Probably very old news. I see that the Yaesu FRG-100 has been
discontinued. I wrote to Radio Netherlands a few years ago when they
prematurely pronounced the FRG-100 dead. I had to write to Yaesu to
confirm that it was still a current offering, then informed that Radio
Netherlands that their information was incorrect. They eventually changed
it to indicate that it was a current model.

Well, that has changed. Yaseu is not listing it on their site as a
current offering anymore, and various references on the internet list it
is discontinued this year.

The passing of a superlative desktop radio is a tragic thing. The world
is being flooded with inexpensive portable models, people that own some
of these and never graduate to a model the likes of the FRG-100 don't
know what their missing. I have the Yaesu FRG-100, the Yaesu FT-840, and
the Icom R-75. (as well as a bevy of portables) They each have their own
virtues and shortcommings.

As of this writing, shortwave is non-existant on the air. The sun has
been up to no good again, and propagation is suffering.

For those of you that have not visited the Space Weather Sites, here are
some links.

http://www.sel.noaa.gov/alerts/alerts_timeline.html
http://www.sel.noaa.gov/today.html

Auroral Activity http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/

http://www.spaceweather.com/


Unrelated to propagation, but interesting
http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm

Soliloquy.