18 Jun 2021
Wicken - NOT amateur radio
Motherhood?
There have been radio amateurs for over 100 years.
Like many things today, I can understand why somethings are done - to protect people - yet often the unintended consequences make things worse, not better.
Take for example the EU rules on data protection. Now most web pages have a pop-up about cookies. Most people either just say "yes" without reading or use a pop-up blocker so the message never appears. Most find these very annoying! The intention was good, but in reality by not reading the small print we could be accepting all sorts of rubbish!
It is a bit like the recent licence changes to protect the general public from harmful EMF. Yes, of course, this is admirable, but how have we managed for over 100 years?
I am not sure what the answer is. What is missing is common sense.
Before agreeing to any changes, think of the unintended consequences. If overall things could be more harmful, think again. We seem to be moving ever more in a more stupid direction.
Pound versus Euro
We left the EU completely some months ago. The EU is far from perfect, but I voted in 2016 to remain "in". Overall we voted by a small margin to leave.
Despite the difficulties of trading with the EU, the UK Pound seems to have appreciated against the Euro.
Personally, I would have preferred a softer BREXIT especially as the vote was close. I suspect the EU misses the contributions to its budget from the UK.
We will have to find our own way in the future. Only time will tell if we were right or wrong.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cx250jmk4e7t/pound-sterling-gbp
Nuclear fusion - NOT amateur radio
For almost my entire life, the gold at the end of the rainbow was nuclear fusion (not fission) with its promise of almost endless low cost energy with no pollution. At every point we seem to have hit hurdles and I cannot see it being reality in my lifetime. I hope in the end the technical issues can be overcome.
Things may have moved a step closer with a new research facility at Oxford funded by Jeoff Bazos. This is reported by the BBC to cost £400M.
See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57512229 .
MeSquares
For "one-off" projects, MeSquares can be a good solution. The photo shows my 10FT8R RX using MeSquares.
These are simply snapped out and glued down to plain copper clad board. The copper clad board makes an excellent RF ground plane and the MeSquares excellent islands.
If glued down carefully (unlike mine!), a very neat layout is possible.
See www.qrpme.com .
17 Jun 2021
Lightning
We escaped the storms last night. It rained, but that was all. We missed again last night the storms are creeping up from France and thunderstorms and heavy rain are forecast for tomorrow.
See https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=0.00;ts=0;z=6;y=50.6182;x=0.3762;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;
2m activity contest (June) published
Every month, if I am free, I go on the UKAC activity contests organised by the RSGB. Although I submit entries running 10W SSB to a 2m omni antenna I have no chance of ever winning!
I only enter the 2m and 70cm legs. Mostly I go on for fun and the activity. Without trying at all hard I see I am still about third down the table in the low power section. Activity levels on SSB are very good. I think these sessions are primarily for clubs, although I just go on as me. There is no compulsion to submit a score.
See https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/vhfresults.pl?Contest=144MHz%20UKAC&Date=&year=2021 .
WebSDR in the Netherlands
Tjeerd PA3GNZ has a webSDR online. It is interesting to listen to.
See http://77.170.220.27:8073/#freq=144174000,mod=usb,secondary_mod=ft8,sql=-150
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