160m conditions changing

Overnight, I was again on 160m FT8 RX. Just one North American spotted which is very poor. I am more convinced than ever that conditions are getting worse on 160m.

In all, even though I was late getting on the band last evening, just 183 stations spotted. This is far worse than I have seen earlier in the winter. As I said, I am not a 160m expert, but with fewer North Americans each night, there looks like a trend.

Spots here overnight on 160m FT8 RX

ARE we at the solar minimum?

Opinions vary.

In the last few weeks we have seen a few sunspots (now gone out of view again), but as they say, "one swallow does not make a summer". Indeed, it could be the year-end before we know if this was just a blip or the start of an upward trend. Last month was dire.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/

Sunspots - Saturday March 16th 2019

Solar flux is 70 and the SSN 0. A=7 and K=2.

Wine tasting - NOT amateur radio

This evening my wife gave a talk at our local wine group on New Zealand wines. We are a small group, but we all enjoy it.

160m FT8 RX

Having just switched to 160m FT8 RX with the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground 38 stations spotted so far with best DX spotted UA0SE (6370km) in Asiatic Russia.

UPDATE 2315z: Now 68 stations spotted on 160m FT8 RX this evening.

472kHz WSPR overnight

Average!

In all, my 10mW ERP from the earth-electrode "antenna" in the ground was spotted by 5 stations with the best being a spot by DL/PA0EHG (493km). On RX only 7 stations spotted with best DX again LA2XPA (1310km).

472kHz WSPR overnight

10m FT8 today

Since early morning I been on 10m FT8. A brief CQ call earlier was spotted by local G4WSZ (12km).  On 10m FT8 RX I have spotted 5 stations with best DX LA7DFA (1311km).

Spelling - NOT amateur radio

This must be another after-effect of my 2013 stroke. These days I find spelling harder. It is as if my brain does not do the "auto-correct" it used to do. It is almost a sort of word blindness and that obvious errors are not spotted. In the last few days alone I made 3 mistakes. This could just be old age, but it feels like something else. I just need to check things more carefully in future.

Whatever our situation, we have to make the best of it. We are what we are now.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/stroke

Sunspots - Friday March 15th 2019

Solar flux today is 70 and the sunspot number 0. A=7 and K=3.

Kuhne 2.4GHz upconverter for Oscar 100

I am told that Kuhne is doing a factory mod to their transverter free of charge to stop it FMing. They are also adding an external reference input, allegedly. There have been reports of poor audio on SSB TX with some of these units and drift. Sounds like newer builds will be much better. I guess they were surprised by how popular these were and had to rush production.

I believe there are other upconverters available too.