2020 Has Started, And A Brief Look Back On 2019.

For me, 2020 started in the sign of the cough. It stared e few days before the New Year, and is still there, though it seems to be subsiding now.

2019 was a year of travel, and not too much radio activities.
The QO100 geostationary satellite was activated, and the amateur radio transponder went on line in February. I got a decent system up and running for receiving the narrow band transponder down link. This is actually not too complex, as a TV satellite LNB is sufficient for converting the 10GHz down link signal from the satellite. A bit of modification, and adding an external reference oscillator placed indoors proved necessary, was constructed and has been in use since then. An improved version is in the making.
Next step is - still - getting to transmit on the 2400MHz up link for the satellite.
Also on 10GHz, a simple experiment has been running: Using a LNB for reception of terrestrial signals, via rain scatter and tropospheric propagation. I am still impressed that I receive a beacon about 36km from here, certainly non-line-of-sight. It is there all the time, received with the LNB alone, no extra gain from a dish.
Also, a fair amount of sporadic E openings over the summer on 6m and 4m, with a few new countries worked on each band, and getting a fair amount of components for projects (mostly via eBay).
Not too many projects finished, and many more ideas appeared. It is a fact of life that getting ideas is easy, putting them into practise takes much more time.

2020 should probably see me finishing just a few projects, like:
- QO100 uplink capability
- receive antenna system for monitoring several frequencies simultaneously
- some QRSS activity, mostly grabbing (receiving) QRSS signals  and other weak signal modes

The beginning of 2020 (and the end of 2019) has seen some spectacular tropospheric propagation over the Atlantic.
On 2m the European distance record was broken for tropo signals, with a spectacular QSO between Cape Verde and Northern Scotland.
On 70cm the world record was broken with a QSO from Cape Verde to Scotland.
All this has been made possible by using weak signal modes, like FT8. I would not be surprised if those records will be broken again later this year. Exciting times on VHF and UHF, and possibly the microwave bands.

Happy New Year to all from here. Hope to work some of you guys.