These are coming out in our garden.
19 Jun 2022
18 Jun 2022
That book
This week I was in Yorkshire for my wife's sibling reunion, so progress on the book was limited. My new deadline is June 27th when I hope to go to Devon to see my brother for the first time since 2019. My wife is still at home.
So, the deadline is now June 27th before I leave. This time I am going by coach as the train may be unreliable. The book is coming on, but there was more work than I expected. In a way it is my legacy. I hope you have as much fun as I had.
Sheffield Station - NOT amateur radio
This week we went by train to Barnsley for our annual sibling reunion changing at Sheffield. We have met on 19 occasions.
Rybakov HF verticals
Some years ago I bought one from SRC in Wales. Although I believe this is no longer available, they all have one thing in common: the end of the antenna is a high impedance, so a transformer is needed to get the SWR into the range of auto ATUs found on modern rigs. Usually this is an UNUN built into the antenna.
In getting things together for my free PDF book, I realised this was absent from my website! This is now corrected. As mine had been unused in the back of the garage, I swapped mine for an active RX antenna that works well. The swap was with Jason M0NYW.
See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/antennas/x80_1 .
8m experiment (Saturday)
As usual, I am on 40.680 MHz USB dial QRP FT8. Already spotted very strongly by EA3ERE (1153km) in northern Spain.
My usual pattern is to be on for about one hour. let the rig thoroughly cool and then come on again afterwards. It would seem Es allows modest QRP stations, like mine, to enjoy the fun.
It is now about 0931z.
UPDATE 1230: Still just EA3ERE spotting me and nobody spotted here. Now QRT as the rig cools.
Sporadic-E (Es)
We are currently at the peak of the Es season in the northern hemisphere. Yesterday 14 stations spotted me on 10m WSPR TX. All these look like they were by Es. My reports on 8m FT8 also look like Es. By the end of the summer the Es season will be over.
The Es season usually lasts from April to August. The peak months are May, June and July. However Es can occur at any time. There is usually a much smaller peak just after Christmas.
17 Jun 2022
Normality - NOT amateur radio
Every June a local village holds a Gilbert and Sullivan performance in a barn. With Covid-19, this was not possible, so this was the first production since 2019. It was great to return to normal. They did "The Mikado".
Young birds - NOT amateur radio
This is the season for nests and young birds. Yet again, we have some house sparrows nesting in our roof (they were there last year too) and we have dunnocks, robins, blackbirds, pigeons, collared doves and goldfinches nesting in our hedges or very nearby. There are probably others as well. This young thrush (I think) was being fed on our back lawn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
