Our granddaughter is doing some homework on family history. I can trace ours continuously back to the mid 1500s with 1 record in the 1400s. I shall have to dig these out!
1 Jun 2022
8m experiment (Wednesday)
It is now 0840z. For about 20 minutes, I have been on 8m FT8 QRP TX (first) on 40.680 MHz USB dial. No spots on RX or TX so far.
UPDATE 1103z: "p***ing in the wind" was the phrase my dad would have used in his colourful language! I have been on 8m TX for over two hours and I have not been spotted once. On RX, not a soul has been spotted. I am on FT8. I have never been closer to stopping my experiment.
Higher than expected solar peak?
At the moment, we are on target for a solar peak higher than we expected.
This could cause higher disruption to telecoms infrastructure, but openings stronger on the higher HF bands and 6m. For radio amateurs, this could be good news.
31 May 2022
2m FT8 QRP
As 10m seemed dire, I decided to go on 2m FT8 with 5W from the IC-705. Immediately, I was spotted by a couple of stations.
UPDATE 1605z: Already my 5W to the big wheel omni antenna has been spotted by 9 stations including a couple in Northern Ireland. Who needs beams and high power?
UPDATE 1844z: 20 stations have spotted me so far. On 2m FT8 RX the furthermost spotted is DL2ART (499km).
SLF amateur DX
Today, I heard about some remarkable experiments at 270Hz using earth-electrode antennas.
Hello OM'S!
After successful 470 Hz transmissions, we (DK7FC, DL3JPN and DL7NN) tried to push to even longer wavelengths. The next goal is/was 270 Hz, i.e. 1111 km wavelength. First, the existing ground loop at the transmitter site had to be resonated by enlarging the series capacitor. After all, 116 µF was required.
According to the wavelength / 2 PI definition, in this case we reach the far field after 178.8 km. The distance between our locations is 324 km, which is far field by definition. Since Stefan's reception was exclusively in the E-field, a simple coupling of the magnetic field could be ruled out. After an integration time of 4.5 hours, Stefan achieved a carrier S/N of 17.84 dB in a bandwidth of 62.2 µHz. Even in the spectrogram heavily overlaid with summery QRN, the carrier was still visible. For comparison, the 270.005 Hz transmission at a distance of 4 km from the transmitter on the DL0HOT grabber with a bandwidth of 3.8 mHz.
This may have been the first successful detection of far-field SLF transmission by radio amateurs.
73
Albrecht
DL7NN
10m WSPR QRP TX
As my 10m antenna (not the PC) is free, I am on 10m WSPR TX with the 500mW W5OLF beacon. Nobody has spotted me yet. I first turned it on about 0928z.
At the moment, I have not seen evidence of Es here.
UPDATE 1243z: Nobody has spotted me yet today.
UPDATE 1954z: Back on 10m WSPR again with my 500mW beacon. There is a little Es about with spots of me by OE3XOE (1233km).
Heathkits
When I was young (OK a long time ago!) Heathkits were popular. They sold some very good kits that made some classy pieces of equipment including VHF and HF transceivers.
In recent years, they tried to make a comeback, but their range was poor and overpriced. Their website still exists, although goodness knows how! They must have some very dedicated followers. With low cost kits from China, making kits for radio amateurs must be very hard these days unless the kits are good and the price is very competitive.
As mentioned yesterday, I coveted the valved HW30 2m AM transceiver. I realised that my website did not have a page on this, so I have added one.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/vhfuhf-commercial-rigs/hw30 .
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit for the whole Heathkit story.
My whole professional career and hobby of 60 years owes a lot to Heathkit since my dad bought me a Heathkit Electronics Workhop for Christmas 1961.
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