Now Australia (nearly) on the 60m band

Southgate News reports that Australia is about be granted the new WRC15 15kHz wide 60m band. It seems that many countries are gaining access.

See http://southgatearc.org/news/2016/december/new-60-metre-amateur-band.htm#.WGg3AYXXL4g

10m JT65 all day

I have been on 10m JT65 since early yesterday, but without internet I was unsure of my PC clock sync until this morning. Also, updates to PSKreporter maps will not have occurred yesterday and overnight.

As in recent days, no DX with the best spot being of 2E0NEP (123km). G4NUA (12km) was the best DX (!) on TX.

Solar data

My source is 2 days behind, so either the site maintainer is unwell or away. So, I am again unable to pass on this information. This week, I shall look for a new source, as the one I use is not reliable any more.

In the meantime check out http://www.solen.info/solar/ .

No internet

My apologies for the few postings this last day. My internet packed up Friday morning and I was only able to get on again late today. We also have young grandchildren staying, so I have had no time today until now.

10m JT65

I have now QSYed from MF to 10m JT65. Let us hope we see more winter Es on 10m, or even some real DX from outside Europe. The latter will depend on conditions but southern Africa is certainly possible on 10m JT65.

Tropo DX on 2m

Here in the UK there has been some good VHF tropo of late, not that I have tried! Martin Cranage in Salisbury has been copying European beacons at great range and he has worked quite a bit of DX on 2m via tropo.

See http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html .

Solar data

As my source is still showing yesterday's data, I shall update the solar data later, assuming it is available.

Overnight on 472kHz WSPR - disappointing

Although I was on 472kHz WSPR overnight, it was disappointing. Best TX DX (5mW ERP) was Holland and no new spotters on the band. I was expecting better.

QSYed to 472kHz WSPR

Initial 472kHz WSPR spots this evening

Much later than normal, I QSYed from 10m JT65 to 472kHz WSPR (5mW ERP). This was about 2250z. I'll leave the WSPR running overnight.

Facebook "deaths" that aren't - NOT amateur radio

There must be plenty of us on Facebook these days. I am appalled by the ads I see on the RHS which purport to give notice of deaths of famous people. In my experience these are all untrue. How can people do this? If I believed all I read there would be hardly anyone left! I guess these are designed to grab attention so you click the links. Don't.

Welcome to the post-truth world?

23cm transverter by SG Labs

It is years since I listened on 23cm but there is good lowish cost transverter (2W RF out) for the band that is tempting, even for me.

See http://www.sg-lab.com/TR1300/tr1300.html . The photo above (courtesy http://www.sg-lab.com/TR1300/tr1300.html) shows the SG Labs unit.

PA3FQA DXCC Status

PA3FQA has posted his DXCC status on Twitter and very impressive it is too.

Although my DXCC for 10m QRP SSB is well over 100, I have not counted for years!

To be honest I am not really a great DX hunter. I am happy for others who do this, but if I work DX it is not through acts of patience and perseverance on my part. I guess I just don't have the staying power these days!

Recurring Dreams - NOT amateur radio

It is probably a very common theme to dream about upcoming exams and not having done any or enough revision. At one time I repeatedly dreamt about catching trains to Devon. Both probably are easily explained.

In recent years, I dream of being at work and about to retire again. Usually I am wondering how I am going to manage (again) on my pension. I have been retired now for almost 8 years!  I have no idea why I dream this!

In my current state of health there is no way I could work again. Apart from my health issues, I am very happy to be retired and I have no wish to return to a job.

PSK Reporter Maps

Before I go on, I accept this could be my end and the internet connection playing up, but I am struggling to get a connection to PSK reporter maps at the moment. I use this regularly to see where I am spotting and who is spotting me on 10m JT65.

InnovAntennas

Via Southgate News, news of a new antenna from InnovAntennas.  I am sure they are very well made and perform well, but to me they are just too expensive!

See http://www.innovantennas.com/ .

All quiet on 10m JT65 so far

Having been on 10m JT65 all morning, nothing has been spotted so far. I shall go and check sync to internet time.

UPDATE 1308z:  Time sync is fine. Still no spots on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 1445z:  Still all quiet on 10m JT65. With people going back to work after the Christmas break, I expect there are even fewer people active now on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 1724z:  Just G4CJC (73km) in north London spotted a few minutes ago on 10m JT65. A disappointing day.

Tiny radio?

See http://electroiq.com/blog/2016/12/worlds-smallest-radio-receiver-has-building-blocks-the-size-of-2-atoms/ .

This looks like it was written by a sensationalist national newspaper writer, but it wasn't. Behind the sensationalist headlines there are probably some factual data. To me this looks like it was written by a teenager who did history for his/her degree, although am probably being grossly unfair. Bah humbug!

DP1POL in Antarctica

Since changing to a 20m dipole my old work colleague G4NUA has been spotted across the world with a few watts on 20m JT65. Yesterday he was copied in Antarctica by DP1POL. In 2017 I am pretty sure he will get every continent on QRP.

This is from QRZ.com:

"DP1POL is located at the German research station "Neumayer III" in Antarctica, about 1,300 miles North of the South Pole. My home call sign is DL5XL, and I was a member of the 29th Neumayer wintering team as an electronics engineer. The station was officially inaugurated on February 20, 2009. My first assignment at "Neumayer III" lasted from December 2008 to February 2010, and I was back on the air from the same location from December 2011 to February 2012, from December 2013 to February 2014, from December 2014 to February 2015, and from November 2015 to February 2016. Another activity is planned from November 2016 to February 2017 - and I hope it will not be the last one!"

UPDATE 29.12.16 1446z: Ted G4NUA called me, but I was beaconing at the time.

Sunspots and 10m - Thursday December 29th 2016

Solar flux is 73 again today and sunspot number 14. A=6 and K=1.

Salcombe - NOT amateur radio

Many times before I have mentioned that I was brought up in Salcombe, Devon. This picture of Salcombe in the sunset was posted on Facebook yesterday by an old colleague who now lives in Dartmouth.

Es on 10m JT65 again today

Yet again, there was Es in evidence on 10m JT65. I was spotted twice in Poland with best DX being HF9D (1305km) and I spotted several others around Europe.

Another windmill view - NOT amateur radio

Last week I posted a view of "our" windmill in a posting called "winter sun". On Christmas Day we went for a brief walk around the village and saw the windmill from a different direction over the allotment gardens. We had much better weather than we expected.

No solar forecasts yet

As my feed is still showing yesterday's data I have not yet been able to update the solar data yet. This will be done as soon as it becomes available.

UPDATE 1858z:  My source is still showing the data for yesterday, so I am unlikely to post the solar data for today now.

10m JT65

Although I stayed on 10m JT65 overnight, there have been no new spots since G4CJC in north London yesterday. I am still hopeful of some winter Es and possibly some N-S F2 propagation to southern Africa. We had this in recent days when there were no sunspots and conditions were not too brilliant on 10m JT65.

Really I should QSY to MF at night as this tends to be more successful, despite my poor "antenna" and low ERP (5mW) on 472kHz.

Pink auroras

Thanks (again) to Southgate News comes news of pink auroras. There were 3 days now without sunspots although today the sunspot number is 13.

See http://spaceweather.com/ .

Silly Games Season - NOT amateur radio

Christmas time and silly games times!

Here we are playing "Pie Face" with Lis (my XYL) getting cream all over her nose thanks to our grandchildren! This is in the kitchen, although the rest of our house looks like a disaster area. As my wife says, "clean mess".

UKAC 2016 70cm results

Overall in 2016 I came 121st out of 184 in the AL section of the 70cm part of the Tuesday evening UKAC sessions.

Considering I run 5W to a 2m halo fed with lossy coax and I am on for usually well under 1 hour because of my poor voice, I think this is fine.

Sunspots and 10m - Tuesday December 27th 2016

Solar flux is 73 today and sunspot number 13. A=22 and K=2. We might see some N-S propagation on 10m?

10m JT65

Last night, I remained on 10m JT65 overnight, but just G4CJC (73km) in north London spotted. No Es or F layer DX so far today.

Christmas TV - NOT amateur radio

From the BBC website, Christmas TV viewing figures. I am not a royalist at heart but cannot think of a president who would do as well as our current queen. At 90 years old she does a remarkable job. Her husband Philip is 95! Charles will have a hard act to follow.

1. The Queen at 3pm - BBC One and ITV - 7.7m
2. Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special - BBC One - 7.2m
3. The Great Christmas Bake Off - BBC One - 6.3m
4. Mrs Brown's Boys Christmas Special - BBC One - 6.1m
5. Call The Midwife - BBC One - 6.1m
6. EastEnders - BBC One - 5.9m
7. Coronation Street - ITV - 5.8m (not including ITV +1)
8. Doctor Who - BBC One - 5.7m
9. Frozen - BBC One - 4.7m
10. Emmerdale - ITV - 4.2m

An end to hatred? - NOT amateur radio

See http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brendan-cox-alternative-christmas-message-a7495491.html .

Jo Cox the MP was murdered earlier this year. This is an alternative Christmas message by her husband.

Forward Error Correction for the Mathematically Challenged

This is worth looking at if, like me, you never found maths that easy. It is an article by Paul Nicholson on FEC, written so we can understand!

Paul is famous for his DX reception of amateur VLF and ULF signals. I am not sure if he is involved in VLF professionally. He certainly knows his stuff.

See http://abelian.org/fec/pn161218.pdf .

Visit - NOT amateur radio

XYL

Later today our son who lives in Kent is coming to stay with his wife and 2 young children. They prefer to be at home to unwrap their presents.

Here, on Christmas Day, we had much better weather than the forecast led us to expect. In the afternoon we even managed a short walk in the village. On the walk we had a blue cloudless sky.  Here is my XYL standing by a hedge filled with red berries.

Sunspots and 10m - Monday December 26th 2016 (Boxing Day in the UK)

Solar flux is 72 today and the sunspot number zero again. A=21 and K=3. Luckily 10m Es does not depend on these factors.

10m JT65

For about an hour now I QSYed from MF WSPR to 10m JT65, really hoping to catch some winter Es on the band.

UPDATE 1124z: There is definitely Es about. I have copied stations in Slovakia and Poland and I was spotted by OE3BUB (1228km) in Austria and it is still early.

UPDATE 1154z: Now being spotted in Poland on 10m JT65 and spotting Sweden.

UPDATE 1416z: Widespread Es on 10m JT65.

Courtesy: https://www.pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

UPDATE 2056z:  Es was good on 10m JT65 today as the map below shows. This was a good example of wintertime Es in the northern hemisphere. The map shows who was spotting me and who I was spotting.

Courtesy: https://www.pskreporter.info/pskmap.html

Overnight on 472kHz WSPR

Overnight, there were 9 unique spots of my 5mW ERP signal on 472kHz WSPR with best DX again DL-SWL(701km). 4 Dutch stations in the list.

Moved to 630m WSPR

Early evening spots on 472kHz WSPR

At about 1916z I went QRT on 10m JT65 (2W) and started up on 472kHz (630m) WSPR (5mW ERP). With the shack PC I get lots of noise on the band when using the external SMPSU so only the strongest signals are copied on RX. I shall have to run on batteries if I want to copy weaker signals, or swap PCs over if the other PC has a less noisy PSU.

Merry Christmas from Oleg - QRP and QRP Club

From Oleg:

Merry Christmas and the best wishes for all QRPers!

WQR Report (December 25, 2016)
Visitors  of  the  week:  UA1ADF,  UR7VT, RA1M, IK2RMZ, F5POJ, RV3GM,
OK2BMA,  RW3AA,  US3EN,  R1OA,  OH6NPV,  DK1HW,  LZ2RS, RX1AG, R1CAF,
UA1CEG,  US7IB, UA0SBQ, UA2FAI, OM6TC, G3XJS, OK1VLP, IT9IFI, IT9QAU,
UA4NU, UR0ET, OK1DNZ, SV2BBK, UW5EKR, DL8DXL
CONGRATS!
LZ2RS and O1DNZ became Honor Frequenters
Comments...
See full version of the report on the blog page -http://qrp-club72.blogspot.ru/

72! Oleg RV3GM / KH6OB "Mr. 72"


This is a periodic Newsletter of the Club 72. Don't reply to Newsletter address! Send any requests or news to mr72@club72.su please.

Back on 10m JT65 after a night on 630m WSPR

Last night I was on 472kHz (630m) WSPR. DL-SWL (701km) was again the best TX DX (5mW ERP). No new reports or reporters sadly.

For the last 30 minutes or so I  have been on 10m JT65, but no spots as yet.

UPDATE 1252z: F1GTU (754km) spotted earlier on 10m JT65. Es?

UPDATE 1738z: LA7DFA (1312km) spotted me on 10m JT65 about 22 minutes ago. G4CJC (73km) in North London has been spotted here.

Sunspots and 10m - Sunday December 25th 2016 (Christmas Day)

Solar flux is 73 again today. Sunspot number is zero.  A=14 and K=2.