Do You Operate 30 Meters? What Is 10Mhz All About?

I am 90% CW operator and 30 meters was a daily visit site for me over a long time period. Recently not on so much, but looking forward to getting on 30 this fall and winter. Using inverted L antenna and max legal power for 30m, Flex 6500 with Elecraft KPAA500 amp.

 

No phone keeps a lot of the lids and kids off. I have 180 countries with <100W and wire antennas in the last 5 years. Great band to reach DXpeditions where the playing field is a bit more level with lower power and fewer high gain antennas. Not to say that there are not ops running high power there - just fewer of them.

 

Before we got it I always wished for a ten MHz freq as it was always a good one for military data commas. The Hustler 6BTV works great. Open somewhere almost always ands.... as a bonus, no silly sidebanders to wordy about.

 

30 is my favorite for CW.. no contest clutter. i run an extended double zepp with 100 watts and it works great..

 

I´ve been enjoying this lovely band since we were allowed to operate on it and as I´m a 100% CW op, this band is like a paradise with neither phone nor contests allowed.
I also feel of it as a rather balanced playing field for those of us runnning barefoot or even QRP.
Just my two cents.

 

30M is good value here in VK land even with my mediocre aerials. A lot of SOTA activators can be found on 30M and at times my best dx while on a summit has been on 30M.

If you are a CW QRP op have a look at SOTAWATCH there can be some good contacts to be made.

 

You VK's and ZL's come into central Florida long path every late afternoon and evening UTC, just like clock work no matter the season. I've been on the 30 meters band since 1989 and no matter the time of day and propagation path 30 meters is always open to somewhere.

Before the advent of JT65A, JT9 and now FT8 there used to be allot of PSK31 and RTTY operation on the band between 10140-10143 kHz, not much now. I also see the same thing happening on 80 and 40 meters.

 

I've worked Moz, VK3CWB, several times over the last year or two on 30. A great CW op and a fine gentleman. Please be on the lookout for his logbook that was in lost luggage on a flight in May this year.

 

Have worked quite a few U.S, Russians and EU ops on 30M, the greyline is good value for dx. A lot of EU ops use 30M and being in the northern hemisphere should be quite easy for Stateside ops.

It makes me wonder at times when I read the wailing, moaning discussions about how bad the band the conditions are and with the low sunspot cycle all is lost.

 

This moaning and wailing comes from those who don't want to 'work' at something, they want it on a silver platter. Yes, conditions aren't what they were, but there's always going to be signals heard... well, at least almost always.

"Don't like the [space] weather? Wait a while!"

 

I believe that PSK Reporter is down as it shows no active monitors.

 

Thirty meters got a well deserved video and I hope more will give it a try. Plenty of mode variety to suit just about everyone. Rick / ko4op

 

30 Meters is also one of my favorite bands. I have not tried digital yet but with CW, I have 108 countries and 47 states confirmed via LOTW. Who could ask for anything more.
Regards...
Walt/K3DQB