30m conditions

Not sure if I have a problem with my radio and 30m, since getting the FT950 about a week ago I have seen little to no FT8 activity on 30m. Is it me, or has the band been a little lacklustre of late?

Hi Mark,


The 30m band has been a bit lacklustre recently but does open up usually first thing in the morning and as night falls.
(Similar in character as the 40m band but can throw you a few nice surprises.)

Always worth checking conditions via the usual channels :-

https://www.hamqsl.com/solar.html

or the one I like as my 'go-to' :-

https://solar.w5mmw.net/


Quite often it's worth checking out activity on PSK Reporter and looking at the top bar for how many FT8 monitors there are on the band as sometimes the 'prediction' table shows a band as 'closed' when in fact there are loads of operators actually using it(!)

It is a W.A.R.C (World Administrative Radio Conference) band and usually receives less traffic than the more 'common' bands such as 40m, 20m, 15m & 10m. (Wikipedia WARC Bands :- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARC_bands )

I enjoy the WARC bands particularly 17m & 12m gaining some of my less common DX where I can usually be heard with my QRP activities. (Some horrendous examples of QRO on the 20m band in FT4/8 modes as well as the 'field of locusts' with operators jumping all over the place!)


It's all interesting stuff and I enjoy the 'see what you get' activity whenever I switch my radio on. I usually scan through my memories (all eight of them on my ancient FT757gx!) set for the FT8 frequencies and see what's out there.

All the best,
Victor

As Victor said.
I go on 30 early morning and get many contacts.

I made a few QSO's a couple of evenings ago, half my problem is my FT950 as I have to have it set up in PKT mode. PKT mode has a lower bandwidth than standard SSB and half the signals are missing, have ordered at more expense a Tigertronics box that will allow me to use SSB and a higher bandwidth setting. That should solve any issues that I am having.

On my 991A I also have set to PKT for FT8 but also separately open up the bandwidth to 3kHz. I don't know the 950 so didn't know if you could do that too, but a quick search in the FT950 groups.io it looks you can as found one answer that says that, HERE. Maybe you can try.

I don't have a permanent antenna setup for 30m, so if you catch me on there I am just experimenting with some wire in my bedroom. Mostly only Europe and Russia for me lately on that band.

SangueG wrote:

On my 991A I also have set to PKT for FT8 but also separately open up the bandwidth to 3kHz. I don't know the 950 so didn't know if you could do that too, but a quick search in the FT950 groups.io it looks you can as found one answer that says that, HERE. Maybe you can try.

I don't have a permanent antenna setup for 30m, so if you catch me on there I am just experimenting with some wire in my bedroom. Mostly only Europe and Russia for me lately on that band.

Sadly the 950 only goes to 2.4kHz in PKT, SSB is 3kHz, have listened to and monitored signals on SSB, and it is much improved. As suggested in the link you gave, the user will be missing out on quite a bit of bandwidth and signals.

Ah, understood. I only had a brief look as didn't really know. Until your box arrives you can still manually move your frequency on your radio to get to those missing signals, queue the Back to the Future old video game scene quote "You mean you have to use your hands?"

Ha! Love it Neal.

I often tune the VFO up and down from the 'official' FT8 frequencies to find that sweet spot for difficult signals.

Discovered that I am a prize numpty, at some point I must've switched antennas to my less efficient vertical. Was beginning to wonder why my transmitted signals were received better than those I received, still a bit slow on 30m, but am receiving and transmitting at normal for me strengths.

Note to self, check the antenna selector on the ATU in future.

New country for me this morning.
FK8HM New Caledonia 10.138 FT-8.