World Cup rugby - NOT amateur radio

Although not a great rugby fan, I see that Japan beat Scotland yesterday 28-21. The game was in doubt because of the typhoon. At least the match took place and the host nation goes on.

BREXIT deal coming? - NOT amateur radio

Although it is hard to tell, I get the feeling that the UK and EU are struggling to reach a last minute deal.

The UK leaving the EU without a deal would be messy and almost certainly not good for the UK or the EU. No doubt we will find out more this week. Likewise, further delay cannot be good.

UPDATE 1244z:  The UK pound has been falling all morning. I guess the markets are scared of a no-deal this week.

Optical communications

G4HJW's over the horizon 

(9km disatan) optical signal

Before my 2013 stroke, I really enjoyed my experiments out in the field with homebrew optical kit. Everything was home made: the electronics, the optics and even some of the test gear. This really is an area that is ideal for simple homebrewing. Sadly, I am too wobbly to do field work these days.  Truthfully, all the gear can be made in the "back of the garage" (mine was!) and it is easier than microwaves as all you need is a scope, multimeter and a weak LED source.

My "specialisation" was over the horizon weak optical signals. I managed to reach 8.1km non line-of-sight using a 481THz red LED with QRSS3. Nothing at all could be seen in the sky, yet there was perfect decoding on the PC. Had I been fit, I am sure much further would have been possible. As there were no clouds, I think this was clear air scattering.

What was needed was a much better tripod which was more stable and could be repeatably set in the right direction. My cheap tripod was wobbly and far from suitable. Accurate alignment is important. Once aligned there was the signal.

G4HJW's signal was way above the noise at 9km non line-of-sight (see photo above).

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/optical

Iceland church - NOT amateur radio

We went to Iceland for a holiday in 2011, not knowing what to expect. We thought it would be barren, but instead it was green mostly with lots of lupins to be seen. We very much liked it.

Several churches were seen, often heated geothermally, including the one in the photo.

If you get a chance, do go there. When we went in August, it was not cold. In fact in one of the towns in the north people took off their shirts!

Sunspots - Monday October 14th 2019

Solar flux is 67 and the SSN 0. A=2 and K=2.

Return to 472kHz WSPR

At about 1815z, I returned to 472kHz WSPR using my 10mW ERP from the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground. Already I have been spotted by 4 stations with the best spot being by F5WK (364km).

Fridge - NOT amateur radio

For some reason people have a fascination with looking in the fridges of other people.

Ours is as boring as most are!

Web SDRs

Even if your local noise level is high, you can still take a look at the HF bands by using a web based SDR RX. A good place to start is http://www.websdr.org/ . This has links to many SDR receivers around the world, so you can even listen to the bands as if you were elsewhere on the planet.

Webpage about 2m FT8

On my main website is a page about 2m FT8.  This mode has transformed 2m.  There is probably less SSB and CW operation, but every day, irrespective of conditions, DX that was previously unimaginable with QRP becomes possible. Almost without fail my QRP is copied at any time in Cornwall and Northern Ireland. This seems more like "flat band" tropo than aircraft, which would only work at certain times.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/vuhf/2m-ft8

80m chirps?

Southgate News has a report from the IARU about odd chirps that have recently appeared on 80m.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2019/october/mysterious-chirps-in-80m-band.htm