Present times offer good possibilities now on 10 m. What a life to log all these remote callsigns! Dozens, hundreds or even thousands for the current Challenge. Enjoying here, too, to check my current position on the list from time to time.
Certainly yes. But don’t forget your local, closer buddies, gents! Here in Central Europe I still enjoy contacts at home or on the summits to closer areas like HB9, DL, DM, FL, I or OE all the same . . . but your 10 m ground wave or your 20 m signal is frequently not audible here. Offer us a QSO, too! This remembers us to take your summit on our long lists and to activate and to complete it – and to see its beauty. The same certainly in other similar regions around the world.
Do you have optimized your (antenna) weight just recently? What a pity to see now only spots from you on 20 m or the upper bands now . . . or not to receive your 40 m try at all since your invisible but expensive short antenna stick doesn’t provide a really good 40 m signal any longer – whereas the earlier antenna did.
This is not black and white. But reward your remote AND local partners. Keep ALL smiling, thanks!
I agree, Markus. 10m DX is a thrill, and should be enjoyed because it will vanish when the sun calms down again, but my station is set up for the lower bands, 160 - 40m. I am enthusiastic for 60m but I have only had one chase on that band in the last six months - in fact I have had more on 160m! I hope that when the sporadic E season starts on 10m then I will get more of Europe on the band, at present everything except for southeast Europe skips over my head, but it is good to keep in touch with the neighbours on the lower bands while we wait.
I completely agree @HB9DIZ Markus - I always work 40m first, and then if I have time, I’ll have a call on 10m always remember your close friends / neighbours, the day will come when your stuck on summit with 2 or 3 ITL
Hope you’re keeping well, when you reduce the prices in HB9 land, I’ll be over to visit! Hahaa.
But as I wrote when someone very recently posted on the same theme (i.e. “my favourite band is ‘suffering’ due to the 10m Challenge”) that concern is exaggerated. The number of 10m-only alerts is small, e.g. today two activators (one on 2 summits) are 10m only out of 54 alerts.
In any case, it’s not a zero-sum gain situation. Many of us are activating 10m in addition to our usual band(s). [At the risk of sounding like a broken record] Activators - by choosing only certain bands and modes - routinely exclude some chasers. I haven’t heard SSB chasers complain that CW operators like me rarely or never activate with SSB.
Have you looked at whether activators generating 10m spots on a given day are also generating them on different bands? Spots are more informative than alerts. I often operate on different bands to those I have alerted on (usually in addition to, but not always).
No, that would take much much longer and I have a life.
I agree, but counting alerts is good enough for a first-order approximation to make the point. As you say, some activators will end up working additional bands but some - due to unforeseen circumstances - will not work all their alerted bands. So, I suspect, given these plusses and minuses, the percentage of 10m-only activations will still be very low.
I alerted for 2 summits, but went on to activate a third as well on 10m only.
I do understand, and will be returning to other bands, I’m not just ignoring them because I can’t be bothered.
I try never to leave a band while people are still calling, and by the time the 10m calls have dried up, it is time for me to move on because I’m cold / stiff / want to fit in another summit.
Also, I’m using a single band 10m ground plane which would involve a change of aerials which again takes time.
Over the years I have activated on all UK bands from 160m to 13cm, whatever I choose to do on an activation will leave out quite a few of them
I have, at least, offered ssb and cw on all my 10m activations
As the weather improves, I might well spend longer on summit, and use a few other bands - so please don’t write me off just yet!
I am running my 8th year in SOTA and to be honest during 2023 I started to feel a certain monotony until Andy came with the idea of the “10 meters challenge”. At that moment I thought it could be a good excuse to get out of that monotonous feeling. And boy it was!!! The “Challenge” forced me to take the mic and start doing SSB, thus giving opportunities to many chasers who would never have chased me on CW. And 10m makes the possibilities a lot easier. The “Challenge” is only for one year (unfortunately, or luckily, there are only 9 months left) and if many who are chasing me in other bands feel “disappointed” because I am not as active in those bands, I am sorry to say that for all These years we play different games. In short, I spent 7 years operating on as many HF bands as possible, especially and a large percentage on 40m. Why not change that routine for just one year?
73 de JP3PPL
My attitude to this is similar to Takeo and Adrian. These 10m conditions are special, and the Challenge is only for this year. I’m younger than many of my SOTA activating friends, but even I ask myself how many more times in my existence will I experience 10m conditions like these AND be fit and healthy enough to climb hills? When you realise that it could be 2, but more likely 1, and possibly never, it does make you think!
In any case, once we are heading back down “the other side” en route to the next solar minimum, I will drop down through the frequencies accordingly. I activate most bands, most modes, and consistently do several activations every week, week in, week out, so over the next 5-10 years, there will be lots of opportunities for all chasers to work me. But maybe not so many this year!
Having said that, regular chasers in UK and Europe ARE popping up and calling me. Groundwave and some kind of scatter probably responsible. So it’s always worth trying tuning into a spotted 10m activation - you never know your luck! Plus of course we’re not that far away from the Sp.E season now, where events will enable easy opportunities for European chasers to work European activators on 28MHz.
On my recent 4000th activation, I did do a long operating stint and use several HF bands. I am likely to do this style of activation a little more as the weather improves into Summer.
I well remember the early days of SOTA when the Reflector was bursting with exactly such grumbles! It was the major factor in inspiring me to learn CW for HF activating!
But then CW activating became mainstream and acceptable, people lauding it as a “legacy mode”. That forced me to commence FT8 activating…
Many years ago, I got into 2m CW activating and built up a small but enthusiastic community of 2m CW activators and chasers. This was good fun while the novelty lasted (not very long), but was described by someone as “selfishness of the highest order” on the Reflector at the time!
Any regular reader of the RSGB’s Radcom Letters page will have noticed moaning on various aspects of amateur radio from - I suspect - mainly letter writers of my age. We Oldies do like a good grumble - it’s a pastime for us. Unfortunately, it smacks of an undeserved sense of entitlement, definitely a First World phenomenon.
I’ll stop now before someone points out my hypocrisy on some of my posts.
Please allow us to enjoy this solar cycle without guilty feelings. 40 metres are always there (almost) regardless of the propagation, while we can enjoy the present conditions on the higher bands very rarely. I currently have the possibility to work a lot of new DXCC entities as well since SOTA is not only strictly activation, but also “chasing” of rarities. Not to mention the many chasers from other continents.
Signed: a current (almost) only 10 meters activator.
I am 1/3 activator and 2/3 hunter and I am not sure if I fully get this point.
We have a group of activators who only do 2m activations. I didn’t hear any comments about that.
I also think, the same way activator is hoping for DX chaser on 10m, European chasers can look for DX Summits, with better antennas and more power they are at the advantage. At the end of the day these DX activators also look for a DX chaser. I know you have to get up early or chase late in the afternoon (Europe)
I haven’t seen any stats, but chasing summits lately, but I noticed larger number of 10m spots and re-spots, but 40, 30 & 20 did not reduced much.
I don’t see situation that I have nobody to chase, if anything I see many call sings I never seen before.
Challenge, was setup and it was reacted to accordingly. Should we change the rules? Is it fair after 3 months? Change could be equal number of QSOs on another band to 10m band QSOs, just an example.
Hi Marek, I tried to make this point several times on this thread and on another recent similar one. Maybe the ‘concerned’ posters think 10m is somehow different.
That agrees with the occasional checks on daily 10m-only alerts I’ve done. But sometimes people will not be convinced by numbers.
I agree with Takeo @JP3PPL, an occasional SOTA special event (e.g. 10m Challenge, Transatlantic S2S party, G/LD Lake District weekend) motivates many of us to get out on the hills more often usually in addition to the bands, modes and summits we do routinely [it has with me].
And as Marco @SP9BIJ says activators should not be made to feel guilty for doing something new and exotic (for many of us), good fun but short lived.
Looking back on the topic, it actually didn’t help much to refer to numbers or analytics. My message here was only and simple: “Do one good thing, but don’t forget the other good thing.” So happy to see here or elsewhere your 40 m rounds for those appreciating your activation from the vicinity.
always remember your close friends / neighbours, the day will come when your stuck on summit with 2 or 3 ITL 
