630m WSPR RX last evening and overnight

 Yet again, I decided to monitor 630m WSPR RX last evening and overnight.

UPDATE 0819z:  In all, 10 stations in Western Europe were spotted. All were spotted before midnight.

Declining sunspots

It is now October 1st and we are clearly on the decline in the current sunspot cycle. HF conditions on the higher bands become more challenging, but are often better than expected. 

It is worth checking the solar cycle on your favourite site and not giving up on the higher HF bands.

See https://www.solen.info/solar/

Sunspots - Thursday October 1st

 Solar flux is 93 and the SSN 29. A=3 and K=0.

630m WSPR RX (Wednesday)

 My RX was turned on at about 1720z.  

UPDATE 1921z:   4 stations spotted. I think signals are weaker - is that because we had rain and the effective "loop in the ground" is smaller?

Ham Radio Shack video about the G7250

This looks like a very critical review of this new Chinese transceiver from Xiegu. 

The thrust of the video is that Japanese quality is good, whereas this has often not been the case with Chinese products. 

My advice is never buy early products as they often have bugs in the hardware and software that get corrected on later models.

10m 1W FT8 (Wednesday)

 At about 1310z I changed to 10m 1W FT8.

UPDATE 1317z:  So far, 4 stations have spotted my 1W including 2 in the Caribbean.

Tear-down of the Chinese G7250 transceiver

 This is the first video I have seen tearing down the G7250. It looks well made. This was a prototype from Radio Oddity.

10m 200mW WSPR (Wednesday)

My beacon was turned on at about 0650z.

UPDATE  1712z:  4 stations spotted me.

6m 1W FT8 (Wednesday)

 My gear was turned on at about 0650z.

UPDATE  1047z:  So far, just 5 English stations spotting me.

Human life

In my view every human life of whatever colour or creed has equal value. It matters not whether you are rich or poor or where you live. 

Which is why I am puzzled by settler violence in the West Bank. Although I never believe in violence, I can understand why some people conflate Israel with the current government of Israel and have a hatred of the violence being committed.

I heard today that oil reserves off the Falkland Islands are being explored by private companies in Britain and Israel. Personally I think this is all about human greed and why the UK is so anxious to hang on to the Falkland Islands. The cynicism in me says we would not have been so bothered if there were no oil reserves. Yes the folks there have every right to self-determination but I am skeptical of the UK’s real motives.