My impression is activity levels are still low. As I have said before, this is just a quick view and far from scientific. If I looked a few minutes before or after, I might have formed a different view.
Long ago, I stopped chasing DX. If I work some rare country or QTH square then great, but I do not chase it as if my life depended on it. There is always tomorrow, but if it "gets away" does it really matter? This is just a hobby. Personally, I like to see where my QRP signals reach, but each to their own. There are many ways to enjoy our hobby.
To some working every entity matters. They enjoy the thrill of the chase. I see Southgate News has a link about this. Apparently there 209 DXCC entities active.
See http://www.southgatearc.org/news/2021/april/dxcc-country-entity-report-19-04.htm#.YH0zZSjYrrc .
"To understand all is to forgive all".
I believe this is an old French proverb, but what a good one.
I am of the view that there is good and bad in all of us. Most things that go wrong whether personally or globally are as a result of not fully understanding the whole picture. It is all too easy to judge when we only see part of the picture.
The micro-SD card for the IC-705 has arrived. Tomorrow, I may try a firmware upgrade. Others tell me this is straightforward. I certainly hope so! I am not sure of the latest firmware (1.24?), but I am sure I shall find the latest on ICOM Japan website.
At about 1900z, I QSYed to 2m FT8 with 2.5W and the big-wheel omni antenna. It is now 1915z and I have been spotted by 5 stations on TX and I have spotted 4 stations on RX.
At 1419z, I turned on the FT817ND and the indoor loop tuned to 10m As yet (it is now 1432z), no spots.
The sunspot count is slightly lower than yesterday and conditions more disturbed.
UPDATE 1730z: Just G0LRD spotted here and on PSKreporter by me. A PY seen mid afternoon, but this doesn't appear on PSKreporter. Overall, this has been disappointing. I'll give it a bit longer before QSYing. Looking at all the results David G0LRD has got (111 10m spots!!) he is certainly being widely spotted on 10m FT8 today. Not sure what David is using for antenna and power.
If you are looking for a 10m grabber, check this one out in Alaska at http://kl7l.com/28Alaska00000.jpg . If you know of others, please let me know. I see there is a 10m QRSS grabber at https://qsl.net/g4iog/ .
In Es openings, many European countries can be worked with simple antennas and low power. One possibility is my simple transverter.
See https://70mhz.org/ .
This morning I felt inspired to have a go at making some pasties using up some of the food that might have been wasted. I am quite pleased. The photo shows the results. Mostly cheese, mushrooms and onions.
They taste good too.
At 1820z, I QSYed to 2m FT8 QRP with 2.5W and the big-wheel omni antenna. So far (it is now 1830z) 3 stations have been spotted on RX and 6 stations have spotted my QRP TX.
See http://82.71.9.63:8080/cap/ . This is the FT8 grabber at G0LRD.
I am not a great royalist and cannot imagine the royal family surviving another 50 years unless it changes. When the queen dies the English royal family will be in mortal peril. No, I think what was really being mourned was the end (or very near end) of an era.
I feel very sorry for the queen who has lost a lifelong husband and companion. They we married for 73 years, which is a long time!
As well as my DSB rig, the 10FT8R, this is a project I must build.
Yet more incentive to get my external 10m antenna up!
My very first post was about the web SDR at Twente in the Netherlands. That was in 2008! It is still there.
My 10m FT8 gear (2.5W to the indoor loop) was turned on at 0808z. After a very brief TX period, I am on RX only. So far, no spots.
UPDATE 1018z: Just G0FWX (160km) spotted so far. No Es or F2 propagation evident here yet.
UPDATE 1120z: 7 stations spotted. Looks like Es to Iberia.
We should have done this years ago, but I suspect, like many, we were nervous of sending these precious memories away. What if they were lost?
In the end, we used a company called EachMoment who were excellent. At every stage of the process we were kept informed. The resulting DVDs came back with the original tapes about 2 weeks later. Thankfully, even after all these years, they copied fine.
I would have no hesitation using them again.
The Hack Green rally, due this Sunday, has been cancelled. I presume this is as a result of Covid.
Last evening there was a 70cm FT8 contest. For most of the time I was on my V2000 vertical antenna with 2.5W. Quite a few UK stations were spotted and I worked one. I wonder if some were spotted by aircraft scatter?
I shall be glad when they can all meet properly again inside houses.
Until this evening my IC-705 has been superb. It has firmware 1.12 and needs upgrading to the latest version.
This evening it went on DV and seemed to freeze. I have no idea what I did. I recently bought a copy of the "Radio Today Guide to the IC-705" which went through how to do a reset if the rig "froze". In the end I did a full hardware reset which seems to have done the trick. Luckily, nothing of mine was yet stored in memories.
I have ordered a micro SD card and hope to upgrade the firmware as soon as I can. I hope this fixes the software bug. I think the latest firmware also adds some new features too.
As a professional RF engineer, I was used to software bugs especially with early releases. Often later releases fixed these. Often bug cures were hidden alongside new features. Most punters did not realise that these releases were primarily to fix the bugs!
At about 0800z, I went on 10m FT8 RX with the indoor loop antenna. Unsurprisingly, no spots at 0810z.
Especially in the Es season, lots of Europe may be worked from the UK with just a whip, a counterpoise and low power on the higher HF bands and 6m SSB.
One advantage of pedestrian portable operation is the angle of the antenna may be easily adjusted to get the strongest signal.
Overnight I was on 40m FT8 RX. So far, 942 stations have been spotted in 5 continents. It is now 0700z.
UPDATE 1154z: 1060 stations spotted on 40m FT8 RX. At one point last evening I counted 42 stations in 2.7kHz!!
