This was very successful. John gave me an RS58 report which was very satisfying for 2W indoors to a 2 el yagi indoors. John suggested an FT8 test at some point in the future, which I shall do. Aiming the small beam in all sorts of directions made little difference on John's signal.
31 Mar 2023
Home deliveries - NOT amateur radio
Since the pandemic, many people have turned to home deliveries. We have used these services for many years. You cannot beat looking at goods in shops, but for some things the convenience of home deliveries is great. The downside is shops find it hard to compete and close. It is a very difficult decision.
Peoples' shopping habits are changing. In my view, the shops that will still be here are those that adjust to this new model, perhaps acting as showcases for goods ordered online.
Activity levels
Today was an interesting experiment. I tried 6m and 4m FT8. The difference could not be more stark. On 6m I got plenty of spots, whereas on 4m none at all. Many modern transceivers in Europe include 4m, yet activity on this great band seems very poor.
I guess people are more interested in working new DX than chatting, not that you can chat on FT8! There is no doubt amateur radio is changing. In many ways this is for the worse.
Putting a RX on 6m FT8 is more likely to have something "new" than 4m FT8 outside of the Es season. Even so, I am surprised how bad 4m seems to be. I was expecting some activity!
Unless things change, amateur radio will be gone before 2040. At the very least, it will be radically different.
UPDATE 1336z: What will the future of amateur radio look like? The short answer is I do not know! I can see national agencies like the FCC and OFCOM tiring of amateur radio. Instead I can see the allocation of callsigns being delegated to the ARRL and the RSGB. I can see this spreading across the world. I can see a time when the amateur bands that remain become a free for all, without licences, as long as no interference is caused. I can see a merging of licence free bands and amateur radio.
Wicken Fen lunch yesterday - NOT amateur radio
This was our lunch at the cafe at Wicken Fen on our walk yesterday.
4m FT8 (Friday)
At 1140z, I turned on my 4m FT8 with my compromise antenna of the 2m big-wheel and coax tuned via the auto ATU in the FT-710 So far, no spots of me.
UPDATE 1235z: I decided to go back to 6m FT8 as I was getting no spots on 4m. Clearly few come on 4m outside the Es season.
6m FT8 (Friday)
At the moment I am on 6m FT8 with the FT-710. Several UK spots of me on TX, but no RX spots.
UPDATE 1056z: F4EGZ (668km) has spotted me.
UPDATE 1242z: Back on 6m FT8. 16 stations have spotted me.
UPDATE 1300z: Spotted by 17 stations on 6m FT8 so far today.
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| Stations spotting me today on 6m FT8 TX |
Brave New World?
As an experiment just now, I asked Chat GPT4 to generate me an essay about amateur radio. GPT4 is a form of artificial intelligence.
The essay looked remarkably accurate and was just as if a human being had written it. I stopped after about 30 lines. I also asked it to create a couple of poems about places I knew. These were amazing.
You can see both the good and bad here: the good is getting AI to do what humans find boring and hard. The bad is where does this stop?
Although I do not want to sound like a Luddite, I can see dangers ahead.
Wicken Fen walk - NOT amateur radio
Yesterday we walked to Wicken Fen. It tried to rain (briefly) on the way back.
19 set
Back in the 1960s these were quite common WW2 surplus radios often used on 80m AM. These days they are more difficult to get. At one time these were made by Pye Telecom.
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