Sunspots - Wednesday February 2nd 2022

 Solar flux is 129 and the SSN 88.  A=7 and K=3.

160m FT8 RX (Tuesday)

I have just QSYed to 160m FT8 RX. 3 stations spotted so far including 2 Germans calling a station in the Far East. It is still daylight here. Probably things will get lively after dark.

UPDATE 1652z: 15 stations spotted on 160m FT8 RX using the untuned 10m wire antenna with the furthermost RD9D (3664km).

UPDATE 1917z:  146 stations spotted.

UPDATE 2140z:  327 stations spotted.

University of the 3rd Age - NOT amateur radio

For about 14 years, I have been attending U3A courses. It is great fun learning new things just for fun. Some involve going into Cambridge and some are on Zoom. The Zoom talks are very effective, and far better than I ever expected.

This year I am studying Medieval History and quantum mechanics, the latter was last done in the late 1960s at university! It is hard!!

Quantum mechanics is spooky. One has to forget what we perceive as reality and accept that sometimes things can be quite different. One aspect is wave functions that seem to imply things exist in all space and all time, past and future included. Things are most probable now, but entangled things even at the extremes of the universe, know about each other instantaneously. Forget the speed of light - instantaneously means just that! Some of these things have been proven by experiments.

SPAM messages - NOT amateur radio

It is sad that, these days, we have to be on our guard against SPAM. On the whole, my SPAM filter does a good job. Just occasionally it thinks something is SPAM that is not, and misses some SPAM. Mistakes are rare. 

Before deleting SPAM I usually do a quick check in case some important stuff is there. At a guess less than 1 in 1000 is wrong, which is pretty good. Without SPAM filtering, I would probably see more SPAM than genuine messages.

 

10m FT8 RX (Tuesday)

 At the moment I am on 10m FT8 RX. It is now 1052z and, so far, 47 stations spotted. Furthermost is VK6AS (14459km).

UPDATE 1243z:  137 stations spotted on 10m FT8 RX today.

I quite enjoy 10m FT8 RX as I can monitor propagation on a different PC in the lounge whilst doing other things. I suppose with remote software I could TX too from the lounge. PSKreporter allows me to see who is being spotted by my system.

UPDATE 1358z: 195 stations spotted. 

UPDATE 1530z: 296 stations spotted.

UPDATE 1624z: 351 stations spotted. QRT soon and move to 160m FT8 RX.

15m QRP

 A good DX band is 15m. This is mainly a daytime DX band, but evening openings are increasing as the sunspot count and solar flux go up. These days I am on RX far more than TX. 

This was not the case when the Pipit transceiver was designed and built. This would have been over 30 years ago! For several months it was the only rig I used despite only being 800mW. These days there is more FT8 activity, but you cannot beat the thrill of getting heard thouasnds of miles away and having solid QSOs.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/15m-qrp-cw-pipit .

Cambridge Street - NOT amateur radio

Cambridge is an historic city famous for its colleges and backs. It also has lots of bikes and posters on railings!

How to save energy - NOT amateur radio

This was a Facebook memory from 11 years ago. 

4m operation

This is a band I have had little to do with. 

Back in the 1960s at university I worked ZB2VHF on 4m AM with 4W and a ground plane. At this time there were very few countries on the band. In 1971, I went /P in a 4m contest. 

Several years ago I made a QRP transverter for 4m that appeared in SPRAT (shown in photo).  I have no antennas for the band, but a local has made a personal beacon, that I shall try to copy. It produces 10mW. He has a vertical colinear for the band.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/vhfuhfmicrowaves/homebrew/4m-transverter .

Sunspots - Tuesday February 1st 2022

 Solar flux is 130 and the SSN 100.  A=10 and K=2.