I’ve been a licensed op since Aug 2007 and on HF since about June 2008. I’ve heard tales of 10m contacts on a few watts from a mobile radio all around the world, but I thought they were fairy tales. Since I’ve been operating, 10m has been pretty dead. I had noticed on Sunday late in the afternoon and early in the evening that 10m was open a bit and I was able to make a couple contacts. This has happened just a few times that I’ve noticed so it was a nice treat.
We have a weekly net on 10m – 28.375 – Monday evening at 9:00pm ET (0200z) with my local radio club and maybe 8-12 local folks participate. Well something happened last night that I’ve never heard before. We had more check-ins from the midwest in “8 land” then we had from the locals checking in. There was literally a pileup of folks from what I recall as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, etc. Quicker then our 10m net control op (K2ZO operating as K2BAR) could write, they were putting their call out there to check in. I could hear those stations louder coming in at 57 to 59+then I could hear some of the locals at 53 to 55. It was really marvelous!!
I don’t know how long it will last, but I hope it’s here to stay for a bit. There’s a 10m contest this weekend and it would be nice if the band remained open for it. I only have my G5RV wire antenna but it tunes up fine on 10m so maybe I can work some of that contest this weekend.
And maybe all those tall tales of 10m contacts around the world isn’t as far fetched as they previously seemed to me. Maybe, just maybe, you might be able to work 10m from a mobile rig to a far off land. One can dream.
73,
K2DSL
Wait until things get good. Last night’s activity on 6, 10, and even 12 was sporadic E (Es), and what I found was that I was hearing stations from roughly all those same areas on all bands.
What’s neat about 10m when it opens is that you really can work the world easily. I’ve be licensed for almost 10 years now and have been lucky enough to go through the peak of a cycle. My current country count on 10m is 162, though I still need confirmations for about 30 of those. (The unconfirmed ones are probably mostly due to me not sending for a card.) I don’t have a year-by-year breakdown of the when I worked different countries, but I have around 1700 contacts on 10m in total. Of those, I had about 1350 through 2002, but with the remaining 350 spread out over the years since. (I had a whopping 2 contacts on 10m in all of 2009).
But 10m is a lot of fun when it’s open with F-layer skip. You’re gonna love it.
I can’t wait for what all you “old timers” keep telling me will happen.
Someone on the 10m last night said 6m was also open but I needed to do something so I shut the radio down. I didn’t get home until late tonight so I don’t know how things were this evening.
Thanks for all the comments David.