"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message
...


We're talking about some truckers looking for a clear, "private" channel
....


And it is aggravated by the fact that you can find 10m ham radios in truck
stops next to the CBs. Although labeled as requiring a license, that is
totally ignored.

Since a lot of 10m is essentially an unoccupied wasteland (and I do
operate
on 10m ...), with virtually all the activity concentrated in the 28.3-28.5
segment (except for the minority of folks who deliberately want to shun
the Tech+ and Novice ops), wouldn't it be better to OCCUPY that spectrum
by allowing Novice/Tech/Tech+ access there?
(remember the "use it of lose it" saying ...)


The 10-10 club was formed to help keep the 10 meter band active.
Unfortunately, the propagation is so dependent on the sunspot cycle that for
2/3s of the cycle (roughly 7 years out of every 11) that the 10 meter band
is generally only good for local communications except for occasional
openings caused by sporadic E. No matter how many people we allow on 10
meters, there's going to be a lot of dead air except during the peaks of the
sunspot cycle. Just check the beacon stations and you'll realize that for
yourself.

For whatever reason, I have found that not many Novice/Tech+/Tech with HF
privileges are taking advantage of 10 meters. If all those licensed for it
used it, I'd certainly be hearing something as I'm in a major metropolitan
area. Yet it's quiet. I suspect that those interested in HF have already
upgraded to General and the rest aren't on the air because they fall in the
class of inactive hams.

Inactivity of existing hams is more of a problem than any test requirements,
etc. If every US ham already licensed for HF made one QSO per day, it would
be wall to wall signals.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE