6m pirates?

Earlier, when I went on 6m FT8, I was supposed to have spotted stations in Somalia, Asiatic Russia and North Korea. 

Somehow I don't think so!

10m 500mW WSPR TX (Saturday)

 My beacon was turned on about 1014z.

UPDATE 1020z:  No spots.

UPDATE 1106z:  If helps if you turn on the PSU too. Doh!! PSU turned on at 1104z.

6m QRP FT8 (Saturday)

 At about 1012z I QSYed from 10m to 6m FT8.

UPDATE  1641z:  101 spots of me with the furthermost the Canary Is.. 

Leaving the market?

SteppIR, who are famous for their automatically adjustable beams, have announced they are leaving the amateur radio market in August. They made high-end products I have never owned.

Now I know this is not true everywhere, but it is probably mostly true that ours is a hobby of "mature" people. Indeed this is one of the reasons SteppIR has quoted for leaving the amateur radio antenna market.

It is my view that many who have been in the amateur radio market for many years as manufacturers or dealers are wondering if this is really for them.

It would not surprise me at all if we see a shake-out in the coming years.

Did Yaesu release a product too early?

This podcast seems to back up my assertion that the FTX-1 was launched in a hurry. 

Many are very happy with it, but I still think it is far too expensive.  It is even more expensive when you add features the IC-705 has had for years!

At £999 I might have considered it. As it is, like many, I will stick with my IC-705. With the recent price reduction the IC-705 looks far better value. 

I am puzzled that the Yaesu FT710 is far far less that the FTX-1. On the first Sherwood tests it is way down on the FT710 performance. Personally I think Yaesu is struggling and finding it hard to stay in the amateur radio business. If they were hoping the FTX-1 would be their saviour, I hate to disappoint them!

It is normal to see software bugs that are corrected, but this product look like it was released far too early. Some of these issues will be fixed in software updates. I hope they haven't got to do hardware changes too.

10m 5W FT8 (Saturday)

At the moment I am om 10m QRP FT8. The gear was turned on at about 0822z.

UPDATE 0855z:  16 spots of me. See map.

UPDATE 0949z:  35 spots of me with the furthermost South Africa.

UPDATE 1004z:  43 spots of me.

Sunspots- Saturday June 7th

 Solar flux is 128 and the SSN 76. A=8 and K=2.

10m QRP WSPR (Friday)

My 500mW W5OLF beacon was turned on at about 0645z. 

UPDATE 1430z:  14 spots. Mostly Es I think although V51RS (8481km) was clearly not.

6m QRP FT8 (Friday)

My 6W 6m FT8 was turned on at about 0645z this morning.

I see that one of my 6m FT8 spots yesterday was a station in Brazil PY2RN (9551km).

UPDATE 1746z:   So far, 239 stations have spotted me and I have spotted 171.

QDX transceiver

This tiny digital transceiver amazes me. It is about the size of a pack of cards.  

In my case I added a number of suitably rated diodes to drop the supply voltage so the power output is probably about 3W, at most, on 10m. 

Despite this I have been copied all over the planet on 10m QRP FT8 with a simple, low, end-fed antenna. It is all you need really if you are only interested in digital HF. It is available as a kit or ready built. You can choose a version covering the lower or higher HF bands. There are also single band versions at a slightly lower price. 

Excellent products and excellent value. I am highly impressed.

See https://qrp-labs.com/qdx.html.