Hey Ken,
There are a couple of ways to determine IF the 10m band is open and
perhap where.
First way is the North California DX Foundation (NCDXF) Beacon
system. There is a good bit of information at
http://www.ncdxf.org/pages/beacons.html
which might be help to you to determine what is open.
Secondly, you can actually have instant gratification (or
disappointment) with the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN), by going
on 10m CW and calling CQ DE YourCall, 3 or 4 times times. Then
point your browser to http://www.reversebeacon.net/srch.php and
enter your call, click the "search" bottom. This will return those
RBN/Skimmers that may have heard your signal and if there is one
that does then it will give a report of your CW speed and your signal
strength as a Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR). I often use this leading up
to a contest.
I just tried it while point my beam to NE (Europe) and only one RBN
(WA7LNW) returned a reported on my signal. I tried it beaming to NW
and the same RBN report but with a stronger SNR signal. So it
appears to me at this moment that 10m may have some sporadic E
activity, but very little.
But I just looked at the DXCluster spots and see that H44MS, Solomon
Islands is very loud. So go figure.
Now if you happen to be up in the middle of the night, you could try the
same experiment and see if the band is open somewhere. BTW, most
RBN skimmer don't sleep but they may often be on another target
band for the appropriate propagation that may exist at the time that
you try it.
Now one last thing there is an Skimmer/RBN for RTTY, but I don't
really have any first hand experience with it, so I am not sure what it
has to offer. So, you might look around the internet and see what may
or may not be there.
Hope this helps.
Jim/KC4HW
On 29 Nov 2012 at 12:22, Ken Eigsti wrote:
> Hi
> In getting ready for the 10 meter RTTY contest this weekend, I was
> looking back at last years log for when the band was open. For me in CO. I
> made some contacts in the first hour 0000 to 0100 (5PM to 6PM MST) and then
> nothing till 1400 utc. Noting how squirrelly the propagation is on 10, I
> got wondering if maybe 10 was open "sporadically" throughout the night when
> we were all just listening or sleeping with the radio on?
>
> Here is my thought: 6 meters has 50.125 as sort of a freq. to call CQ to
> see if the band is open. Would it be worthwhile to informally designate
> frequency on 10 i.e. 28085 to monitor in the middle of the night or after
> the band appears to be dead? If we all listened and/or called occasionally
> on the same frequency maybe we would know if there was some sporadic E
> going on?
>
> Just a thought for the approximate 13 hours of down time. Or, I guess I
> could enter the 160 ARRL contest.
>
> Hope to see you all on 10 RTTY
> W0LSD
> Ken
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