10m Phaser kit

A very kind amateur in Scotland is building this for me as my fine motor skills are not up to it now. He is making a very good job of it. Hopefully it will be used on 10m FT8. This frees up the main rig. It is a phasing SSB transceiver designed by Dave Benson K1SWL and sold by Midnight Design Solutions in the USA.

Walk - NOT amateur radio

This was my wife and 2 of our grandchildren on a recent walk. 

Sunspots - Thursday September 2nd 2021

 Solar flux is 84 and the SSN 35. A=4 and K=1. 

10m FT8 RX yesterday

 Although the Es season is winding down the F2 propagation to South America is there. Yesterday evening 6 South Americans spotted on 10m FT8 RX with the furthermost LU2MCX (11598km) in Argentina.

Me in 1968 - NOT amateur radio

The photo shows me in 1968 when I still had hair. 

Oscar 100 activity

Every few weeks I take a look at activity on the narrowband transponder of this geosynchronous satellite. My last unscientific peek was Tuesday at about 2115z.  Activity levels remain low. 

See https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/ .

Sunspots - Wednesday September 1st 2021

 Solar flux is 84 and the SSN 37. A=7 and K=2. 

Simple regen RX

 There is little to beat the sheer thrill of copying stations on a very simple homebrew RX. 

The one on my website is one example, but there are plenty on the net. I was surprised just how well something so simple works. Yes, SDRs and complex rigs may be better, but you too may be surprised how well such simple circuits can work.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/80m-or-40m-regen-rx .

I even made mine into a simple 80m transceiver!

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/feter-80m-qrpp-cw-transceiver .

With the grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

This photo was taken on a walk about the sleepy village of Reach earlier today. It drizzled! We explored some new paths.

It shows my wife with two of the grandchildren 

10m FT8 QRP (Tuesday)

As usual, I did a brief TX slot with 2.5W (spotted by 2 stations including EA6) , but now RX only. Es evident with 16 stations spotted on RX.

UPDATE 1453z:  35 stations (all in Europe) spotted on 10m FT8 so far today.

UPDATE 1914z:  Just 37 Europeans spotted so far with no sign of stations in South America. 

UPDATE 2052z:  Just one South American spotted on 10m FT8 RX and he was only just spotted.

UPDATE 2114z: Now 6 South Americans spotted. I think they seem to be coming through later now. QRT soon.