Poor conditions in Ireland during tour.

Now back home from our extended campervan tour of Ireland. I was hoping to get some awesome 10m DX from the west coast heights of Galway and Kerry, but conditions were not good.  Think there must have been another solar storm.

Deb

10m is quite a difficult band for non beam users and radio power. I have not had quite the success on 10m I thought I would since being a ham. I am on the radio quite infrequently and you need persistence and luck that it is open, even for fairly routine contacts.

I have made some lovely contacts but planets must align for 10m unless you can open it a bit early with a beam.

Lots of the sunspots have been throwing out flares and CME's and causing geomagnetic storms down here. I don't recall it being quite this problematic last time round the cycle on 11m.

Sun too active for our good. Sunspots are great but also highly active ones can keep sending out the wrong stuff for 10m to open.

I have always made my best contact 2-3 years either side of the peaks.

What can we do ? Keep turning the radio on and dropping down a band or 2 I guess.

I think people see 10m as a prized band. When truth be known for most operating on 15 and 20m is just as challenging. Typically a bit more more noise to work through, more likely to have a wire and no beam, not easy to elevate an antenna and get strong low angle radiation etc. Just as hard as 10m but in a different way. Practically more difficult even though 15/17/20 open easier.

Good luck.

Other than lack of 10m DX for you Deb, hope you enjoyed your campervan tour.

10m has certainly been unsettled, at least at my QTH. The usual evening DX over the Canaries and then far over the Ocean down into south America has been fairly consistent, but any other "DX" has been sparse.

E season is here and there have been a few long openings, but some extremely short. When I worked PE1ISP the other day, caught him on his first CQ, but he completely disappeared less than a minute later. Not sure which days you were in Ireland, but there was some good inter-G on 10m on the 27th, N Ireland was strong, but I didn't hear and work any in west coast Ireland sadly.

On the weekend prior to that inter-G (25/26th) the CQ WPX CW contest was on. I have nowhere near the skills to take part competitively lol, but did my best to work a handful with QRP 5W. Central Europe was booming most of the weekend.. what I mean by that is the signals were very strong, clear, and consistent, which is what I really need to make copies.



I only had 1x SSB QSO that weekend into Italy, but gauging by the CW section of 10m, I am sure it must of been open enough to make some other SSB contacts (at my QTH), at least at some points over the weekend. I think FreqFreak has it right saying you need persistence and luck with this band, but that's how I like it. I love the surprises 10m throws at us sometimes.

Hope you manage to catch some of those E's soon Deb.

SangueG wrote:

Other than lack of 10m DX for you Deb, hope you enjoyed your campervan tour.

Hope you manage to catch some of those E's soon Deb.

I was hoping to catch up on the 10m challenge, but it was not to be. I only had the G90 and a mobile whip with me, so no chance of a beam or kilowatts.

To make up for it a bit, our 1,300 mile 15 day off-grid campervan adventure in Ireland was epic.

Deb

VanRougeT4 wrote:

To make up for it a bit, our 1,300 mile 15 day off-grid campervan adventure in Ireland was epic.

That's the main thing, good to hear!

Those G90s pack a punch for a little radio. I know very well. If the conditions are right you'll have a ball on 10m. No beams needed today, and guess what, typical... there's just been a major short skip opening to Ireland. Just got one it one in the log, shame you didn't extend your trip for a few days longer.