6m FT8 today

At the moment there is far less Es about on 6m than yesterday. Mid morning saw a little Es from northern Spain and Sweden.  A brief 6m QRP CQ after breakfast received 4 UK spots, but no QSOs.

Windmill at sunset - NOT amateur radio

We live right next door to a 200 year old restored windmill. One of our grandchildren believes the grass around it is part of our garden! This is a view of the mill at sunset last night taken from our garden.

The windmill is part of our excellent museum. This is probably one of the best local museums in the whole UK. It goes on and on and on. There is so much there. Most who come say it exceeds their expectations.

See http://www.burwellmuseum.org.uk/

Sunspots - Friday July 13th 2018

Solar flux is 73 today and the sunspot number still 0. A=8 and K=2.

10m

This season, I have been concentrating on 10m WSPR TX. Certainly 6m FT8 is easier with spots every time I TX with QRP.

On 10m WSPR TX (500mW) it seems much harder. I have had days with loads of European spots and the occasional days with spots from South America.

This Es season I have not tried 10m SSB or CW. I suspect it would be easier to get 10m SSB QSOs than WSPR spots!

UPDATE 0910z: No 10m WSPR spots.

UPDATE 1752z: 7 unique stations spotted me today. Best DX spot was by EA8BFK (2880km).

UPDATE 2147z: QRT.

6m FT8

Although I have been on 6m FT8 for about 30 minutes, the only spots on RX are Gs. As usual, a brief QRP CQ brought spots from several Gs, but there were no Es spots.

UPDATE 0857z: Plenty of 6m FT8 RX spots now from the Canary Is, Iberia and Bulgaria. Best DX on 6m FT8 RX so far is EB8AC (2989km).

UPDATE  1755z: Too many 6m FT8 RX Es spots today. The logbook is filled with EU stations and Canary Is. spots.

UPDATE 2147z: QRT.

4m (70MHz) band

More and more countries are getting access to the 4m band.  The latest seems to be Israel that has been given access this summer on a temporary basis. I keep saying that I should try the band - maybe next year?

Although I have been on the band briefly with a very unsuitable antenna and homebrew transverter and working over 200km with about 1W CW, this was many years ago.

Also, I remember working ZB2VHF with 4W of AM on 70.26MHz from university in the late 1960s. I don't recall the antenna, but it was not a beam I seem to remember.

See http://www.70mhz.org/

Transatlantic FM DX

Southgate News reports that Newfoundland Band II FM signals were copied in Northern Ireland.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2018/july/88-mhz-trans-atlantic-signals-heard-in-ireland.htm#.W0Zy8fZFzIU

Sunspots - Thursday July 12th 2018

Solar flux is 73 today with the SSN still zero. A=8 and K=1.

Trump balloon - NOT amateur radio

President Trump is visiting the UK and many here do not want him. Apparently there is a balloon of him in a nappy (diaper blimp flying over London). He has already managed to upset the German chancellor by his remarks.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-44798408/donald-trump-baby-blimp-ready-to-take-first-steps

Echolink

For the first time in about 6 years, I had a couple of QSOs via distant repeaters using Echolink on the PC. It was so long since I used the system that both my email had lapsed and I had forgotten my password! I had to send a copy of my licence to get re-validated.

This morning I was listening to a repeater QSO in Christchurch, New Zealand and this afternoon I had a QSO with a hand-portable via a repeater near London and then a QSO via a repeater in northern Hungary with HA9OX. Quite fun.

The overall impression was repeater activity around the world is low: I had to work quite hard to find anyone to talk with. Maybe I should try Zello or IRN? Activity levels in the USA surprised me. I thought it would be quite easy to find activity in the local mornings on the urban repeaters over there, but all were quiet.

Now I know it works I can try again.