In article ,
Bill Gunshannon wrote:

I have just set up my vertical and a couple of HF rigs after a hiatus of
more than a decade. I have not heard a single station above 40M yet.
I did hear a PA0 on 80M, good signal too.

Guess I picked the wrong time to get interested again. :-(

As another poster said, "Not necessarily". The higher bands do open,
although less well than during a sunspot peak. Part of the problem, I
think, is that so many people are convinced that the higher bands are
dead that they don't bother to listen _or_ call CQ.

A few weeks ago I had a nice (brief but easily-copyable) PSK31 contact
on 20, from northern California to a polysyllabic city on the
Kamchatka peninsula. 35 watts and a simple horizontal dipole at 25'
on my end.

Looking
around for antenna wire now so I can get some kind of a dipole up as I
was really never impressed with the oerformance of any of my trap verticals.

Ordinary TTHN-insulated stranded wire from your local homebuilding
store works fine and isn't expensive. No need to get fancy, unless of
course you _want_ to get fancy :-)

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

In article ,
Larry Weil writes:
"KØHB" wrote in news:9f1699bf-0ae5-4f1c-bc9c-
:


So who broke the 10 meter band? More so who is going to fix it and
when? (Better be someone good as the last one who worked on it didn't
do so good.......downright well..... unsatisfactory!)


I worked Argentina from Salem, NH on Sunday. All my other QSO's were MA
and NH.


Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else see a dcided disadvantage
to being on either coast for a contest like this during the down side
of the sunspot cycle?

bill
KB3YV

--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
| and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include std.disclaimer.h

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:12:58 -0500, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
Perhaps it's just me, but does anyone else see a dcided disadvantage
to being on either coast for a contest like this during the down side
of the sunspot cycle?

I think it's largely a chance thing - if the short-skip happens to go your
way then it's best to be in the middle. (this year the Texans got the
luck. Right now 5 of the 10 top claimed scores in high-power CW are in
Texas.)