Activity on the higher bands?

Hi,

I wonder what your experience is on the bands above 20m. Yesterday I tried 17m cw from DM/BW-091 which resulted in 1 QSO. On 12m cw no QSO :frowning:
Antennas are end-fed vertical dipoles for each band which usually perform well. According to the (few) RBN spots the antennas did radiate :wink: Spots for both bands appeared on SOTAwatch. I didn’t expect the activity to be that low. Any ideas?

tnx, 73, Roman - DL3TU

Hi Roman

17m is the one band that I always try to use as it is my favourite. I find it very rare to be unable to qualify a summit.

However you do need to be aware of the propagation characteristics depending on time of year and time of day. You did not say when you tried but I am surprised you struggled with CW.

The antenna I tend to use is a end-fed 5/8 wave vertical but when travelling via air I take a very simple 1/4 wave. I usually use around 30 W on SSB but when the band is properly open, QRP works really well.

Carolyn

1 Like

10m was almost dead this morning
Only 2 Qsos with EA2
5W cw & vertical dipole
73 Angel from EA5/CS land

Hi Carolyn,

17M is my favourite band as well. I am surprised more activators do not visit there.
Your set up certainly worked when you were both on adventures abroad.
Nigh night & good luck 2016+.
Mike

Hi Roman,

We are supposed to be having a CME or equivalent at the moment, plus the fact that I plan to activate again tomorrow has probably put conditions into the doldrums already.

73 Ed.

P.S. also really like the 18MHz band!

Hi all,

thanks for the replies!
I forgot to mention the time: 17m was QRV around 12:00 UTC (on 2015-12-29), 12m around 14:00 UTC.
Heard several QSOs on 17m. So the band was definitely open. With my 10 Watts the SNR in EA- and OH-Land was approx. 20 dB according to RBN. Seems that no one was interested in a QSO.
By the way: Which frequency do you use for cw? 18.086kHz?

73, Roman

I’ve been operating 5Z90IARU from Nairobi for the last few days, mostly using 15 metres. Up til about 16:00z yesterday (31/12/15) it was working quite nicely, though getting noisier and more prone to QSB as the day day progressed. Around 16:00z the noise got to the point where most of the DX was blanked out…

Now the old year has ended I’ll get back to using my own call…

73, Rick 5Z4/M0LEP