CrowPi2

I don't know about you, but I've grown very fed-up with Windows 10 and the HP laptop I run it on. Endless feature updates - even though I don't want them - add to the overall bloatedness of Win 10.

Since developing portable and mobile stations with the Raspberry Pi 3B+ and 4B, I've seen just how much better than Windows machines the Pi is.  Update at your discretion, pick and choose what you want and don't want.

If you're younger or more fashion-conscious (like my daughter), then a single board computer with wires coming out of it everywhere isn't very appealing.  In fairness, these wires are a bit of a nest, and can sometimes become irritating.

Pi -top for the 3B+.  Almost perfect, but a little expensive, and no camera.

 

So, what's needed is a proper Pi laptop.  The (expensive) Pi-top has been available for a while, but doesn't seem to have been wildly successful, probably because those who are most likely to use a Pi can make a laptop themselves - or just put up with the wires between salvaged laptop screens and cheap keyboards!

'There you go, son!  A nice alternative to a Windows laptop'.  How many fathers are like this man, and how many kids are fed up with us all?  Image: Arstechnica.

Thankfully, the folks at EleCrow are just about ready to launch CrowPi2, which looks like a very nice integrated package that will appeal to anyone who wants a clean laptop, without the wires!

 

The preorder website is a little clunky at the moment, so I will leave it a while.  But, if you fancy an affordable special gift for yourself this Christmas, maybe this is the thing to get?

Disclaimer: I have absolutely no relation to CrowPi, and had never even heard of it until today.

IC-705 Frequency stability.

At last!  Someone has assessed WSPR frequency stability of the IC-705!  Still no news on the Lab599 TX-500, but at least this is half the story, even if the 705 is trying to do too many things for my liking:

Slight magnetic disturbance, big changes.

Interesting to see VK3QN (fixed long path 12-element array) being received at 14MHz in a very different manner and timing to recent quiet field conditions.  Blue (13) is received signal on 13th October 2020, and orange (19) is received signal on 19th October 2020:

Oddly, the 19th October signal that comes in well ahead of the long path period is stronger than the long path period itself.  This is the first time I've seen this happen, but two-peak morning enhancements are not unusual, although by no means are they seen consistently.

The Kiruna magnetogram shows how little the field was disturbed overnight in order to produce the difference in received signal from VK3QN:

VK3QN 14MHz long path (130 degrees) array.  Image(C) VK3QN, with permission.

 

 

UPDATE:

With early signs of the field becoming disturbed, but with the Kp only reaching a maximum of ~3, the received 14MHz signal from VK3QN took another change in pattern, with no spots during the overnight period, and an extraordinarily sharp and brief rise during the daily long path period (long horizontal lines are periods of non-reception; dots show actual spots):

14MHz received signal from VK3QN, 2020 October 19-20.

'Metallic Bursts' at 24MHz.

The long-running debate about what 'metallic bursts' heard during summer on 50MHz could be took an interesting change of direction this morning.

The 24MHz band was right at the very edge of opening, where only one signal, OZ3BAM, was being heard at a fairly consistent level with my 3-ele beam pointed at 090 degrees. 

Other signals weakly coming in and out of reception seemed, for the most part, to be backscatter signals from EI and G stations, where they were sometimes decoded, but often not.

This is a brief recording of two FT8 cycles, where the first is a fairly steady level (the background hum is due to a lower-than-ideal input into HRD's recorder), and the second clearly has the bursts:

Mesospheric · 24MHz_Es_bursts

So the propagation appears to have been weak Es, with the structure lying to the east of me.  The propagation also seems to have been almost purely one-way, as I made many CQ calls, with no replies, and also that there were only a couple of reports via PSKreporter - although that doesn't always pick everything up, and can sometimes be delayed by several minutes in what it reports.

A large number of 'metallic bursts' were heard during a few minutes of listening.  This is not the case on other days, so the explanation that some angrily insist lies simply in meteor reflections, cannot reasonably be correct.  If it were, we would hear these 'pings' every day.

My idea has always been that these bursts are the result of transient propagation permitted by localised, rapidly-changing reflective structures in Es or Es-like patches.  I think this morning's experience only adds some credibility to that idea.

 

VK on 12m

The last time I made a QSO on 12m with Australia was on February 1st this year.  Since then, nothing.

Sadly, a two-way QSO remains elusive, but I did get a reasonable reception of a VK signal this morning, one of only two signals coming in at the time - the other being 3B8CW.

Website of the Year

Amongst the good work going on in the ham radio community, VK7JJ's efforts, in tandem with WSPRDaemon.org, in producing a fast and reliable WSPR database service really stand out from the crowd.

 

The WSPRnet service has always been reasonably good, and costs nothing to use.  But as traffic volumes have increased, WSPRnet has shown occasional long site failures.  Slow response times and 'not available' messages are almost daily occurrences.

WSPRDaemon offers us an alternative to the frustrations of WSPRnet's hang-ups. Give it a go!

Quiet conditions - a baseline analysis

The geomagnetic field has been extremely quiet over several days now, but things are set to change shortly.

Extremely quiet conditions.  Image: TGO.

 At the moment, the forecast is for a G1 - G2 storm commencing around October 20th, but with the potential to last for a couple of days.

I've made good use of the quiet prelude to this forthcoming disturbed period.  First, here is my baseline received 14MHz spots distance plot for October 12, showing how the 20m band dies in the overnight period:

Next, I've looked at my 14MHz reception of VK3QN and VK3MO.  Despite the near-total uniformity of the geomagnetic conditions over the days in question, there are still quite significant differences in the detail of how these two related stations (they are husband and wife callsigns!) are received:

Received SNR(14MHz), on 12, 13 and 14 October 2020.

We'll see what interesting things happen during the coming days!