12 Aug 2026

10m 200mW WSPR (Wednesday)

My beacon was turned on just before breakfast.

UPDATE 1918z:  84 stations have spotted me so far. Es continues.

Sunspots - Wednesday August 12th

 Solar flux is 96 and the SSN 62. A=7 and K=2.

11 Aug 2026

Is Russia having issues with oil exports?

Ukraine has changed its war strategy to hit oil refineries deep in Russia. 

It has been trying to sell some of its oil abroad using shadow tankers. 

These countries are now being hit by secondary sanctions. Much of this Russian oil is being held on tankers on the high seas with nowhere to go.


Eclipse

Tomorrow evening there is an eclipse which can be widely seen in Western Europe and Northern Canada. In some places it is a total eclipse, but in many places the sun is widely covered.

See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-2a268141-80ca-480d-bd04-6cf688bcc3dd .

Trump failures?

From outside of the USA, it looks like President Trump is struggling. 

At home and abroad things do not appear to be going his way. 

I can only judge by what I see and hear. He is not projecting a positive view of the USA sadly, in my view.


Perseid MS shower

This meteor shower peaks (I think) tonight. It is not unusual for VHF contacts to be made via meteor showers. Often returns are longer in a shower.

DX Explorer and the Thinknode Meshcore M1 transceiver

There is a new video from DX Explorer about the Thinknode M1 LoRa transceiver. 

Where he lives Meshcore seems more common than Meshtastic. 

Range is always better if there are more stations in the mesh and there are well placed repeaters. As time progresses things will continue to get better. 

I have no idea which system is more popular in your area. I see that Amazon sell these.


RIP

It's not clear how this butterfly died.  It may have got caught up in a spider's web, heat exhaustion or just died.

10m 200mW WSPR (Tuesday)

My beacon was turned on at about 0600z.

UPDATE 2105z:  54 stations have spotted me. Still good Es. Now QRT. The most distant station was in the Canary Is..

Sunspots- Tuesday August 11th

 Solar flux is 95 and the SSN 55. A=5 and K=1.