30 metres again

It is fairly clear now that the 30 metre band is likely to be pretty dead over the winter once we are in darkness.Running WSPR last night on 30 metres I noted that I didn't hear anything past 1930 UTC though the 40 metre band was still very active.
My TS830 is becoming a little temperamental, with a tendency to drift at times, making it very difficult to use for Data modes. This is however an intermittent fault and having consulted the excellent TS830 survival guide I think I know what the problem may be. Even so I am still considering looking for another HF rig for the data modes and semi retiring the 830!

Whilst driving today I was listening to a local 2 metre repeater. Two stations were in QSO and it was clear that someone was trying to jam the repeater and interfere with the conversation. The stations in QSO were aware of this, in fact one station commented that the jammer was wasting his time as both stations could hear each other 5 and 9 on the repeater input!Which rather begs the question why were they using a repeater at all?? It seems locally at least the standard of repeater operation is going downhill-another reason to avoid them I think.