Summer 2011

It's almost August, the Summer is OFFICIALLY 1/3 over...and for a solar cycle that is SUPPOSED to be nearing a PEAK...it has been lousy in comparison.

During the last cycle, 10 meters in the afternoon yielded QSOs from countries such as Chile, England, France, Germany, South Africa, Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy...and on...and on...and on.  This cycle, we're lucky here in FN02 if ALABAMA and TEXAS can be heard.  Not for lack of trying, mind you.  My ever-faithful HTX-10 is operated DAILY out in the garage...my second (Summer) shack.  Sure, beacons can be heard most days...and there is some sporadic FM activity on 29.600 MHz...and yes...W1AW can be heard via short-skip and/or backscatter...but there has been NO good DX for us here.  I heard Brazil the other night...but trans-equatorial doesn't cut it.  The cycle that peaked around the time I received my Novice was immense in comparison.  The HTX-100 that I had at the time had a mismatched antenna, but...you merely needed wet string and a few milliwatts and the DX could hear you.

Some scientists believe we are in for these lousy conditions for up to 50 years due to the prolonged effect of the so-called "Maunder Minimum".

Many 10 meter enthusiasts know that 10 opens frequently...in fact, much more than many would think.  But, if it doesn't appear on the cluster or the DX telnet "channel", then it isn't happening.  I would be willing to bet that if more of us used 10, we would find a band open to somewhere...even at odd times.

Field Day this year was exciting for many reasons.  The afternoon that Saturday started out slowly...with signals suffering from intense amounts of QSB.  One minute the signal you were listening to was a legitimate 10 dB over S9...and then 20 seconds later, they were gone.

Around 5pm Eastern Daylight Time, 10 started to settle down, and the signals were solid and consistent.  If you could hear the other person, you could work them.  It was THAT good.  It sounded and felt like 10 meters, circa 2004.  And the band was FILLED in the Novice sub-band of 28.300-28.500 MHz.  There was not much room to operate on a clear frequency.  (It amuses me that we ALL still stuff ourselves into 200 KHz of bandwidth!)

Overall, I still managed to work 20 states or so.  And, there was plenty of short-skip into New England...usually difficult to do at this stage of the solar cycle.

This year, My garage Summer shack has a few new additions.  I have moved my Powermite (PM-1) out there, as well as my micro 2AT for APRS/NOAA Weather Radio/monitoring the Amherst Police.  And recently, I acquired WB2VUO's Icom HTs...2 IC-2ATs, as well as my personal favorite, an IC-2A...the 2AT WITHOUT the DTMF pad.  Since I don't use a phone patch/auto patch and haven't done so in 20 years, and I also don't use IRLP, not having  DTMF capability isn't that big of a deal.  There are some repeaters in Western New York that don't have a PL tone associated with them, APRS is a simplex activity, and 146.52 simplex is always busy here.  And DominoEX-8 via FM simplex works INCREDIBLY well compared with chasing DX via FM voice.  Last night, August 11th, WB2VUO and I conducted an experiment using DominoEX-8.  I was running approximately 100 mW or so, while Keith was running 5 watts.  Solid copy over both paths, at a distance of 3.5 miles, where voice wouldn't have worked.

The 3 Icoms are a bit rough around the edges, and one of the 2ATs needs a final replaced, but they are still prime examples of what I have written about previously...HTs can be fun and affordable if you don't mind an older unit.

Hopefully, by the end of the Summer, if everything works out as I'm hoping it does, I will have a brand new Yaesu VX-8DR here...and the 2ATs (except for my MUSEUM QUALITY one) will be on eBay.