I think I mentioned over and over again on this blog and in my contest reports that I’m a real 10 m addict. It’s as fascinating a frequency spectrum as 6 m which is called the “magic band” for a reason: it’s the only band where you can experience all the HF as well as the VHF propgation modes! 10 m lacks a few of the VHF modes, i.e. tropo ducting, but still has much of the VHF propagation patterns in common with 6 m, i.e. Sporadic-E or Meteor Scatter. Being almost in sunspot minimum there’s no F2 propagation on 10 m which is normally enabling all the “around the world” contacts on shortwave so you have to rely on these VHF propagation modes to make any contacts at all.
It’s usually not any different in December’s ARRL 10 m contest these days. And it seems year by year is a different challenge, too. 😉 While I was quite happy with last year’s outcome resulting in a place #2 worldwide 😎 it was an entirely different show this weekend. Propagation was almost absent. We had a few small and patchy ES openings Saturday morning but most contacts were done through meteor reflections plus some locals up to 350 km on troposcatter. Sunday morning saw a 3 hours ES opening to the Faröer Islands (OY) as the highlight but unfortunately only one station QRV on CW and SSB each. It’s always a kind of masochism hearing these great signals from that one and only station but nobody else to work. So all in all much perserverance needed! Nevertheless well worth the effort as a masochist 10 m addict, of course! 😉
ARRL 10-Meter Contest Call: DH8BQA Class: SO CW Unlimited HP QTH: JO73ce Operating Time (hrs): 15 Remote Operation Summary: Band QSOs Mults ------------------- CW: 118 27 SSB: (10) ------------------- Total: 118 27 Total Score = 12,744 Comments: Elecraft K3, KPA500 @600W + 6 ele G0KSC OWA Yagi @60ft