Japanese manufacturer has said, "not so".

OK, they may not read the blogs mentioned (mine and http://www.amateurradio.com/) but I think I must have hit the nail on the head and that we are indeed paying too much for Japanese gear here in the UK. My own blog is read by thousands most days, so the silence tells me a lot.

Get those prices down please.

I want dealers and manufacturers to make fair profits and to remain in business but, please, don't rip us off.

6m Es - yes! 6m super DX?

6m WSPR has come to life with spots exchanged several times this afternoon with EA1KV (1304km).  DL4MFC (916km) spotted me on 6m WSPR at 1356z. Perhaps the 6m Es season is taking off at last? I notice there is thunder over central Europe. I wonder if this is helping? Sprites? I know one of the theories for Es involves thunder activity and upward movement into the E layer. Es is pretty complex.

No idea if the better equipped stations are working from Western Europe to Japan on 6m. This path seems to open every year around now, and some theories suggest reflections from mesospheric noctilucent clouds which are more common around this time of year. I suspect reflections would be possible right up to microwaves, but I doubt anyone is trying. See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/noctilucent .

I am very suspicious of some of the multi-hop explanations for very long path Es. To me, there has to be a better explanation. Es yes. Multi-hop? Really? I have my doubts.  Some Europeans may indeed be multi-hop but some of the openings to South East Asia, Africa and South America?  I really doubt that many of these are multi-hop Es in the way most understand this. Some sort of chordal hops perhaps?

China v. Japan

Up to now, the Japanese "big boys" such as Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu have pretty well dominated the amateur radio market, but the Chinese are on the march. Only last month I bought a 30W pep all mode rig for 10m: this was made in China. See also yesterday's post about 40m Pixie kits at ridiculously low prices.

Be in no doubt: within a few years we will see the amateur radio market flooded with quality products made in China with low prices. At this point, the traditional Japanese brands will die out or be made in China. By the next solar minimum in around 4-5 years time the dynamics of the commercial amateur radio market will be very different. The writing is already on the wall.

Up to now most Chinese amateur products have lacked the finesse of Japanese products but this is rapidly changing. We are fast approaching the time when Chinese made amateur products will be every bit as good as Japanese products, but at very much lower prices.

In the end competition is healthy but this is likely to result in the death nell for all manufacturers not in China. We could well see the death of Ten Tec and Elecraft unless they design in the USA and make in China. The volumes of loyal customers who would be willing to pay USA manufacturing prices would be far too low, sadly.

Of course, we have already seen this with most consumer products and white goods. In the end, China will become too expensive and we will look for slave labour rates elsewhere. Sadly we live in a very odd world. This cannot go on for ever, but we are all complicit. At the moment we are exporting most of our manufacture to China.

Life was, in a way, so much easier when things were made to last, they were made in the UK, we saved up to buy things we really needed, when things were altogether less consumption driven.

First 10m WSPR spots from Japan and USA here today

JH1GYE (9380km) was spotting me at 0834z this morning and I have spotted him too. JH6LAV was also spotted this morning

WB4CSD (6025km) spotted my 2W 10m WSPR signal today at 1224z. This was the first (for me) in the USA today. Since then, WSPR spots have been exchanged with several stations in the USA. Since before breakfast Europeans have been spotted here and this has continued all day.

Japan Ham Fair 2012

http://onjapan.net/2012/hamfair/icom-kenwood-yaesu.html

The recent Japanese ham fair in Tokyo showcased the latest products about to hit the market in the coming months. Included was the IC-7100 all-mode, all band (including 4m) 100W mobile. What was not there was the long awaited FT-817 replacement.  A product I have not seen mentioned yet is the Yaesu FTM-400D digital VHF/UHF radio. I don't think this is a D-star radio, so what form of digital modulation does it use? Is this a Japan only product?

Japanese Hamsat off to Venus

On May 17 Japan's Space Agency plans to launch a mission to Venus. It will also be carrying a 35cm cubed nano-satellite developed by universities and colleges. This nano-satellite will go into a Venus encounter trajectory and will become the world first university satellite which goes beyond the moon. It will perform technology experiments and test long-range, inter-planetary communication using amateur radio frequencies:

Downlink Frequency: 5840.000MHz, band width 20MHz
Transmission Power: 4.8W/antenna, 9.6W total
Antenna: 2 Microstrip patch antennas
Modulation: AFSK/FM 1200bps during LEO flight
CW 1bps during Interplanetary flight