28 Mar 2024

SPRAT article

It was very pleasing to see my short article about the use of the ISM bands for QRPP beaconing in the latest SPRAT. 

In the UK this means 10mW ERP on the HiFer and 8m ISM bands under IR2030 interface regulations.  No callsign is mandated and this is licence free. It is a good idea to use a callsign that WSPRnet can cope with if using WSPR. Likewise if using FT8, choose a callsign that PSKreporter can handle.

Certainly on the 8m ISM band 10mW ERP WSPR is enough to reach into much of Europe on Es. The same is probably true of the HiFer band too.

630m QRP WSPR

My 630m 10mW ERP WSPR was turned on at about 1911z this evening. So far, 4 stations have spotted me.

UPDATE 2035z:  12 stations have spotted me so far.

Old photos - NOT amateur radio

Recently, my nephew visited us. Here he is looking at some old photos of h is granddad in the RAF.

Walk - NOT amateur radio

 Yesterday we did a nice walk around the village and saw these flowers.



6m QRP FT8 (Thursday)

My 2.5W FT8 to the V2000 vertical omni antenna has been on most of the day. I shall QSY to 630m QRP WSPR later. So far, my signal has been spotted by 16 stations (all in England).

10m QRPP WSPR (Thursday)

Once again I am on 10m WSPR with just 500uW (0.5mW) and I have already had 6 spots from EA8BFK (2880km) and one from Greece (a new country with ultra QRPP).

These last few days have been good. I must try to correlate this with solar conditions. I would expect to see some sort of relationship. I would not have thought these last few days were exceptional. Good, yes, but not exceptional.

A reminder that my beacon is pre-programmed to report the power is 500mW even though it is just 500uW (0.5mW) during these tests. 

I continue to be amazed.

It will be interesting trying ultra QRPP during the Es season.

UPDATE 1245z:  Already 18 spots today. EA8BFK (2880km) has spotted me as strongly as -16dB S/N  when I was running just 500uW suggesting 16dB weaker still might have been copied. 

UPDATE 1730z:  22 spots of me today at 500uW including a new reporter in the USA, who received me strongly. Amazing!!  


Sunspots - Thursday March 28th

 Solar flux is 175 and the SSN 114. A=7 and K=2.

630m QRP WSPR overnight

 


My 10mW ERP WSPR has been on since about 2030z. 12 stations spotted me. No great DX.

27 Mar 2024

Nesting time - NOT amateur radio

 

Swans have nested in this spot for many years. I hope they succeed in raising a brood.

8m QRP FT8 (Wednesday)

My 2.5W 8m FT8 to the dipole was turned on at about 1110z.  As usual, I am on 40.680MHz (DF about 1950Hz).  No spots yet.