And was that by working me on groundwave 31 miles away on Gummers How? I managed only to work you and Christian @F4WBN (529) on 10m. Such a contrast from December-February where the T-A stations were rolling in on 10m. I wasn’t going to get a summit multiplier or SOTA points anyway by re-activating one of my favourite local summits this year.
I’m not even going to bother taking a 10m-specific antenna this afternoon to do Whernside G/NP-004. I’ll do 30m and 40m with my 40/30/20 EFHW. I may listen to 10m and give it a go, but I’m not holding my breathe.
We come up against the delights of skip zones. From here, so far this year, the nearest non-groundwave ten metre contact I’ve had was 2220kms away in Greece.
It probably didn’t help that various sunspots decided yesterday was a day for a minor solar flare party…
No. Nor GD, GU, GJ, GI, EI, PA, ON, LX, OM, OZ, LA, SM, OE and others that would be “bankers” on 40/30/20! Probably something to do with skip or something…
I’m not sure of the exact number without interrogating my main log at home, but I reckon 5-10 of those DXCCs collected on the 10m Challenge this year, are actually ATNOs for me.
I’ve worked most of those in the past on ten and six via sporadic E. It should start up again soon, I have my fingers crossed for a good season though some people say that it isn’t as good at sunspot maximum.
PS I am getting some strong noise burst today, I think the sunspots are holding a party again!
What you need is the MUF to head towards 50MHz. As the MUF rises the skip distance on the bands lower than the MUF frequency shorten.
Also in the DL example - look for a DL (or DD) station in the far SE of Germany and operate from the NW of the UK to maximise your distance away from the station. In reverse, I can work into GI, EI and GM but (at the moment) G is too close on 10m.
Even worse, only had one S2S today. Heard you very weak and don’t workable, Andy.
If a Pota spot hadn’t helped me at the same time, I would have had to worry about 4 qsos.
Getting the summit multiplier was taxing on Winter Hill G/SP-010 yesterday. Eventually it came through from Brazil on FT8, but the rest of the activation resorted to 2m FM from the handheld. I could hear (see) plenty of FT4/FT8, but plenty was not hearing me! My ZLP system seems to have packed up again - probably needs (yet) another DIN cable ordering at great expense from ZLP himself.
Fortunately I had my SignaLink interface and cables in the rucksack as back-up and I got things working with this. The CW and SSB portions of the 10m band were devoid of activity.
Today on The Cloud G/SP-015, it was very slightly better. Five worked on 10m FT4 - all DX (2 x YB, 2 x 4X, and EA8) and on 10m CW I worked 4K6FO. Still tough going though.
The start of 2024 promised much with the condition of the 10m band for the first quarter, but there’s definitely a lull at present. Let’s hope the Sp.E season kicks in soon - and is a good one - and that the rest of the year will see a frenzy as we build towards this cycle’s maximum.
