Amazing 12m day!

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.

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.

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):

Situation at time of hearing last EA stations at 24MHz.

15.4% Price hike. Really?

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).

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!   

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).

Getting it wrong...again.

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.  

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? 

2020s bad presentation.  RSGB home page (accessed 10UT, 2021 January 08).

 

PMWE strong

Quite extensive polar mesospheric winter echoes (PMWE) again at high latitudes past day or so. 

Hats needed all round.

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:

Quiet, except for 9Z4FV

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:

RX of 9Z4FV (20W) WSPR at 14MHz by MW1CFN (IO73)

First Skip

A very nice, coherent example of 21MHz long first skip propagation this morning at ~10:30UT