30m - what can it do?

Ah the joys of operating in different countries, with different restrictions, different allocations and band-plans, and all the rest… Plenty of traps for the un-wary… :wink:

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It is unlikely that I will be able to make S2S with UK on 30 m during your morning time, because it is a middle of the night in US (West Coast). The other challenge is a poor propagation between US West Coast and UK at this moment.

My apologies. (Note to self:= must pay more attention) :roll_eyes:

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It was only when I’d managed to get my Full licence and then started looking at the rules and regulations for operating in other countries that I realised just how different the regulations could be from one country to another…

Kenya’s licence is pretty much a Roneo copy of the UK one from sixty years ago. A few things have changed (like the bands available) but all the rest remains as it was all those years ago, down to the logging requirements, specified suffixes, location reporting requirements, and the mode nomenclature the old UK licence used to have in it.

Australia was quite different in some ways, especially on the “who can use which band” side of things, and tracking down the detail was sometimes less easy than it could have been.

Germany also has its idiosyncracies, and I had to re-read some of the bits in the English version of its licence more than twice to make head or tail of them. My German’s nowhere good enoughto make sense of it in its original language.

I’m not planning any trips to the USA at present, but their licensing and allocations are another interestingly different case…

It all makes life interesting. I need to get some better antennas up at home and into my travel pack. Apart from my SOTA linked-dipole, I don’t have a good one for 30 metres.

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Sunday 25th April 2021 - The Cloud G/SP-015 & Gun G/SP-013

Over breakfast this morning, I deliberated over and over what band to go for on my planned activation of The Cloud G/SP-015. At one point I was going for 2m CW, to really try and force up the activity levels in anticipation of the proposed 2m CW SOTA Day. Then again I saw that Mickey @2E0YYY was being heard weakly in VK on 20m - so 14MHz was tempting though the more I deliberated, the later it got and the less chance I would have of that kind of success, especially with QRP.

I opted ultimately for 30m which I’d not done for a while.

There was no DX to be had on 10MHz - there wasn’t even any outside-EU tantalisingly showing up in the band activity window on WSJT-X, let alone any actually being heard by me. However, it was very pleasant to be sitting operating on 30m, first on CW and then on FT8, in the sunshine.

42 contacts made as follows:

30m CW: 20 QSOs
30m FT8: 19 QSOs
2m FM: 3 QSOs

3 S2S: GW4OBK/P on GW/NW-035, 2W0TDX/P & 2W0XYL/P on GW/NW-039.

Over to Gun G/SP-013, and as is so often the case, time was now against me and i just walked to the summit with my handheld. I wanted to get back in time for Dan Toft’s weekly online “Virtual Open Mic” show at 1.30pm BST, as Liam’s latest video and recording was scheduled to be on it.

2m FM: 7 QSOs

2 S2S: GW4HQB/P & MW0OVW/P on GW/MW-009

Back home, and watched the Facebook Live broadcast, which included this cover of a 1980 Manchester punk classic from my son’s band:

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I just checked my chaser log for 30 M. 534 SOTA QSOs, all domestic I’d presume. No SOTA DX, but plenty of other DX on 30, about 275 countries worked. Condx not so hot recently. The DL RTTY is a good beacon for Europe openings, but I think they run 5 or 10 KW! I can copy the RTTY pretty well sometimes.

73
John, K6YK

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DDK9, the RTTY WX signal is 15kW.

You could try listening for DK0WCY, the Aurora Beacon on 10.114MHz. It runs 30W to a dipole 24/7. See http://www.dk0wcy.de/ for more info.

  1. Guarantee you can qualify a summit based on 30m contacts alone. As my favourite band I activate on 30m every time I take my HF rig with me and I can’t remember getting less than four 30m contacts.
  2. Enjoy more polite and patient chasers (than on many other bands) who behave during pileups [unlike 20m and 40m where e.g. some QRO stations send “??” because they’re too lazy or arrogant to wait for your callsign or SOTA context].
  3. Operate low power at weekends and not struggle - with QRO contest stations all around you - to find a quiet frequency and make readable contacts.
  4. Enjoy consistently usable [daytime] propagation conditions. It’s often good to excellent and rarely less than average.
  5. Portable vertical antennas are practical quick-setup alternatives to wire dipoles on 30m [where as they are not on the lower frequency bands without going to a lot of trouble].

Typo: Andy, think you meant 10.144MHz

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Yes. Should have cut & pasted not retyped.

See you spotted on 30m FT8, listening/looking - SS here :slight_smile: GL
Geoff ZL3GA

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Just worked VK so fingers crossed…

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Moved onto 10.140 in FT4 mode now as the frequency seems clear. 10.136 FT8 is very busy. Might be a better chance for DX?

Nothing on 10.140 either Tom. Only saw M0NKR decode on FT8, lots of German and French stations, the prop just needed to move a little further West…

Hamspots only shows you being decoded in Scandinavia and HB

Yes just seen that on PSK Reporter.

I am rxing your CQ call!

Just testing to see if the path is ope, 25W to dipole

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Try JT65 Tom?

Yes OK. QRG? The nominal 10.138 is swamped by FT8 here.

Anywhere that suits you