Whilst rummaging through drawers in my shack trying to find a power supply for an unused PC, I came across this TX. I have no recollection of making it, but it looks like an OXO QRP CW transmitter. It must date from the 1990s or early 2000s.
19 Oct 2024
Climber - NOT amateur radio
B stock “bargains”
One of the biggest UK dealers is advertising B stock at considerable savings. To me, these still look expensive when you look at exchange rates against the Yen and US Dollar.
Sunspots- Saturday October 19th
Solar flux is 165 and the SSN 132. A=14 and K=4.
Are we beginning to see a slow decline in sunspot numbers?
18 Oct 2024
Is WSPRnet faulty?
Despite syncing to Internet time, I have again got no 10m WSPR spots with my 500mW stand-alone beacon whereas I usually get several. I am wondering if WSPRnet is faulty, not uploading spots, or there is a long delay? Listening on another radio, it seems to be fine.
UPDATE 1737z: No, it was a fault with my antenna coax. Since fixing it, 17 stations have spotted me with the furthermost DP0GVN/1 (13685km) in Antarctica. See chart that shows 15 stations.
UPDATE 2115z: 29 stations spotted my 500mW 10m WSPR. Now QRT.
Friday plans
We have to go shopping, but I also want to find out if the PC or QDX is the source of my problem with the QDX not being recognised by the PC. As far as I know, everything is done in the correct order.
It will be interesting to see if I get no problems with the FT817 and SignaLink USB. This has never given me problems in over 20 years .
Assuming I can find a solution, my plan is to try 10m QRP FT8 later. We'll see!
UPDATE 1153z: I shall be tackling the QDX and PC after lunch. Wish me luck!
UPDATE 1455z: No luck. It is as if any external device is not recognised. Just to make sure the USB socket is OK (I think it is) I shall try a CF drive in it. For now, until I can fix this, I am confined to 10m WSPR. Somewhere I have another Windows PC that I must try without updating it just in case it is a Windows Update that has screwed things.
UPDATE 1540z: I found the older Windows 10 PC. It is on charge. Later I shall give this a try.
17 Oct 2024
Struggling
I deleted lots of WAV files from my PC (WSJT-X saves them all!!) and this allowed me to do a Windows update.
However, for some reason, after doing a restart on my QDX I can receive OK, it does not TX on FT8. I checked this on my QMX+ and that does not TX either. It seems to recognise the QDX audio and CAT control works on the QMX+.
At the moment I am on 10m QRP WSPR with my stand-alone 500mW WSPR beacon (no spots on this as well!).
I think this must go down as a "bad hair day". In other words it's totally crap. My brain hurts!
UPDATE 1712z: In desperation, I am doing a full PC reset to factory settings to see if this fixes it. The PC is really only used with WSJT-X.
UPDATE 2151z: For some reason the PC still refuses to recognise the QDX. Tomorrow I shall try with the SignaLinkUSB and the FT817ND which should work. With Windows there must be some magic that I am missing to get the PC to “see” the QDX. Apparently it is all to do with the USB port recognising the QDX whereas with Linux there is no issue.
Upcoming rally this weekend
The following rally has been notified to me. As usual, check details.
Saturday October 19th - Mexborough and District ARS Rally, Conisborough, DN12 3HJ. Contact madarsrally@gmail.com .
Amazon algorithms - NOT amateur radio
After buying things from Amazon, I get bombarded with suggestions of things to buy of very similar items to what I have just bought. As an example, I recently got a new electric razor and I am now getting lots of suggestions for similar electric razors. Having just bought one, a new electric razor is the very last thing I want!
Surely their algorithms could be changed to exclude items similar to ones bought recently? This would not be rocket science.
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