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The HF bands were dead today.
22 August 2015 | by I was on the HF bands today and there was a QSO party happening state side but other than that the bands were dead. Is this what I have been missing for the past few months?? I am thinking the way to go at this point in time may be the digi modes? Once again I will have the joy of setting up my sound card modes…..thats always "fun". I ordered Win7 64 bit and according to the online tracking it should be here Monday. Not wanting to really setup any radio related programs on my desktop PC as when I install Win 7 64 bit it's going to be a clean install. Time to head out and pick up my better half from work, hope your weekend is going well out there!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].4 Responses to “The HF bands were dead today.”
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It is only going to get worst before it gets better, and me being 67 will most likely not be here when it does. Even if I live to be 110 yrs old, I doubt I will see the “go old days” type band opening again.
So there are many plan “B”‘s. For me it is digital all ready. I also have a TS-711 and TS-811 VHF/UHF all mode setup going into eggbeater antennas for satellite work in the future. I am planning on more wire also. Looking into finally trying out 160 (most likely digital), more 60 meters, 75/80, 40 and possibly 30 meters. My SG-230 and lots of wire should get me started…. Then figure out even better options.
For whatever it is worth, as a side note, Microsoft screwed up with Windoz 10. I have installed it on 4 machines and the silly thing really works and looks clean for a change. Don’t rule out Windows 10 for future ham radio and digital. Much to my shock and amazement this one is real..(I go back to CP/M, PCDOS 1.0, MSDOS 1.0 and even had a floppy with Windows 1.0..Damn I old..hi) so I have seen the the bad, the really bad, the ugly and the good over the decades. Win 10 so far looks like they did it right… Side note over and 2 cents… Many years ago I meet too many people that worked for Apple and Steve Jobs… I knew too much about him as well and many people I worked with. We all decided never, ever to own any Apple products. To this day I don’t and never will… My choice and I find it interesting how much is now coming out about Jobs that lead me to my decision. Windows is a standard I will stick with. But I also have two XP machines that will most likey be speaking Linux… It looks like a fun second choice.
Just be wary of upgrading to WIN 10. While it works great for many things, I have a network connected TV tuner that, on WIN 7 worked great. Any computer in the house could watch (and record)over the air TV. Upgraded to WIN 10, and Windows Media player is gone. No more TV. Have not found a replacement for Media Player yet. Also, one of the default settings is anyone in your contact list can access your wifi without knowing the security code. They can’t see your LAN, but they can get on your wifi. Turned that “feature” off.
Mike, try VLC Media Player…that’s what I saw recommended as a replacement!
Got me on that one Mike. But then again I knew about the media player and people are going to some free one on line. The good news is Win 10 is free the better news is that you have 30 days to undo it and go back to Win 7 or 8.1 since a file is created to make it possible. I will see if I can find the file and link for the free player. I may have bookmarked it on another computer. The default setting suck… I have read a ton of articles on Win 10 before downloading the 32 and 64 bit versions on a thumb drive and making up grades. Some of the wonky defaults will hopefully be changed in later downloads. For now, as with all the past versions, read lots of reviews and don’t erase the backup that can make your computer old again. I am on week 3 of one computer and week 2 on one and week 1 on one. So far I have been pleased. But I still have not deleted anything that can make me go back to my Win 8.1 system