The annual ARRL DX SSB contest is this weekend.
Given the state of propagation I imagine a lot of US stations will be on the air and quite possibly a lot of US technician (entry level) that have SSB 10m privileges up to 28.500.
Definitely a chance for EU/VK/JA stations to pick up additional unique callsigns for the 10m challenge and/or flesh out your WAS goal.
Runs Saturday 00:00 UTC for 48 hours through to Sunday 23:59UTC.
All HF contest bands are fair game.
- US stations send 59 + state (2 letters)
- DX station sends 59 + power (5, 100, 1k …).
The start of contests can be frenetic and disappointing for “little pistol” station and a train wreck for QRP. Sundays can be quite different as all the big stations have worked each other and are calling and calling for “fresh meat”.
If you are a dire hard CW guy or gal, consider finding the mic that might have come with your rig. The venn diagram of CW and voice ops is not a 100% overlap.
Its possible that in 12 or 24 months propagation on 10m has dropped off significantly as it definitely seems way better now than 12 months ago. 11 years is a long time to see it come around again.
Plan accordingly.
Paul