Summer E propagation

[JohnFreeman]

I run a CW beacon on 10M that puts out a half watt to a very crappy trap dipole in the attic. It runs 24/7 and comes from QRP labs as a kit. I've had it running for about a year.

The amazing thing (to me!) about this thing, is that we're in a lull of the sunspot cycle and that 10 is according to conventional wisdom, dead.

I subscribe to the beacon list and I get reports daily on what the various SDR's vacuum in on a daily basis.

So, the punch line is, it's really cool to see that with QRPp on a "dead" band, that about 50% of the days this summer, that half watter to the attic dummy load gets heard in 2-3 states ...from Md, Penn, to Arizona. It's been logged in Hawaii and Europe previously.

Sporadic E rocks!

 

[noway2]

At field day, I got put on a 10m station. At first I wasn't seeing anything. It was SO bad I thought I might just pack up and go home if that's how it was going to be. Then I started seeing done traffic on 15 and then 12 meters... A little bit later 10m came alive.

I noticed that it's unique and I'm told it's like 6 meters in this regard, in that it tends to roam and waffle around in terms of direction. For a while it was very strong out of the north east. An hour or so later, nothing from the NE, but it's coming in from the upper mid west. A few hours later, your getting south Texas instead.

I was also getting picked up across the globe on the pskreporter site on 10 meters, so yes, this "dead" band was working.

 

[JohnFreeman]

I did a lot of 10M AM with vintage gear back in the early 90s. There was a guy in Fla with a converted tube type CB that always came in well in the late afternoons. Then there was "Uncle Joe" in Garner I spoke with 40-50 times who I ended up meeting FTF when I moved to NC from NM.

10 is full of surprises. Having a beacon going 24/7 and having robo-SDRs listening really provides some interesting data