Sunspots - Wednesday March 23rd 2022

 Solar flux is 106 and the SSN 81.  A=8 and K=2.

Mousa sunrise - NOT amateur radio

This photo was on 365project a few weeks ago. It shows the sunrise over Mousa in the Shetland Is.

8m QSO between Croatia and South Africa

The EI7GL blog has details of a first 8m QSO between Croatia and South Africa.

See https://ei7gl.blogspot.com .

Geeks - NOT amateur radio

It is good we are all different. 

My thing is radio, but the man in the photo obviously likes model railways. 

This was at the "Burwell at Large" exhibition earlier in the week, where local societies put on stalls.

6m FT8 QRP (Tuesday)

For a change, I am on 6m FT8 QRP. I turned things on (2.5W to the vertical omni V2000) just before 0900z. 2 Gs spotted me on TX, but nothing yet on RX. At the moment, I am RX only.

UPDATE 1025z:   10 G stations spotted on RX.

UPDATE 1120z:    16 stations spotted (mostly Gs) with the furthermost SM5EPO (1344km).

UPDATE 1317z:    23 stations spotted, all G apart from 2 in continental Europe.

UPDATE 1350z:    Still 23 stations spotted on RX. A brief TX period just now at 2.5W was spotted by G0OPQ (50km), but no QSOs. RX only again now.

UPDATE 2108z:   29 stations spotted today on 6m FT8 RX (see logbook). QRT soon.

UPDATE 2137z:   One late QSO with G3YDY (98km). Now QRT.

Sunspots - Tuesday March 22nd 2022

Solar flux is 98 and the SSN 30. A=4 and K=3. 

Sad news

There is a report on Southgate News that Giles Read, who was the technical editor of RadCom, has died suddenly of cancer.

See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2022/march/giles-read-g1mfg-sk.htm#.YjjIRorP3rc .

Two Beofengs for £22.99

Although I have not looked around, I see you can buy 2 Beofeng 5W UHF hand portables on eBay for £22.99.  On the way somebody makes a profit. I know quality control is a bit hit and miss but these prices are stupid.  They come with batteries, chargers, carrying straps and belt clips. How do they do it and make profits?

Flying Scotsman - NOT amateur radio

A few days ago my son was lucky enough to see the Flying Scotsman steam train going through on an excursion. I think it was going to Margate. 

G3XBM grabber

Some browsers will not allow page embedding for security reasons. 

If you can see embedded pages you may be amused to look at my grabber, that is mostly on 10m FT8 RX.  If embedding does not work on your browser, there is an alternative link. 

As you can tell, 10m is pretty good now and has been in recent days.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/10m-ft8-grabber .