10m 2.5W FT8 (Thursday)

My gear was turned on just before breakfast. After a very brief TX period I returned to RX only.

UPDATE 2015z:  1696 stations have been spotted with the best FK8HA (16470km) in New Caledonia in the Pacific. 10m is as good now as I can ever remember it.  It is soon going to go downhill. Now QRT.

Sub 10kHz amateur DX in 2011

Back in 2011 I was very involved in amateur VLF below 10kHz.  

To be successful bandwidths of tiny fractions of a Hz are needed and integration periods of hours or even days.  As would be expected stability has to be perfect with many locking their signals to GPS or similar. 

Remember, amateurs have limited power and space for antennas!

DJ8WX was a regular signal back in 2011.

Sunspots - Thursday March 5th

 Solar flux is 141 and the SSN 71. A=7 and K=0.

10m WSPR Tuesday

When I am on a VHF band, I can use 10m 200mW with my Zachtek WSPR beacon. A point in case was yesterday when I switched to 10m WSPR TX late afternoon.

UK VLF record - 2011

In 2011, I received G3XIZ (45km) which was the most distant UK amateur I copied sub-10kHz. I cannot recall the bandwidth, but it would have been very narrow.

Bury-St-Edmunds

This is a market town in East Anglia, UK with some fine old buildings. Unlike Cambridge about 40km away it feels very East Anglian with locals who have families in these part for centuries. I really like it.

10m FT8 (Wednesday)

As I was in Cambridge much of the day I was on 10m FT8 RX only . 

UPDATE 1854z: So far, 1015 stations spotted. QRT soon.

Sunspots - Wednesday March 4th

 Solar flux is 144 and the SSN 64. A=16 and K=3.

Device memory

In the last 20 years or so, device memory has come a very long way.  256GB micro SD cards are now increasingly common, whereas just a few years ago this would have been amazing and unbelievable. It makes you wonder what will be the norm say in 2050 or 2100?

The human brain has an estimated capacity of 2.5 million GB, which is absolutely huge! Perhaps there will be a breakthrough allowing memories to have capacities approaching this? 

Will our grandchildren look back in amazement when we thought 1TB appeared huge.  I can remember when we thought 256k was huge!

10m 2.5W FT8 (Tuesday)

Another great start on 10m FT8. After a very brief period on TX (4 spots)  I went on RX only

UPDATE 1126z:   730 stations spotted with the best 3D2AG (16213km) in Fiji and Victoria, Australia which, to my surprise, is even further. I went on 2.5W FT8 TX again briefly with the best DX a spot of me on Reunion Is.

UPDATE 2136z: 2016 stations spotted here today. The best day yet? QRT now.