25th April 2024: MFJ Enterprises manufacture a wide range of products for the amateur radio market and their most recent catalogue comes to some 90-pages. There has been a lot of talk online over the last few hours about the company 'closing down'. Needless to say, you'd have to take anything said on a forum with a pinch of salt as people are prone to just repeat rumours.  Gigaparts is one of the large US retailers of amateur radio equipment and they released the following statement... " Yesterday, MFJ Enterprises announced that they would be closing down their manufacturing facilities ..read more

Thanks to the paid subscribers to the new EI7GL newsletter on Substack, I've used the funds to subscribe to a few amateur radio related organisations. Not only does this support them but I hope to give a bit of publicity to the various publications as well so others might subscribe. In this post, we'll look at the Spring 2024 edition of the SPRAT magazine, the journal for the G-QRP club.  At first glance, it would be easy to assume that the G-QRP club is only a special interest group interested in just about operating at low power (5-watts or less) and nothing else. While that is no ..read more

A nice 17-minute video by Jacob Markham outlining his journey in learning morse code. The cinematography is excellent. If you decide to learn more code then be sure to listen to the sound of the character and don't count or write down the dots and dashes. Google the Koch method ..read more

If you have an interest in propagation or DX on the 50 MHz band, this is an important time of year. Sporadic-E... At the end of April, we should see the start of the Sporadic-E season in the northern hemisphere. The initial openings should be on the 28 MHz band with stations about 1500-2000kms away being heard and worked. It's only a matter of time before the openings extend up to the 40 MHz, 50 MHz and 70 MHz bands. Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP)... The TEP season peaks around the Equinox but it extends until early May. The important thing to note here is that there is an overlap betwee ..read more

The fourth edition of the new newsletter is now up on Substack. EI7GL Amateur Radio Newsletter #0004 - 19th April 2024 Summary: - Intro, TEP & Sp-E HF Beacon & Propagation News - Region 2, Kiwi SDR, Solar Flux, 10m 40 MHz & Low Band VHF News : 40 MHz reports, Spain 50 MHz News: Singapore, Upcoming 50 MHz expeditions... a long list! 70 MHz News: 4m activity, new 4m beacon, 4m beacons, 4m nets 88-108 MHz: Radios in cars 144 MHz & Above: TEP, Antarctica, Expedition to SV5 cancelled, US EME, GPS disciplined oscillators Experimenters Corner: End fed half wave, Impedance matching ..read more

As we move further into April, the F2 layer propagation in the northern hemisphere is getting worse on the higher HF bands but in contrast, things are improving in the southern hemisphere. On the 16th of April 2024, short-wave listener Tony Mann in Perth, Western Australia reports reception of the ZS6WAB/B in South Africa on 40.675 MHz. The distance was in the region of 8320kms. Tony writes... "To my surprise the 40.675 MHz ZS6WAB beacon was received here in Perth, W. Australia again this autumn, on 16 April 2024, from 0630 to 0750 UTC. I guess his antenna must be beaming eastwards to be aud ..read more

On the 28th of November 2023, Perri Moore KD9NGV launched a Pico-Balloon from Illinois in the United States with a solar powered payload that transmits a WSPR beacon on 28.1246 MHz. Most of the Pico-Balloons launched from the USA tend to take a path closer to about 30 degrees north of the equator and cross areas like the north of Africa and south Asia. In contrast,  the KD9NGV balloon seems to have covered a much wider area and has been reported at more northerly latitudes as shown on the map above. By the 16th of December 2023, it had gone around the world once! By the 19th of February ..read more

It was sad to hear about the passing of Bernd, DL7APV who was a well known figure on the VHF & UHF bands. As can be seen from the image above, he built an impressive antenna array for the 432 MHz band which allowed him to make contacts with many radio amateurs around the world by bouncing signals off the moon. The array for 70cms was made up of 128 x 11-element Yagi antennas which had a calculated gain of 33.7 dBd. He first got a licence in 1975, made his first moon bounce contact on 432 MHz in 1983, got DXCC on 432 MHz in 2012 and finally worked all 50 US states in 2016, all from ..read more

With the recent demise of CQ magazine in the US, I've decided to start looking at what other amateur radio publications are out there. Thanks to the paid subscribers to the new EI7GL newsletter on Substack, I'll use the funds to subscribe to a few amateur radio related organisations. Not only does this support them but I hope to give a bit of publicity to the various publications as well so others might subscribe. In this post, we'll look at the May 2024 edition of the Practical Wireless magazine. *** Practical Wireless is a monthly UK based radio magazine and describes itself as ..."aimed at ..read more

There have been many remarkable Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) openings recently on the 144 MHz band from Namibia to Europe. This all started off when a group was established on WhatsApp when individuals in Europe and Africa exchanged messages to try and co-ordinate the tests. The problem with evening type TEP is that the signals are often very distorted at 144 MHz and modes like FT8 often don't work. To address this issue, the group decided to try the Q65 mode which has been a huge success. They picked the frequency of 144.190 MHz to carry out these TEP tests. The choice of frequency is ..read more