10m 200mW WSPR (Friday)

My beacon is on.

UPDATE 1613z:   13 stations have spotted me today, by Es I think. 20 spots of me in the last day. 

UPDATE 2002z: 14 stations spotting me with furthest EA8BFK (2880km). QRT now. See table for those spotting me today.

Is Russia in trouble?

The Joe Blogs video today looks inside the Russian economy. It postulates that the Russian wartime economy model is running into trouble.

ICOM announcements at Hamvention

 This was a video of a live stream to the media at Hamvention.

Sunspots - Friday May 15th

 Solar flux is 106 and the SSN 60. A=5 and K=1.

10m 200mW WSPR (Thursday)

 My beacon has been on this afternoon.

UPDATE Friday 0633z:   Spotted by 11 stations in Europe probably by Es.

Rain (or lack of)

 East Anglia is usually quite a dry area of the country, but yesterday we had only the first rain ☔️ this month after a very dry April. I hope we get some more ….at night! 

FT8 issue?

 Earlier I planned to go on 10m FT8. My Windows 10 PC had other ideas. 

Last night it did a Windows update and refuses to TX! I need more disk space to upgrade to Windows 11 or recover to an earlier date. I shall try reloading WSJT-X first and see if that cures it 😢

UPDATE 0930z: Reinstalled WSJT-X. Still no TX .

Sunspots - Thursday May 14th

 Solar flux is 103 and the SSN 56. A=10 and K=2.

70cm FT8 activity contest

Stations spotting me on 70cm FT8 this evening

It never fails to amaze me how well 10W FT8 and a 144MHz big-wheel omni does on 70cm . Tonight was the 70cm FT8 activity contest. Every contest I seem to be copied in continental Europe and was spotted at considerable range within the UK. See map.

I was only on about 10 minutes.

EV batteries

CATL is the biggest battery manufacturer in the world and has announced some remarkable advances. In my view we are on the cusp of a transport revolution leaving fossil fuel vehicles left in the Stone Age. 

Wake up USA, or you will be left far, far behind.