On April 1st, 2021, Number 4 Flight Training School will celebrate its centennial year.
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Formed in Egypt in 1921, 4FTS has for very many years been based at RAF Valley, near Holyhead, Anglesey.
In support of the celebrations, OFCOM has just approved a variation to my licence to use GB4FTS from March 25th to April 8th, inclusive.
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| Then - Avro 504N |
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| Now. Hawk T2. |
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| Texan T1 trainer. |
There was no unusual WSPR spot activity at 14MHz overnight.
But there was a very brief period, spanning just over half an hour, where the local field was slightly disturbed as part of normal diurnal changes. Incidentally, a good article about the field is found here.
Being only around 22UT, I was watching the screen and could see the field change, and an otherwise DX-dead 14MHz band respond by producing a small number of RX spots of US stations from 21:52UT until 22:28UT. My 1W signal also made jumps as far as VP8A at the same time:
Quite an astonishing breakout of Polar Mesospheric Winter echoes past two days. Anyone who is a higher HF/VHF aficionado may well be interested in any polar or high latitude propagation to DX locations, though the link between PMWE and propagation is not proven.
As the Sun is well on its journey northwards again, the days are already over an hour longer in daylight than at midwinter.
I'm therefore getting the twitch for portable operating, despite the seemingly unending lockdowns currently in force across the UK.
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| Frequency drift with WSPR. It's not acceptable, yet is inevitable with so many rigs. |
Yet, almost every transceiver I look at for the portable market has poor standard frequency stability.
Why? I mean, I was very unimpressed indeed after buying my Kenwood TS480SAT many years ago, at something like £800 even then, only to find it drifted very badly during WSPR, making it essentially useless.
The price I paid for a generic TCXO replacement for the TS-480? £15!
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| Typical generic TCXO unit. |
I'm not sure if Kenwood were hoping for an additional £100 from the unsuspecting purchasers of a 480, but that's the price they demanded for their own, branded version of what was probably the same unit as the one I paid six times less for.
After several years, that £15 unit continues to work perfectly, yielding zero drift, no matter what I throw at it. But the feeling of being shafted by Kenwood for this poor stability in an expensive rig dramatically reduced my inclination to buy their products, otherwise extremely good, again.
I also looked at the KX-3. An expensive rig at £1300. It, too, according to what I have read online, seems not to have adequate frequency stability for WSPR. So that's off the list of potential purchases.
Next, the IC705, another £1300 rig. It does seem to have excellent frequency stability, but is over-complex, not very rugged for field use, and is considerably more money than I think reasonable.
I looked at the FT857. This seems to require the installation of an after-sales TCXO as well, although again, a generic, cheap unit is readily available. The price, at least, is pretty reasonable with this radio. It remains a contender for the moment.
Then I came to the mcHF, a very nice QRP rig with excellent features. I asked the maker - as I couldn't find any definitive answer about frequency stability anywhere online - whether it does have good stability.
The final words from mcHF, though, suggest stability can't be expected out of the box: "In conclusion, [frequency stability] is not just one thing, but combination of them. And all those will require lots of modding."
Well, I don't want an electronics project, thanks very much!
It's the same story with the Chinese Xiegu products. If I'm being unfair to them, then it's only because there is no real demonstration of stability to be found anywhere, and what I can find about their specification isn't reassuring. For the moment, they are out of the running.
Next, the Lab599 TX-500. I love this rig, even though you can't actually get it anywhere at the moment! Sadly, according to OH8STN's words, the standard stability is only 2.5ppm - way off the 0.5ppm that is ideal for WSPR. So that rig is out.
What on earth am I going to buy? Why does just about every rig have such poor stability when the price of stability is essentially nothing at all, compared to the overall price of these rigs?
Perhaps you, dear reader, can help? If only all rigs were like my FT450, which never, ever drifts, then life would be so much easier. If that rig wasn't 4kg - about twice what I need a rig to weigh - then I would just get another of those!
Yes folks, the people who advocate the detection of earthquakes is possible using radio propagation are at it again! Not only that, but they seem to be suggesting they can predict earthquakes (to 'save lives'), suggesting that such a prediction would be so incredibly advanced in time as to allow opportunity for people to be evacuated.
Whilst the concept is not without some merit, at least inasmuch as it is worthy of investigation, there has been far too much wild assertion without evidence by these people. I've followed the frequent missives about this 'work' for many years, and I have yet to see anything that can remotely be said to be persuasive. Indeed, it has all the hallmarks of 'crank science'. Discussion of the project on QRZ.com has generally been condemnatory and derisive.
The 'project' - said on a ARRL online post to be 'facilitated' By Arizona State University - is said to be led by one Alex Schwarz who amusingly identifes himself in a mass-email this morning as 'Principle [sic] Investigator". A call for clarification to Arizona SU's press office resulted in no response at the time of updating (29/01/21).
Schwarz also associates his fundraiser with the 'X-Prize'. There is no evidence that this is an approved X-Prize Foundation project. The Foundation may well take a dim view of this, and I have approached them this morning for a confirmation/denial of association.
It's no good waiting for an earthquake and then looking to see if there was some change to propagation. This is bad science.
Instead, a lot of propagation data should be gathered first, and then see if any earthquakes consistently match those changes in propagation. The null hypothesis is that earthquakes do not cause HF propagation changes.
In any case, the 'team' have now launched a fundraiser at GoFundMe. Already, in just one day, it has raised, erm, $70 out of the sought $20,000. $50 of that was given by Schwarz himself, and the other $20 by N2EU, who is given as an 'organiser' of the fundraiser (see screenshot below, accessed 11:00UT 24/01/2021).
A week later, it's reached the heady heights of $95, thanks to a donation by ON6MU. Sadly, even he shows up as having strong links to Schwarz.
The .io groups page for the project seems to be filled with nothing other than NOAA solar data on a daily basis by Schwarz himself. There are no recent responses to these posts from anyone at all.
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| A week into the fundraiser (grabbed 09:10UT, 29/01/2021). Three donations, all either organisers of the project, or related to it. Erm... |
UPDATE: There has been no response from GoFundMe concerning the 'X-Prize' claim and how this may mislead people. Only SciStarter has pledged to examine the use of the 'X-Prize' term, though they have not provided a substantive response as yet (29/01/21).
14MHz TX and RX on WSPR last night showed a minor geomgantic disturbance allowed the band to remain open to and from mainland Europe until 01:52UT. Normally, the band would be dead hours before this time.
Reception reports of my 1W signal as reported by ON5KQ exemplify the situation:
But we are now progressing rapidly towards spring, when propagation will change. Let's hope many things change with it, not least our year-long, enforced incarceration.
Nice to see a long first skip on 15m at 08:30UT this morning, with signals being received at over 3000km. The day ahead looks good!
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| The benefits of an opening band. |
Meanwhile, a day or so ago, I was very surprised to see 20W, 60m transmissions receive this fabulous report from Antarctica. Such a shame there is so little activity in the southern hemisphere:
Already looking well ahead to more field operations, I'm still musing about a new portable rig.
There are few details about this, apparently quite new offering from China. And buying from abroad as a direct importer is fraught with risks, such as potential import duties and the absence of any consumer protection under law.
But this KN-990, with its really very good, ICOM-style display and £440 price tag, seems to be the kind of thing that will offer a significant challenge to the usual big makers in the near future.
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| New Chinese offering, KN-990. Expect to see plenty of badges appearing on this rig soon. |
Regular readers (yes, there are some!) will know I am a big fan of the Raspberry Pi, not least due to its very low power consumption for field portable use.
So if you are also interested in these palmtop computers, with the added benefit of not running the God-awful Windows OS, then you will be interested to read this fascinating blogpost by G1KQH.
Even the old Beelink X2 featuring in that post has a 1.2GHz clock speed which, together with only 1GB RAM, puts it more-or-less on an even footing with a Raspberry Pi 3B+. That model Pi has been running amateur radio software for me for years, and one is now running a sophisticated Muon detector 24/7/365.
The basics are covered nicely in this video, which is simply downloading Armbian onto a SD card and running the cheap computer box from it:
12m has been slightly quieter than usual over the past days, but picked up a lot yesterday (12/1/21 - a palindromic date!)
The DX available wasn't spectacular, but there were solid enough contacts into the eastern seaboard US. In fact, the area of reception was extremely narrow, almost certainly due to very localised Es reflections.
The Es itself arose as a result of moderate HSS streams reaching Kp~4 the previous evening.
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| Afternoon 12m transmissions across the Atlantic being heard along an extremely localised Es path. |
At times, the Es allowed extraordinary signal strengths, certainly enough to sustain SSB had anybody tried. At other times, there were moments of very short propagation within the UK.
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| Amazing signals with Yagis at both ends. |
QSOs on 12m continued well into the hours of darkness; my last reception of EA4BAS was at 21:34UT, which was then displaying what appeared to be multiple reflections (use of some unusual FT8 mode is being checked):
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| Situation at time of hearing last EA stations at 24MHz. |
I've been a user of the extremely robust Yaesu FT450 for about eight years now. The rig I have was in fact a used model, albeit almost untouched when I received it. It's been running day in, day out, without even a hint of a problem. I hope we can say that in many years' time about the latest colour screen units currently replacing these old rice box workhorses.
If I had to replace a rig today, I may well simply opt for another FT-450; it's that reliable.
So, how much would I have to pay for one? This proves to be an interesting question!
Just a couple of months ago - in October 2020, Martin Lynch, a major UK ham outlet, was asking £649.95. I think I'm right in saying that in the past year, the FT450 has been offered at about £550 (not necessarily by MLandS).
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| MLandS advert for FT450D, October 2020 edition of Practical Wireless. |
Even so, £649.95 is a resonable sort of price, even for an ageing box like this.
But, roll on the calendar a few weeks to February 2021's advert in Practical Wireless and, - hey presto! - the FT450 now costs - wait for it - £749.95!
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| Voila! £100 - or 15.4% higher price in February 2021. |
Now, the UK has gone through Brexit, and according to the advert, MLandS only have a few FT450s left in stock.
But a price hike of £100 - or 15.4% in just a few weeks? A look at the MLandS website confirms the price, so it doesn't appear to be a misprint in PW.
A look around the other rigs offered by MLandS shows that hardly any have increased by this amount, or indeed by any amount other than, so far as I could see, a £100 price hike (to £3359.95) in the FTdx5000MP - representing a mere 3% increase.
This really does seem very odd indeed, especially as, if you simply search for the FT450D online, you still find it for sale today at £649.95 at Radioworld, for example (with which I have no link, other than as a occasional customer for larger ticket items).
Here we are again, back in extended lockdown across the UK, and no end in sight.
With so much time to kill, I had a look at the RSGB's website this morning. I know better than to hope for improved representation but, still, I had hoped for something to encourage newcomers, at least.
The RSGB certainly has a long-standing and unresolved problem with age and gender equality, and also minority representation. I don't know how many members of the RSGB are women, but it's not very many.
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| A typical 'woman needs man' computer promotion from the 1970s. |
My own survey, conducted on several occasions, of the RSGB's magazine, Radcom, shows consistently that only a maximum of 13.5% of images within its pages feature females. Or, inverted, 86.5% of images are of males (a very small number feature pets!)
Now, the RSGB, to its credit, has acknowledged these problems for some time. It has also expressed a wish to do something about them. So, years after I first started writing about this, has the RSGB changed?
Sadly, no!
Here's a screengrab of the home page for the RSGB's website. Of the single female depicted (there is one other, but her head is cut off, and is merely incidentally in the background), she is stood over by a 'helpful male' in the manner of a 1970s advertisement for anything technical.
The message here, of course, is that women can only manage to operate anything technical if a man helps them along, standing in a dominant position over her.
How terribly sad. What part of attention to detail and the modern world does the PR officer of the RSGB and, indeed, the whole RSGB management, not understand?
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| 2020s bad presentation. RSGB home page (accessed 10UT, 2021 January 08). |
Quite extensive polar mesospheric winter echoes (PMWE) again at high latitudes past day or so.
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| Both woolly and GPS hats required! |
Today's very brief experiment from a snow-swept Eryri range, was to see how WSPR would get out from a deep valley within the mountains. Due to travel restrictions, I only had time for one transmission cycle to conduct the test, as the main reason for being out was care duties.
I found that, with only intermittent mobile phone signals, getting the Raspberry Pi clock to update via the internet was problematic. To address this, I will need to add a GNSS HAT to it, so that time (and, of course, grid square) can be obtained via a non-mobile phone route. The price of these is quite steep, at about £45.
Quite surprising to see that one cycle of 1W was getting out quite well at 14MHz:
Overnight saw extremely quiet geomagnetic conditions over Europe and Scandinavia, but slight disturbances further to the west, as shown by this Z component plot from West Greenland:
This is the only location of field disturbance that correlates with the sudden reappearance of 9Z4FV for about an hour. At the peak of the 9Z signal - which is a high output of 20W - two UK stations also appeared (one spot only each at 01:24 and 01:26UT for G8LIK and M3PMG, respectively), but nothing else at all between 00:14UT and 03:06UT:
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| RX of 9Z4FV (20W) WSPR at 14MHz by MW1CFN (IO73) |
A very nice, coherent example of 21MHz long first skip propagation this morning at ~10:30UT
