Wymondham, Norfolk - NOT amateur radio

Some of my wife's ancestors came from Wymondham in Norfolk. The town is just west of Norwich. 

It has an unpretentious town centre and a fine abbey with 2 towers. 

Some of the family moved to industrial Sheffield in the 19th century for work - what a contrast!

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

Art video - NOT amateur radio

My 11 year old grandson has produced an educational video as shown. Although I am a bit biased, I think it is good. He is a very good artist and there some examples of his work on my main website. These are now some years old.

See https://sites.google.com/site/g3xbmqrp3/home/art.

2m FT8 QRP (Wednesday)

Since about 1825z, I have been on 2m FT8 with 2.5W and the big-wheel omni antenna. 4 stations have spotted me so far with the furthermost being G7RAU (461km) in Cornwall. No stations yet spotted on RX and no QSOs yet.

UPDATE 2103z:  10 stations have spotted my 2.5W QRP FT8 so far tonight (see map). I keep an eye on my signal at http://82.71.9.63:8080/cap/.

UPDATE 2107z:  Spotted by 14 stations in 4 counties so far. No QSOs.

432MHz activity contest

Every month the RSGB organises an activity contest on the second Tuesday of the month on 70cm. Better stations were working Germans. As usual I was on with my poor voice, 10W and 2m big-wheel omni antenna.  In 40 minutes I managed 4 SSB QSOs out to 105km. .Then I gave up!

Sunspots - Wednesday January 13th 2021

Solar flux is 73 and the SSN 0.  A=9 and K=1.

Aurora

In Scotland, there was a visible aurora last night. The BBC was full of pictures of this today. 

I am not sure how far south it was visible. I have not heard if there were VHF QSOs via this aurora. When access to 6m was first granted I recall having a 6m auroral QSO using 1W CW and a wire dipole.

Another 8m winter Es QSO

This afternoon there was another DX QSO on 8m between EI and 9A.  This was winter Es.

I expect this band to be available more widely in the years to come.  At first it will be individuals asking their local authorities for spot frequencies. Sandwiched between 10m and 6m, this could be a most interesting allocation. Even a very narrow allocation and low power initially would be useful.

Sonic boom - NOT amateur radio

Years ago we used to hear the sonic boom from Concorde at my parents house in Devon every night. At lunchtime we heard another loud bang that turned out to be a sonic boom. An RAF Typhoon jet was scrambled to escort a civilian plane that had lost communications into London Stansted airport. It was very loud and we thought at first it was something on our roof.

G3KKD Silent Key

One of the regulars on our Monday night East Cambs net died of a heart attack last night. Ian G3KKD was a regular who rarely missed.  As we get older more and more of us will be SKs. Still sad though. None of us expected this. Ian was keen right to the end.

He was especially keen on ATV and had recently experimented with digital.

Church Lane - NOT amateur radio

At this time of year every thing appears dead.  There is mud everywhere!

Look more closely and there are signs of new life. 

Only this morning I saw a field of winter wheat and snowdrops are beginning to flower as in the lane leading to our local church. Another month and there will be daffodils common and buds just starting to appear.

January is one of the most depressing times of the year. At least days are getting longer and spring is coming.