9 Apr 2017

WISPY WSPR beacon

Some time before my stroke in 2013, I designed a simple WSPR beacon for 10m that used low cost 14.060MHz QRP crystals doubled. These pulled up sufficiently.

This beacon was copied all across the globe. It uses a DSB transmitter, so the power goes out on two frequencies so the power in the WSPR slot is half. With the Es season approaching you may like to build it. 10m should be fun May-September in the Northern Hemisphere.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/hf/wispytx

The PA could be replaced by paralleled 2N3904s instead of the 2N3866 to get more power for a few pence. 2N3904s are very very cheap. If you look at my Tenbox (also on my website) you will see the idea. Don't forget the emitter resistors so power is shared!

New country on 6m MKS144 RX

S59A (1287km) is a new country on 6m MSK144 RX. I have spotted most of Western and Northern Europe on this mode. I am still on this band/mode.

UPDATE 0944z: 6 stations in 3 countries spotted so far on 6m MSK144 (G,S59,HB9).

UPDATE 1325z: 11 stations in 5 countries on 6m MSK144 RX now.

UPDATE 1540z: 12 stations in 5 countries now.

8 Apr 2017

What will solar cycle 25 be like?

The brief answer is no-one knows. Some have predicted a long period without sunspots but some have suggested the peak could be similar to cycle 24.

In truth, we'll have to wait and see. It seems probable we are unlikely to see the massive peaks that some of us remember. If we see a peak at all, it is likely to be a modest affair.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/.
See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/21/solar-cycle-25-amplitude-prediction/
See http://spaceweather.com/ .

Sunspots and 10m - Saturday April 8th 2017

Solar flux is 66 today and sunspot number 27. A=10 and K=3.

UK Rally

APRIL 9th 2017 : NORTHERN AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETIES ASSOCIATION EXHIBITION (Blackpool Rally)

Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA. There is car parking at the venue and a talk in station will be in operation. There will be trade stands, a Bring & Buy, special interest groups and an RSGB bookstall. Doors open 10.30 with disabled visitors gaining access 15 minutes earlier. Dave, M0OBW 01270 761 608 dwilson@btinternet.com (www.narsa.org.uk).

A list of rallies can be found at http://rsgb.org/main/news/rallies/

Ham Radio Horizons

According to Southgate News,  this magazine is now available online.

See https://archive.org/details/hamradiohorizons

Back on 6m MSK144 RX

Since just before breakfast I have been in 6m MSK144 RX. So far, 6 stations in 4 countries spotted with the  best DX SM0NKZ (1404km) in Sweden.

UPDATE 0938z:  Now 7 stations in 4 countries on 6m MSK144 today so far today.

UPDATE 1240z: Now 19 stations in 11 countries today on 6m MSK144 RX. Best DX is EA5WU (1423km).


UPDATE 1852z: Now 22 stations in 12 countries.

7 Apr 2017

Marsh Harriers and Bittern - NOT amateur radio

This afternoon we drove to Lakenheath Fen. This is 21.6 to 23.6 miles from here depending on the route.

We saw 3 marsh harriers and heard a bittern boom. There are lots of chiffchaffs around now. Sadly, no cranes.

There was a glossy ibis there which we also did not see. On the North Norfolk coast my son with his family saw some seals up close and his first swallow of the year.

Sunspots and 10m - Friday April 7th 2017

Solar flux is 85 today and the sunspot number 38. A=7 and K=2. What will 10m bring today?

Swallows return

Today we spotted our first swallow (bird) this year flying N-S over the allotments behind Burwell Museum at breakfast time this morning. In a few weeks they will be common!

April 7th is one of the earliest times I have seen these up here, although there have been reports in Devon a few weeks ago. There were days when I thought I would never live to see this day. The cycle of life goes on.

See https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/s/swallow/

10m JT65 again

G4KPX (14km) spotted me earlier this morning. I shall be sticking with 10m JT65 most of today again, although I am unsure of HF conditions. 10m has been quite good of late.

UPDATE 2200z: G6SSN (75km) spotted me on 10m JT65 and called me this afternoon, although I was beaconing at the time.

6 Apr 2017

Alien planet with atmosphere - NOT amateur radio

The BBC reports they have detected a planet in a distant solar system that has an atmosphere. With a surface temperature of 370 deg C it is unlikely to support life as we know it.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39521344

Cambridge Concert - NOT amateur radio

My wife's concert is coming up.

Cambridge Grand Arcade - NOT amateur radio

A few days ago we walked through the Grand Arcade in central Cambridge, UK. This is a covered pedestrian area, so ideal for wet weather shopping. As usual, there are plenty of stores which you find in most big cities and very few independent shops. Probably the business rates are too high?

Return to 10m JT65 (2W)11448km

Quite late this morning, I returned to 10m JT65 transceive running 2W. As yet no spots.

UPDATE 1400z:  Still no 10m spots today so far.

UPDATE 1530z: Still no 10m JT65 spots here today. The rig and PC will be on for several hours yet.

UPDATE 2114z: G0LRD (25km) is my best TX DX today. LU1ECO (11448km) was the most distant station on RX.

Sunspots and 10m - Thursday April 6th 2017

Solar flux is 83 today and the sunspot number is 37. A=10 and K=1. Yesterday was good on 10m JT65 with my 2W spotted in Brazil for the first time this year.

Eating out - NOT amateur radio

Most of the last week we have had the "London" grandchildren staying. A few days ago we went to Cambridge and ate out at a small independent cafĂ© called Le Patissier which is opposite St John's College. The food was good, prices reasonable and staff friendly and this is the fourth time I have eaten there.

5 Apr 2017

New amateur record at 970Hz

From Stefan DK7FC:

"Hi ULF friends,

Saturday night i build an active E field receiver optimised for ULF. It is using a BF862 front-end as a source follower and a LT1028 with 20 dB gain. There are 3 RC filter stages cutting off at 10 kHz. Furthermore there are two isolation transformers in series, 4:1=>1:10. In the center they are parallel resonated. This gives a further good low pass filtering and some additional gain below 3 kHz. It was a quick construction without thinking to much, soldered at night, 02 AM local time. The antenna probe is a 1m long steel rod (for welding) with 2 mm diameter. The antenna height above ground was just 2m. There were no trees in a radius of 20 m.

For transmitting i'm again using the modified 5 kV mains transformer. At 970 Hz, the antenna impedance is 342 kOhm! So i can just run 15 mA antenna current which means 3 nW ERP. The new ALC build inside SpecLab holds the 15 mA accurately and protects the transformer that way! SpecLab is a very well usable tool for transmitting on VLF/ULF, thanks to DL4YHF!!
The transmit frequency was 970.005 Hz.

I didn't expect much, thought that this distance may be to optimistic. The last signals were very weak on my tree grabber in 3.5 km distance. But that tree grabber is using loop antennas and they are not sensitive in that frequency range. So there was a certain chance to see a trace, maybe in 212 uHz???
I drove to JN49JL00EB and built up the receiver there because it is a quiet location, a nice region for a walk and, there is a good restaurant not to far!!!!!! So it was easy to spend some time there and let the Raspi (using a GPS module on the right soundcard channel, with PPS+NMEA) record for nearly 3 hours at 24 kS/s.
This is the path between TX and RX: http://no.nonsense.ee/qth/map.html?qth=JN49JL00EB&from=jn49ik00wd  A distance of 7.2 km, or 0.023 wavelengths or 14% of the distance to the far field border. So it is still a near field experiment.
It is about twice the distance i've managed in the last test.

Now i'm back in the shack, analysing the recording and to my surprise i can see a strong trace of 30 dB SNR in 424 uHz!!! See attachments in 424 uHz and 3.8 mHz.

All this makes me much more optimistic to reach farer distances. I tell you i will crack the far field border on that 309 km band! That would be a distance of 49.3 km.

There must have been some local thunderstorms not to far away, because there was QRN in the observed spectrum. So the SNR can be improved a bit by doing the next test in the late morning hours. Also the resonance of the transformers seem to be a bit to low, so maybe i can reach a bit more sensitivity when optimising that resonance. It could further help to rise the effective height of the antenna. Flat fields rather than the deep forest is the region to select now....


73, Stefan"

OFCOM and mobile repeaters

OFCOM is consulting on mobile repeaters.

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/26E022FC8AA20F74/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

Tawny mining bee - NOT amateur radio

For several days now, I have seen little mounds of soil with a hole in the middle in my grass. For a while I thought this was ants then I saw a bee. Further research has pointed me to Tawny Mining Bees. These are solitary bees that don't live together. They are small bees with ginger hairs.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawny_mining_bee .

10m JT65

Although no spots seen as yet, I have been on 10m JT65 today. We are nearing the start of the Es season which should see 10m and 6m open to lots of Europe from the UK even with QRP SSB.

UPDATE 1920z:  No spots all day, at least not showing on PSK reporter maps. Still running overnight, so might catch some aircraft reflections later?

UPDATE 2032z: PY2RSA (9473km) spotted me on 10m JT65 not too long ago. Not shown on PSK reporter maps was a spot of an N0. This may have been because I lost internet connectivity for a period. I have since gone QRT.

Sunspots and 10m - Wednesday April 5th 2017

Solar flux is 93 today and sunspot number 75. A=20 and K=2.

4 Apr 2017

OFCOM Update

Every month, OFCOM produces a "Communications Update". This is the latest version.

See http://ofcom.cmail19.com/t/ViewEmail/i/8EAFA4273AD97B72/59D1BD3EA2F08127C67FD2F38AC4859C

St Johns, Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

The colleges at Cambridge University are always worth a visit, but they look so good in spring. This was the view of St Johns this afternoon. We just missed the rain.

Sunspots and 10m - Tuesday April 4th 2017

Solar flux is 106 today. Sunspot number is 97.  A=4 and K=3.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/ for a summary of the latest solar data. Last month, the smoothed sunspot number declined to 22.6, but this month has got off to a promising start.

2m UKAC this evening

A further reminder that the RSGB organised 2m leg of its activity contest is this evening from 8pm(1900z) UK clock time. The contest runs for 2.5 hours. Activity levels are good on SSB and it is a great way to work new squares. Although a contest, I have always found people very friendly. I usually stay on for well less than an hour because of my poor voice.

See http://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/contest_rules.pl?contest=2mukac

UPDATE 2032z: Just a few QSOs as my granddaughter was in the next room so I stayed on even less than usual. Best QSO was 183km (with my 5W QRP and omni), but I heard further and could have worked more if I had stayed on a little longer.

10m JT65 transceive

As conditions were quite decent yesterday, I stayed on 10m JT65 and am still on that band and mode. No spots this morning so far, although it is very early.

UPDATE 1635z: DL5XL (567km) spotted me this morning. Es?

QRP and QRP Club

More from Oleg:

Dear Club 72 members and friends,

Weekly QRP Rendez-Vous Report (April, 2, 2017)
Reminder about new Rendez-Vous schedule:
Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays
9.00 UTC - 14060 kc
18.00 UTC - 7030 kc
alternative 10116 kc if QRM or poor condx
+/- QRM, QRL, keep RIT for xtal QRPers
Strongly recommend to use QRP Chat during "rendezvous"!

Visitors  of  the  week:  R1OA,  US3EN, UR5EFD, RV3GM, DK1HW, US5WAF,
G3XJS,  OH6NPV,  UR0ET,  UA1CEG, DL6YYM, US7IB, RU6UR, UR7VT, OK1DNZ,
R1CAN, IK2RGV, UA0SBQ, HB9CBR/p, R2AJA, RU3NJC, R2FAE, DJ5RE, UR5LEH,
ON6KZ, UA4NU, US5ERQ, RD2A/p, R4NX, UR8QV, DL7YY/p
Congrats!
RU6UR and RD2A became Honor Frequenters (regular visitors)
New Visitors - US5WAF, DJ5RE - you are welcome!
Some comments...
See full WQR 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.

3 Apr 2017

RSGB's 2m UKAC tomorrow evening

Tomorrow evening is the 2m leg of the 2m Activity Contest. As we have grandchildren staying, I will have to make my entry even briefer than usual.

Grandchildren - NOT amateur radio

Most of this week we have our "London" grandchildren, although we spent most of the afternoon with our granddaughter having an x-ray! She fell over the weekend and hurt her arm. We were afraid she'd broken it but all was well.

The photo shows her looking pretty happy!

Sunspots and 10m - Monday April 3rd 2017

Solar flux is 107 today and the sunspot number 75. These are high numbers. A=8 and K=1. All these figures are better than yesterday. I urge you to try 10m digital modes as propagation could be quite decent.

10m JT65

Quite late on yesterday, I moved to 10m JT65. Last evening several South Americans were spotted on 10m JT65, so conditions were quite decent on 10m. I am on 10m JT65 now.

UPDATE 1937z:   Lots of South Americans and Italy on 10m JT65 today.

2 Apr 2017

Windmill next door - NOT amateur radio

We are very lucky to have a good view of our local restored windmill from our home. Every day usually someone comes to take a photo. It is about 200 years old and fully restored. Not many are lucky enough to look at a working 4 sailed windmill whilst eating breakfast! It is literally "over the garden fence". The hedge is in our garden.

10m JT65 after 20m JT65

After all day on 20m JT65, I have (rather late) moved to 10m JT65, changing at about 1615z. On 20m most of the spots of my 2W were from Europe with a few from North America. On RX the best was Brazil.

UPDATE 1622z:  No spots on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 2112z: EU7FBB (1931km) spotted on 10m JT65 earlier this evening. I left things running on 10m overnight.

Sunspots and 10m - Sunday April 2nd 2017

Solar flux is 99 today and the sunspot number is 79 (both are high figures). A=16 and K=3.

1 Apr 2017

Devon Birds - NOT amateur radio

Certainly swallows (birds) are being seen in increasing numbers in Devon. Cattle egrets are also being increasingly seen. The cattle egret sightings remind me of the first  little egret sightings in Devon 30-40 years ago.

I suspect several species will become far more common in the years to come e.g. bearded tits, bee-eaters. At the same time, some will be lost. Before 1955 to see a collared dove in the UK would have been amazing. Nowadays they are one of the most common birds in our garden.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee-eater .

472 and 137kHz allocations in the USA nearer

The latest news from the FCC suggests the USA is nearer allocating the LF and MF bands to amateurs at last.

I used to think OFCOM was bad, but the FCC seems even worse. It is years since most countries had access to these bands. If the FCC was concerned about other users they could have set very low ERP levels and allowed amateur operation on a strictly "non-interference" basis.  Instead they waited and waited. They are still waiting!

The FCC seems, at least to me, to be a bunch of pen pushing idiots who know little about radio. Perhaps I am being unfair? In many ways I think of the USA as having fairly liberal policies on the use of the spectrum, but the FCC seems to do themselves no good at all over these bands.

See http://www.arrl.org/news/new-bands-fcc-issues-amateur-radio-service-rules-for-630-meters-and-2-200-meters

See also http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2017/db0329/FCC-17-33A1.pdf

April Fool's Day - NOT amateur radio

Certainly here in the UK, April 1st is April Fool's Day when people usually play tricks. Often there are spoof news items in the papers or on TV. Apparently one UK paper did a piece on Prince Harry saying he had got married in secret.

Sorry, but all here will be "straight" with no April fools stories.

10m JT65

Just before 0900z I QSYed to 10m JT65.

UPDATE 0910z: No spots as yet on 10m JT65.

UPDATE 1330z: Still no 10m JT65 spots today.

UPDATE 1350z: With no spots at all on 10m JT65, I think it is time to QSY.

Sunspots and 10m - Saturday April 1st 2017

Solar flux is 91 (quite high) and the sunspot number 65 which is also good. A=28 and K=3. 10m is again forecast to be "poor".