Let’s start a thread about the ARRL 10 meter contest!

I plan on operating the entire contest in the 28.800-29.300 MHz range using AM & FM starting Saturday morning. I obviously don't expect to have a very high score. I'm just doing it for the fun and novelty.

A friendly reminder to Technician class ops - your license class prohibits 10m operation above 28.500 MHz. I only say this because I have been hearing a number of Technicians operating above 28.500 recently.

Another friendly reminder to all ops - if you are unaccustomed to using AM & FM, be mindful of your power level and SWR if you are using an amplifier. A lot of our amateur gear that operates fine at near legal limit SSB and/or with a less than optimal SWR can be seriously damaged if operated at the same power levels using AM/FM. This includes amplifiers, antennas, tuners, lightning arrestors, baluns/transformers, etc.

375 watts of AM carrier = 1500 watts PEP. (thereabouts)

Consult your manuals.

 

Ugh. I know the feeling. I had a similar thing happen about 40 years ago. Yaesu FT-101 vs. hammer wielding YL.

If you can afford it, get something that covers all the HF bands, not just 10 meters. That way when you upgrade to General you'll be good to go.

 

Well, I've put the mini-hex on hold. There are some additional mechanical challenges to address before attaching and tuning the wires. So it's going to be a 1/4l vertical up a fiberglass pole with 3x well-elevated radials. I might skip Saturday for planning/prep due to the weather and go hard on Sunday from park open through end-of-contest (or at least end-of-QRP-getting-out-on-10m late).

 

I'm Ready. Others?

 

Not many Europeans heard this morning from Eastern Washington State. Looks like the East Coast is having a good time into South America at the moment.

It appears that M5 class solar flare from sunspot AR3511 caused a disruption to our geomagnetic fields resulting in poor conditions for 10 meters today.

 

Abysmal conditions here in NC.

 

I've been holding fast in my attempt to use only AM or FM. Ended up sticking with AM. Made a whopping four contacts this morning. At the risk of "self-spotting" I won't say where I am other than it's in the 10m AM window.

 

I got out late today since I needed to sleep in after last weekend's extensive travel. Tuned up the 1/4l, three-radial elevated vertical last night and it was on 27.4 MHz. Trimmed off 9 cm and packed it up. Today that trimming gave me a SWR minimum at 28.0 MHz, 1.25:1 from 41.3 ohm/33.9 nH. The radials are probably a bit short from over-zealous initial trimming. Trivial to clean up with the KX3 tuner all the way up to 28.7, though.

DX today was CO, PY, LU, CX, TI, FY along with K/VE/XE entries. A total of 32 phone and 16 multipliers so far. Will plan on getting out earlier tomorrow for the chance of the European pileups and venturing above 29 MHz.

 

Well, it started out with a bang, anyway.

 

Ya, I got on for a bit later in the day today and conditions were pretty poor here. Will try some more tomorrow…

 

*sigh*

 

I just answered some QSOs on 10m. For some reason I did not hear a lot of 10m in my part of SWFL but I did see a TON on Utah Websdr.

 

I made a couple of dozen QSO in ARRL 10-Meter Contest, but the propagation is much worse than in CQ WW a couple of weeks ago. There were also a large number of russian terrorists on the air and the number of people willing to respond to them is disappointing. However, by calling only DХ I got 20 countries and 10 US states on 100W and vertical, CW only.

 

Hello!
The spread turned out to be worse than expected this weekend.
On the first day, there were practically no stations from NA or they were received at the noise level, and this despite the fact that my antenna was aimed at the USA and Canada. Europe's stations also sounded quieter than usual. In the morning I heard few stations from Asia. Today, Sunday, it was better, many stations in Japan in the morning and at sunset sounded better than yesterday's stations in the USA and Canada, but the distribution was still poor.
I've only done a few QSOs with NA and a few with SA.

There were 100W and a tribender of 11 yaga elements, a copy of the OB11-3.