AmateurRadio.com

Today we went on a day return by train to London to be with our son Tim, his wife Jo and our grandchildren Lucien and Amandine. Tim met us and took us back to Kings Cross. Booking in advance and with Senior Rail Cards if works out cheaper than driving. At present I cannot drive because of my brain bleed last year.  It was good to spend time in their home again after so long.

With the grandchildren in London today

Totally by accident, we sat next to Nick G4IKZ on the train back from London. I’d not seen Nick since work days over 6 years ago. Many years ago we worked together in several Cambridge companies. Nick is one of the brightest minds I’ve had the privilege to know. There are few better RF engineers. We compared notes on 6m WSPR of course. He confirmed his 6m antenna is a horizontal Moxon.

Being late back, I decided not to turn the rigs on tonight.

I think this is a Windows 8.1 issue? It happened around 0700z this morning and has been fixed by resetting internet time and reopening the WSPR software. I wonder if it is linked to Windows doing an update?

Anyway, all is now fine and only about 1hr missed on 6m. So far just the usual STRONG reports from G4IKZ (18km) on 6m. I may QSY to a different band later for a change.

G4IKZ 6m spots of my 1W ERP so far this morning (13.6.14)

WSPRing on 6m needs patience: there are long periods of relative silence punctuated by a little DX activity, usually Es but occasionally GDX.  Most days in the last few weeks I have just let the software run to see what turns up. It has been rewarding. 

I just wish more east coast USA/Canadians would come on 6m WSPR.  If there are any stateside multi-hop 6m Es openings WSPR is the ideal mode to find them. You can then do other things at the same time.