4 Dec 2025

AI dangers

There is no doubt that AI will have a huge impact on the lives of everyone in the future. It will get better and better and will have impacts for good and evil.

In many ways I have been impressed with AI. For example I asked it to colourise an old black and white photo of my dad in his RAF uniform during WW2. The colourisation was excellent.

On the downside I asked Gemini to "make a picture of Roger G3XBM" as an experiment. I tried this both in "fast" and "thinking" modes.  On both attempts the person looked nothing at all like me. It created a radio shack (far more extensive than mine, HI) and a plaque with my callsign, but the person was totally wrong. I suppose it has to find a photo of me to learn from.

This is one of the dangers of AI. People may believe what they are being told. Often it will be correct. At the same time it can be very wrong! For now, it is best to treat AI with some caution knowing it can go "rogue" and give totally false results. It can only be as good as the sources it learns from.

8m FT8 RX (Thursday)

 I have QSYed to 8m FT8 RX on 40.680 MHz using my end-fed long wire.  We'll see if I spot anyone today.

UPDATE 1626z:  No spots. At the moment 8m is disappointing.

10m 500mW WSPR (Thursday)

 My beacon was turned on just after breakfast.

UPDATE 1016z:  Just 2 stations in the Canary Isles spotting me so far.

6m 5W FT8 (Thursday)

 My gear has been on since just after breakfast. 

UPDATE 1914z:  So far, spotted by 5 English stations.

Christmas cheer

 

Rather than 1 large Christmas tree we have 3 small ones. This one in the lounge we have had since 2019 and has fibre optic "leaves" and is always changing colour.

Thursday plans

 As the sunspot count is so high I shall stick with 6m QRP FT8 and 10m QRP WSPR.

Sunspots - Thursday December 4th

 Solar flux is 209 and the SSN 227 (high) . A=33 and K=5.

3 Dec 2025

2m FT8 activity contest UKAC (Wednesday)

This is a contest I do not submit an entry for. I gave a few (very few!) CQ calls and was copied in southern Eire. There is no doubt there is a lots of activity.

Stations that spotted my 2m 10W FT8 this evening

UPDATE 2102z: 
Now QRT. Worked 4 stations in the 2m FT8 UKAC contest.

QMX out portable on SSB

 The QMX is a popular SOTA radio as it is very compact and works on SSB with a firmware update.



10m 500mW WSPR (Wednesday)

My stand-alone beacon was turned on at about 1015z.


UPDATE 1333z:
19 stations spotting me.