If you only had one band available

I started SOTA on 2m and found ssb worked well for me. I think I had more fun with that than with subsequent activations. The critical mass of other activators and chasers seems no longer to be there; not helped, no doubt, by my absence.
Various reasons led to moving to HF instead. These included difficulty finding 4 chasers on weekdays and serious QRM caused to a nearby operator on 2m FM :wink:
73,
Rod

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Yeah of course Don!

You have to pick and chose your times, as you say Rod!

However being a predominant weekend activator, I find 2m SSB fine for activity. Plus HF at the weekends, is pretty unbearable, for all the contests.

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Agreed, so I try to keep the HF bands going mid-week.
73,
Rod

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For ease of qualification within the UK, 60 metres wins. 30 metres is a close second, and is less restricted elsewhere, but it does occasionally get somewhat wiped by rare DX working split. However, if I was stuck with only one band, I’d probably pick 20 metres, because there are times when my ears just won’t do Morse, and the band is wide enough to accommodate any mode I’m likely to choose…

30 Meters. It’s both local and DX, both day and night, and no contests.

Best 73, Ken

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That’s exactly why I was about to choose 30m. I love the type of propagation this band has, but I finally voted for 20m, as it gives me the chance to operate not only CW, but SSB as well.
(20m) CW is by far what I use most and my preferred mode, but I must admit that the brief chatting on SSB with people from all over the world is something that I really enjoy very much too. That’s why I’d choose 20m if I only had one band available.
There are some but we rarely see contest on both CW and SSB.
Cheers,

Guru

I was like you Guru: 30m or 20m. Being able to actually talk to chasers all over the world is a joy. In the end I voted for 30m because it just has the edge on both local and DX. It was close though.

Hi Andy,
Being a MT member, you probable can change your vote, can’t you? :wink:
Cheers,

Guru

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I’d miss 20m too. I don’t care so much for 40m, most of my rigs are simple affairs and the band is so crowded, I hate fighting through the QRM. I’ve never had a rig with DSP.

I never have been very comfortable using a microphone, but I aim to do more SSB activations this year.

My favourite set up used to be my 30m/20m MTR with a dedicated 30/20 dipole. I repaired the dipole last year after I broke it accidentally in my garden :cry: I think I will start using the system again this year. I find the MTR2B too heavy at 170g, so I’m very tempted to make a new case out of aluminium and get rid of the part steel original.

I can change many things :wink: Though Discourse (this software) makes it very hard to rewrite history.

Another reason why I’d choose 20m first is that there must be very many more chasers having a high gain antenna like a yagi, hexbeam, etc for 20m than those having it for 30m, where most of us just have a dipole, long wire, endfed and things like this.
I unfortunately arrived to the frequency a bit too late to chase Ron on 20m.

I’m pretty sure I’d have copied and worked him with ease,

When I saw the spot for 30m, I tried to work him, but his chosen frequency was too noisy for me and my inverted vee broadband folded dipole was unable to provide a clear enough signal for me to understand his transmission, so I lost this chase :frowning:

20m gives the activators more chances to be heard and worked by some of the many far away chasers having a high gain antenna (i.e. yagi)
Many hams have tribander yagis and the same would apply for 15 and 10m, but propagation conditions are not at all as good all over the year including day and night as on 20m.

30, 40, 60, 80, etc are bands where the huge majority of us only can have a simple dipole, long wire, inverted L and stuff like that, so far less chances to copy a tiny QRP signal from far away.

20m is definitely the QUEEN of the bands to me for SOTA.

Cheers,

Guru

I think there’s a difference between having a preferred band to making the choice of just one band.

I think 20m is my favourite band, I really do get a kick out of working a US station or a VK, especially with a home brew rig.

There have been times just recently when 20m has been in awful shape but yet 30m is still providing good propagation. I think 30m is ultimately more reliable.

I agree about the higher likelihood of higher gain chaser antennas on 20m and up, which helps activators enormously.

Maybe I should invest in one of those Pixie rigs from China, they’re sold as 40m rigs but the harmonics are so strong, they work on 20m too! :slight_smile: Technically a single band rigs, lol

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Well I chose 17m but. Just checked my log and with about 30 activation’s the numbers look like this:
40m 46 QSO’s
20m 138 QSO’s
17m 53 QSO’s
15m 48 QSO’s
2m 18 QSO’s
So guess I should have voted 20m?

With my chaser hat on:
40m 166 QSO’s
30m 10 QSO’s
20m 550 QSO’s
17m 205 QSO’s
15m 182 QSO’s
12m 14 QSO’s
10m 16 QSO’s
2m 10 QSO’s
So again 20m is the most productive.

Note I think ZL is quite unique as we have a very small SOTA ham population both chasers and activators so with that and often doubtful local propagation one must often rely on DX contacts, at least VK, USA and JA when activating to assure enough QSO’s. As a chaser DX on HF is king here, without 20, 17 and 15m chasing would be very boring here in ZL so I really appreciate those DX that make the effort to come up on those bands.

73 John ZL1BYZ.

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If I had one band available, it would be 20 meters.

Like I always use, 30 meter CW.

Tough question. My heart says 10m.

When open, it’s the band which take you on the ride of your life, especially on FM and it can produce huge quantities of DX …if working DX is your SOTA thing, that is.

However, as the 10m band is unworkable for most of the year, and as much as it grieves me to say it, my head says the 20m zoo. It would be a very unlucky Activator who fails to qualify a summit on 20m.

Easy one for me in VK6, 20 metres by a mile. be stuff all in my log if it wasn’t for 20 metres.

Plus some great LP into Europe. Memories.!!

John VK6NU

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I almost did it this afternoon, as I only logged 5 QSOs on 20m, 2 on CW and 3 on SSB.
One of the reasons may be that I failed to raise an alert for this activation. For some reason, the system told me the association was not recognised or something like that. I was trying to raise the alert from my smartphone and twice I got the same message of not recognised association.

It’s good that I switched to 30m and this band saved my day with 10 QSOs in the log, 2 of which were S2S…

73,

Guru

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Did that back in 2013. I spent two hours on the mountain and had three QSOs.

So, not really guaranteed in W6 with QRP SSB.

wunder