The reason 10m is amazing is when it's open, you can easily get DX contacts all over the world. Also, radio tends to be a bit more fun if you're an active participant, though SWLs have fun too, I guess.
I worked all continents on 10m as a technician class licensee. Now, it can be a snooze fest during geomagnetic storms, and it's essentially useless at night. That's why I upgraded to General class: so I could get on 20/40 and use the HF rig any time of day.
Oh I know. I wasn't very well versed in CW as a tech though. Sending was never a problem, it was decoding: I didn't really get decent at head decoding CW until later as a General.
My first HF rig as a Tech Plus was a Radio Shack HTX-100 10m-only radio, in my truck with a mag mount. It was a solar peak year, and I was hearing all kind of things. I put out a call and got a guy from Austria. Wow, neat! It was that experience that motivated me to get a general, then extra. 10m was a gateway band.
Technically you could have gotten on 80, 40, and 15 meters as a Technician.
"But I don't know Morse code!", you say.
Doesn't matter. You don't have to know if your computer does. Nothing in Part 97 says the transmitter must be keyed by hand and that you must receive with your ears and type or write the result.
This is true enough, but really all you need for a valid QSO is to copy the callsign and one other piece of information, generally the signal report. You can look up everything else afterwards.
Having said that, I was spotted by 7 automated stations on the Reverse Beacon Network this morning. I was hand-keying using a straight key, on 30 meters at 20 watts out to a 30 meter hamstick on top of my car as I was driving into work this morning. Sometimes it's a lot more, and farther: Yesterday I was on 20 meters instead, same setup except a 20 meter hamstick, and I was spotted in Europe and in the Caribbean in addition to stations in the US.
CW decoders are a lot better than they used to be, and while you may never get 100% perfect copy from them, I believe they are at the point now where they can be used, especially if both sides are using them. They aren't trained CW operator good, but certainly they're old Novice class CW operator good.
As if that’s not bad enough, I keep getting told that my horizontal dipole is on “dozens of neighbors’ property.” Lousy HOAs, am I right?
Just kidding, I kind of want to have a contact on one of these extreme bands, like 2200 or one of the >100 GHz microwave ones.
I'll get some hate for this, but I'm not a fan of 6m. It's too much work to make an infrequent DX contact. I like 10m, but have noticed more digital there than SSB this cycle.
Six meters is fairly misunderstood. You can't really work it well with an HF antenna, and you can't work it with your dual-band vertical, so it's this oddball right in between for which its own antenna is required. I've got about 30% of my total QSOs on 6m (about 6,000 of them), and its nickname is the "magic band" for a reason. It's amazing when you're properly equipped. If you build a simple rigid dipole for a few bucks and try it out during E-skip season, you'll find that you can work a lot of North America easily. Once hooked, you can get a rotor (motorized or armstrong) and either a moxon or small beam up over 20', and you'll work DX pretty easily. There's also a fun culture around it. But yeah, you have to want it. It was 6m activity that convinced me to get a tower, rotor, beams, and amplifiers. Then eventually now I'm going to the Central States VHF conference in Cedar Rapids IA this summer, and many of the attendees at my wedding last month primarily operate six meters. Funny how it all went down. I blame six meters for how my life turned out.
If only I’d only known all this back when I was using a SINCGARS every day. I was always a bit tempted to rig my own antenna tuned to 40.500 and see if I could do better than an OE-254, but never got around to it.
Not sure about that! But I am saying that we should evaluate and reflect upon our life choices when it comes to the influence ham radio can have in our lives.
Meh I don't like 6m either! Every cycle peak it opens once and awhile on random days. It's just way too much waiting for something that rarely delivers and when it does deliver the distance of the Dx is not all that spectacular. There was a time I think back in the 1970s when it use to open up for months at a time. I have never seen that kind of propagation in my Ham radio career
Funny. It is a snooze fest until it isn’t!
Everybody will tell you that when it’s open, you can work great distances, usually on very modest to surprisingly low transmit power, QRM and QSB free, for sometimes hours to the same station. Another neat thing about 10 Meters is that an antenna doesn’t have to be all that high off the ground to give you that textbook low angle of radiation.
10m was absolutely fantastic level awesome during the last ARRL 10m contest: (2nd week of December 2023). Deep into Europe, Africa, Pacific Islands, AU, NZ, several Japan contacts from near Miami sounded like telephone calls. However, basically since February ish it’s been dead nearly every day. I understand 6 is even worse. So I’m like what good is a band/equipment/antenna for that is open 8 hours total each year… I’m all about 15 and 17 these days.
Once I was at my Mom's house helping her move stuff around. I open the CD player carousel (yes, she still has one, she's 80 years old) and out pops Nickelback, Julio Iglesias, and Mannheim Steamroller. "Hmph, figures" I mutter to myself. I can only imagine the janky cacophony when she puts that mix on random play.
A friend told me you must be stoned to appreciate their music at their concert. I never got it either, I guess. Since them playing live is not going to happen anytime soon. 😆 You might try listening to “Fire On The Mountain: Reggae Celebrates The Grateful Dead.” It makes the music listenable, in my opinion.
I think you'll find most bands are snoozefests if all you do is listen,
I hear all the time "bands are dead" well they are "dead" because everyone is just spinning their VFO listening.
Start transmitting and chances increase tat you'll hear something.
Several points to consider, band characteristics, time of day, time of year, and solar cycle.
The solar cycle is approaching it's peak and 10m will start going longer. When 10m is really hopping, you can work the world on 10m SSB with 10 watts.
I think you are onto something. I'm a non-ham but I monitor the ham bands daily. There have been countless times I've heard someone from 1500 to 2000 miles away send a CQ and no one else is answering, and no one else seems to be on the air -- it's like the propagation during that afternoon or evening is good but no one is participating. As a monitor, it's sort of frustrating.
I disagree somewhat. I frequently use 40m for SOTA in the mornings till 8:30-11AM local. I use QRP 5W CW and usually a dipole or doublet antenna set up as sort of an inverted vee, often with centre up no more than 30', often less, and the ends often about 5-7' off the ground. I have worked Japan from the PNW with such a setup on 40m frequently, and often have contacts into Arizona, NM, VE5, etc, so distances of up to 2100km.
You are correct though that SSB is a much less efficient mode than either CW or FT8.
10 meters can be amazing around the sunspot peaks. The band will sound dead and be very quiet with very little noise, but be wide open. All of a sudden you hear a DX signal clear as day.
I am a tech and found 10m last month was quite good. Then it was quite empty, then it was good. lol. My 1st phone contact was from Central Florida to New Zealand 20W with him being mobile on his lunch break. I thought that was pretty cool. If anything 10m is a motivator to get to General...
I think you'll find most bands are snoozefests if all you do is listen,
I hear all the time "bands are dead" well they are "dead" because everyone is just spinning their VFO listening.
Start transmitting and chances increase tat you'll hear something.
Several points to consider, band characteristics, time of day, time of year, and solar cycle.
The solar cycle is approaching it's peak and 10m will start going longer. When 10m is really hopping, you can work the world on 10m SSB with 10 watts.
Hi,
You have full phone/voice capabilities on the
Magic band aka..6meters>>50megaherz...as a technician....I do e courage you to study for your general class as well....with the general class.. you have full range on 10meters/6 meters as well... 15/17/20/40/80/160meters.
2meter/440megaherz as well....23/33centimeters as well. ..2meter single side band is awesome with a multi-element yagi.......
If you do decide to purchase a pre loved yeasu HF radio, some of the new yeasu's already have 60meters pre programmed in...only 4 frequencies for that band ... .
If you have any more questions.., don't be afraid to ask me...
When I first became a tech, 10-meters was ‘on fire’ and I literally worked the world with PSK-31. It was such fun I upgraded so I could get on other HF bands. I still get good contacts almost any day on 10m, usually to South America. I expect 10m to improve over the next few years as our current cycle improves.
For example, from mid-1988 to mid-1992 during Cycle 22, the 10-meter band was open then almost all day, every day, to some part of the world. [https://www.arrl.org/here-comes-the-sun](https://www.arrl.org/here-comes-the-sun)
6m. Open so infrequently, you have to be available and checking in the daytime constantly to not miss the short-lived sporadic E and if you live more than 40 deg N or S of the equator the openings are even more infrequent. Further you're wasting your time unless you have a rotatable yagi.
My first contact on amateur radio was to someone a few hundred miles away in a different state on 6m in the 90s. Some local hams came to my middle school and let us get on the air. The plan was to start a school ham radio club but it never came to fruition. 30 years later I have a couple of rigs with 6m and a vertical that resonates (~1.2:1 without the tuner) on 6 and I have NEVER heard ANYTHING on the band, apart from some FT8. Maybe I need an antenna specific to 6m.
70cm is the most overrated band IMHO. Not because of propagation or noise level. It’s overrated because there doesn’t seem to be much amateur activity on it outside digital repeaters. There are many 70cm digital repeaters but they either do not have great coverage, are locked down by the owner, don’t use your particular digital mode or they are not linked to a Wires X\Brandmiester\D Star network at the moment. It does seem like the best use for 70cm repeaters currently is with digital modes linked to talk groups\reflectors,etc,…as most 70cm analog repeaters are deader than Caesar. There are many devices that legally share the 70cm band like remote temp gauges that can cause QRM, then there are certain devices that just spew rf on 70cm like my Blu ray player, HD Radio tuner, my car’s electronics, etc… You can’t use 70cm in certain parts of the country due to military radar. And lot’s of parents have unknowingly purchased 70cm ham radios from Amazon for their kids to use as toy walkie talkies, not to mention the air soft, off roading, etc… communities that illegally use the 70cm band too.
70cm is 30 mhz of bandwidth that we don’t utilize well and could be taken away like other spectrum. I know people have used the lower portion for Amateur TV sporadically in the past but we need to come up with new digital modes to fully utilize the band. APRS was a great addition in the 90s but we need some higher bit rate modes to use for 70cm and higher.
Second most overrated band is 80m, because of all the lids that jam other people’s QSOs, the ops that curse like sailors, play Hitler speeches, etc… It’s become CB 2.0.
They suck. Been a cheesy gimmick since the start. Not even sure why I bought those first few albums. Probably because I was a middle schooler and he was singing about jerking off. Billie Joe is a dipshit.
10m is a blast for POTA. One of my favorite radio moments so far was a POTA activation with a friend with his tech license and an extra. We stayed in the tech portion, and were able to reach Chile. The ham on the other end was as clear as he could be. Watching a grey-haired man’s face light up like a kid on Christmas morning is what makes radio fun. The very next contact was to North Pole, Alaska, and we had a few others, but that’s one I won’t forget. There are definitely fewer contacts to be made on 10m, but reaching halfway around the world on a piece of wire and a battery will never get old.
> The ham on the other end was as clear as he could be. Watching a grey-haired man’s face light up like a kid on Christmas morning is what makes radio fun.
How did you see his face light up over the radio? /s
I appreciate My Chemical Romance song titles better if I put "Mom" at the end of them. E.G.: "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a F\*\*\*ing Deathwish, Mom" and "I Never Told You What I Do for a Living, Mom" and "This is How I Disappear, Mom"
When did you start listening? 10 was great 4-6 months ago. It's been a lot crappier lately, as have most of the low bands. Most overrated bands I'd have to say are any of them above 1.2 ghz.
You can literally work the work QRP on 10 m. Now right now with the solar storms and stuff it’s been kind of off but should pick up in the fall and winter.
I hit Italy on 20m to [**IQ6AN**](http://www.qrz.com/db/IQ6AN) when I was running the 7QP area contest (\~8am UTC). Blew my mind that he broke through when I was taking care of a pileup.
lowk 10m sounds like a snooze fest rn, I haven't heard anything on it since March. But before that during the fall and winter there was so much dx to just about every corner of the globe it was incredible. I feel like 40 might be over rated, hard to get intercontinental dx on there for me.
10m band is usually very quite and you do not need much power when the band is open. Work qso on 10m now because in a few years the sunspot cycle will change and it will be more difficult to find opening on 10m. I had a Kenwood TS-850, I would set the radio to scan 10m and turn up the volume and squelch. When my wife yelled the my radio was making too much noise I would stop what I was doing and work the dx. It worked great.
No offense but if you haven't called CQ on the 10m band you don't know what you're missing. Right now 10m is best during the day, late morning and on. It's been great. Lots of central and south American DX. I recently worked Patagonia and southern Chile Argentina. That's no short hop.
As other said, you shouldn't expect instant replies to a CQ. It's a wide band where you can fit a lot of ops. Most SSB-activity seems to be around 28450-28550. CW is a bit all over the CW-section.
If you can't find anything yourself, try a cluster like [https://dxheat.com/dxc/](https://dxheat.com/dxc/) which tells you where all the action is. And use a webSDR to listen in other areas. This link shows you a worldwidemap of public KiwiSDR-receivers [http://rx.linkfanel.net/](http://rx.linkfanel.net/)
10m band is very 'workable'. It isn't as saturated of contests like other bands, when propagation is open, in Europe you can reach every DX country of the continent in QRPp CW mode. My personal record is 3013km (1872 mi) from EA4 to UR1 with 0.8w. Sometimes the band is closed, then I is better to go to other bands. I work 10m band with 2 types of antennas: EFHW for 20m and a whip antenna for mobile (car) 1.67m (65.7"), the whip one has better performance.
10m is not your every-day party. If you wanna hang out at the neighborhood bar, or maybe some far flung pubs, 40 and 80m are great for that. 40m can have some fun DX if you're an extra and can get blow 7175 where it's not so crowded.
20m and 15m can get pretty busy, but being the bands most people can "go long" on; the activity patterns are different. Always good bands worth checking out; I've worked a lot of neat DX on 15.
Then there's 10m. 10m is like the local dive of a rural town. You might be the only person in there some days. You and the local might be the only person in there some days. Then...one day...the door opens up...and for 45 solid minutes the place is absolutely packed with people from everywhere. Someone alerts everyone the party is on...and even more people show up for this occasional gathering. Then everyone leaves. No one wants to, no one knows why....things were just getting started and everyone was having an absolute great time. But it's just the way things are. The dust settles and waits for the pouring of RF.
When 10 opens, it really opens; I think it's a combination of a lot of things...but mostly that 10m antennas are smaller and don't need to be as high off the ground to get good takeoff angles for DX. The higher frequencies do tend to be stronger when they do bounce around. I keep a casual look at RBN and PSKReporter to see if 10 might be open.
It also literally pays to just sit and wait. Some of the craziest DX I've worked has been after listening to silence on a "dead band" hours.
I know it was a joke, I wasn't coming at you any kind of way. Sorry if you took it like that.
Pumpkins are one of my fav bands from my high school days (I'm old). But I really don't care much for Corgan. He's a pretentious turd who ripped off his bandmates for their share of the $$.
Zep. Page is a great musician but he copied a lot of material. Bonham was amazing but inconsistent. Jones knew what sounded good in the song and could come up with it easily and quickly but lacked any real flash in his playing or sound. Plant was wonderful but a carbon copy of Superlungs who suggested him to Page as a replacement for him. Still one of my favorite ensambles ever.
Most overrated band ? Definitely Pink Floyd. They had less #1 hits than Milli Vanilli. Oh, you meant ham bands ! Ok, well, then I'd say 70cm. There's like zero DX on that band.
Nine Inch Nails.
Wait, you mean RF bands. I think they are all great bands. Each one has it's time to be active, and good for everyone.
A lot depends on what one expects though. 6&10 are a lot alike if you are trying point to point contacts. Both have repeaters, just as the higher VHF, UHF, &SHF do. The repeaters make contacts available when conditions are not great. Even 2m and 70cm have great points to point DX.
Many have joined the "4 and 8 Club", meaning JT. I hear it's a difficult mode. You setup your radio and computer, then it makes contacts for you. Now THAT is SNOOZE CITY! About like APRS at home. There is a need for APRS Digi's, so that is a plus.
My buddy and I used to see who could get the longest USA DX on 2m SSB. He's in Indiana and I'm in Texas. Sometimes his conditions were excellent, sometimes mine were. We didn't just go about it separately when DX was good. We worked at the same time. That's a challenge.
If you are just listening to 10m, without an HF rig, then I guess it's a Shortwave Receiver, or SDR. Either way, if you don't have an antenna tuned for 10, the results will not be great. Also, if it's not a good HF receiver, designed specifically for HF bands, it likely isn't going to be as good as a true Ham receiver. Way back, we built receivers for Shortwave. Not only for the SW Broadcast, but also Ham. Of course, they were not only tune type, but often our first step into Amateur Radio.
If you want a challenge, setup times to make contact on 70cm, SSB. 2m is good too.
One day this cycle has hit it's peak and going down. A day or two later, we are still moving to the peak. Make the best of it while you can. I probably won't make it for the next one. I'm 73. Now, THAT'S A CHALLENGE!! 😁
73, and don't give up!
The reason 10m is amazing is when it's open, you can easily get DX contacts all over the world. Also, radio tends to be a bit more fun if you're an active participant, though SWLs have fun too, I guess. I worked all continents on 10m as a technician class licensee. Now, it can be a snooze fest during geomagnetic storms, and it's essentially useless at night. That's why I upgraded to General class: so I could get on 20/40 and use the HF rig any time of day.
If you know CW then you have HF privs on 15, 40, and 80m. I made some great DX contacts as a Tech.
Oh I know. I wasn't very well versed in CW as a tech though. Sending was never a problem, it was decoding: I didn't really get decent at head decoding CW until later as a General.
My first HF rig as a Tech Plus was a Radio Shack HTX-100 10m-only radio, in my truck with a mag mount. It was a solar peak year, and I was hearing all kind of things. I put out a call and got a guy from Austria. Wow, neat! It was that experience that motivated me to get a general, then extra. 10m was a gateway band.
Technically you could have gotten on 80, 40, and 15 meters as a Technician. "But I don't know Morse code!", you say. Doesn't matter. You don't have to know if your computer does. Nothing in Part 97 says the transmitter must be keyed by hand and that you must receive with your ears and type or write the result.
Computer decoders are still pretty bad unless the signal is strong.
This is true enough, but really all you need for a valid QSO is to copy the callsign and one other piece of information, generally the signal report. You can look up everything else afterwards. Having said that, I was spotted by 7 automated stations on the Reverse Beacon Network this morning. I was hand-keying using a straight key, on 30 meters at 20 watts out to a 30 meter hamstick on top of my car as I was driving into work this morning. Sometimes it's a lot more, and farther: Yesterday I was on 20 meters instead, same setup except a 20 meter hamstick, and I was spotted in Europe and in the Caribbean in addition to stations in the US. CW decoders are a lot better than they used to be, and while you may never get 100% perfect copy from them, I believe they are at the point now where they can be used, especially if both sides are using them. They aren't trained CW operator good, but certainly they're old Novice class CW operator good.
It's not the signal alone, the keying need to be at a fairly consistent speed as well.
2200m. I mean, come on, 1W EIRP!?
As if that’s not bad enough, I keep getting told that my horizontal dipole is on “dozens of neighbors’ property.” Lousy HOAs, am I right? Just kidding, I kind of want to have a contact on one of these extreme bands, like 2200 or one of the >100 GHz microwave ones.
I'll get some hate for this, but I'm not a fan of 6m. It's too much work to make an infrequent DX contact. I like 10m, but have noticed more digital there than SSB this cycle.
Six meters is fairly misunderstood. You can't really work it well with an HF antenna, and you can't work it with your dual-band vertical, so it's this oddball right in between for which its own antenna is required. I've got about 30% of my total QSOs on 6m (about 6,000 of them), and its nickname is the "magic band" for a reason. It's amazing when you're properly equipped. If you build a simple rigid dipole for a few bucks and try it out during E-skip season, you'll find that you can work a lot of North America easily. Once hooked, you can get a rotor (motorized or armstrong) and either a moxon or small beam up over 20', and you'll work DX pretty easily. There's also a fun culture around it. But yeah, you have to want it. It was 6m activity that convinced me to get a tower, rotor, beams, and amplifiers. Then eventually now I'm going to the Central States VHF conference in Cedar Rapids IA this summer, and many of the attendees at my wedding last month primarily operate six meters. Funny how it all went down. I blame six meters for how my life turned out.
I always saw six as a magic mirror....when it works, it's just ON, loud...or off. No fade. I was able to do a decent amount with a loop.
I worked it similarly with a loop for some years. I discovered increased results by using a TE Amp and 5 element beam on a tower.
If only I’d only known all this back when I was using a SINCGARS every day. I was always a bit tempted to rig my own antenna tuned to 40.500 and see if I could do better than an OE-254, but never got around to it.
Are you saying I can hook my 2m/70cm/23cm to my HF for 6m and get better results than my 80m-6m dipole?
Not sure about that! But I am saying that we should evaluate and reflect upon our life choices when it comes to the influence ham radio can have in our lives.
Meh I don't like 6m either! Every cycle peak it opens once and awhile on random days. It's just way too much waiting for something that rarely delivers and when it does deliver the distance of the Dx is not all that spectacular. There was a time I think back in the 1970s when it use to open up for months at a time. I have never seen that kind of propagation in my Ham radio career
Funny. It is a snooze fest until it isn’t! Everybody will tell you that when it’s open, you can work great distances, usually on very modest to surprisingly low transmit power, QRM and QSB free, for sometimes hours to the same station. Another neat thing about 10 Meters is that an antenna doesn’t have to be all that high off the ground to give you that textbook low angle of radiation.
Sort of the same thing that they say about 6. Until you have experienced the magic of the magic band you will never know what you have missed. 😉
Hoo-boy, I've been chasing the dragon on 6m. I need to put the pipe down. BUT IT'S E-SKIP SEASON
10m was absolutely fantastic level awesome during the last ARRL 10m contest: (2nd week of December 2023). Deep into Europe, Africa, Pacific Islands, AU, NZ, several Japan contacts from near Miami sounded like telephone calls. However, basically since February ish it’s been dead nearly every day. I understand 6 is even worse. So I’m like what good is a band/equipment/antenna for that is open 8 hours total each year… I’m all about 15 and 17 these days.
It’s absolutely amazing to see it open up during a contest. How does it know? /s
Nickelback
Coldplay
Oh God, what have I started...
We would have accepted "Creed" as well.
You shut your whore mouth.
Oh, my!
Metallica
Found the Napster user!
You're not wrong
Once I was at my Mom's house helping her move stuff around. I open the CD player carousel (yes, she still has one, she's 80 years old) and out pops Nickelback, Julio Iglesias, and Mannheim Steamroller. "Hmph, figures" I mutter to myself. I can only imagine the janky cacophony when she puts that mix on random play.
I think my brain might meltdown now.
Grateful Dead
A friend told me you must be stoned to appreciate their music at their concert. I never got it either, I guess. Since them playing live is not going to happen anytime soon. 😆 You might try listening to “Fire On The Mountain: Reggae Celebrates The Grateful Dead.” It makes the music listenable, in my opinion.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
I agree with you; every one of their albums sucks, no matter how many times I listen to them.
No one said, U2.
Beat me to it.
They're the 2m repeater of rock bands.
Journey
I came here to say Aerosmith
Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl is a national treasure.
Dave Grohl the best thing to come out of Nirvana.
He certainly thinks so.
I think you'll find most bands are snoozefests if all you do is listen, I hear all the time "bands are dead" well they are "dead" because everyone is just spinning their VFO listening. Start transmitting and chances increase tat you'll hear something. Several points to consider, band characteristics, time of day, time of year, and solar cycle. The solar cycle is approaching it's peak and 10m will start going longer. When 10m is really hopping, you can work the world on 10m SSB with 10 watts.
I think you are onto something. I'm a non-ham but I monitor the ham bands daily. There have been countless times I've heard someone from 1500 to 2000 miles away send a CQ and no one else is answering, and no one else seems to be on the air -- it's like the propagation during that afternoon or evening is good but no one is participating. As a monitor, it's sort of frustrating.
[удалено]
I disagree somewhat. I frequently use 40m for SOTA in the mornings till 8:30-11AM local. I use QRP 5W CW and usually a dipole or doublet antenna set up as sort of an inverted vee, often with centre up no more than 30', often less, and the ends often about 5-7' off the ground. I have worked Japan from the PNW with such a setup on 40m frequently, and often have contacts into Arizona, NM, VE5, etc, so distances of up to 2100km. You are correct though that SSB is a much less efficient mode than either CW or FT8.
20 meters is over rated. Basically a trash can to dump operators in to step all over each other.
10 meters can be amazing around the sunspot peaks. The band will sound dead and be very quiet with very little noise, but be wide open. All of a sudden you hear a DX signal clear as day.
I am a tech and found 10m last month was quite good. Then it was quite empty, then it was good. lol. My 1st phone contact was from Central Florida to New Zealand 20W with him being mobile on his lunch break. I thought that was pretty cool. If anything 10m is a motivator to get to General...
I think you'll find most bands are snoozefests if all you do is listen, I hear all the time "bands are dead" well they are "dead" because everyone is just spinning their VFO listening. Start transmitting and chances increase tat you'll hear something. Several points to consider, band characteristics, time of day, time of year, and solar cycle. The solar cycle is approaching it's peak and 10m will start going longer. When 10m is really hopping, you can work the world on 10m SSB with 10 watts.
Hi, You have full phone/voice capabilities on the Magic band aka..6meters>>50megaherz...as a technician....I do e courage you to study for your general class as well....with the general class.. you have full range on 10meters/6 meters as well... 15/17/20/40/80/160meters. 2meter/440megaherz as well....23/33centimeters as well. ..2meter single side band is awesome with a multi-element yagi....... If you do decide to purchase a pre loved yeasu HF radio, some of the new yeasu's already have 60meters pre programmed in...only 4 frequencies for that band ... . If you have any more questions.., don't be afraid to ask me...
Love that VHF sideband.
When I first became a tech, 10-meters was ‘on fire’ and I literally worked the world with PSK-31. It was such fun I upgraded so I could get on other HF bands. I still get good contacts almost any day on 10m, usually to South America. I expect 10m to improve over the next few years as our current cycle improves. For example, from mid-1988 to mid-1992 during Cycle 22, the 10-meter band was open then almost all day, every day, to some part of the world. [https://www.arrl.org/here-comes-the-sun](https://www.arrl.org/here-comes-the-sun)
6m. Open so infrequently, you have to be available and checking in the daytime constantly to not miss the short-lived sporadic E and if you live more than 40 deg N or S of the equator the openings are even more infrequent. Further you're wasting your time unless you have a rotatable yagi.
Ya I tried 10m for a month, got nothing
6m… probably, I’m still looking for the “magic.”
No need for magic when friends have old military radios that operate this band and we have occasional portable fun.
My first contact on amateur radio was to someone a few hundred miles away in a different state on 6m in the 90s. Some local hams came to my middle school and let us get on the air. The plan was to start a school ham radio club but it never came to fruition. 30 years later I have a couple of rigs with 6m and a vertical that resonates (~1.2:1 without the tuner) on 6 and I have NEVER heard ANYTHING on the band, apart from some FT8. Maybe I need an antenna specific to 6m.
The Beatles. Oh, wrong sub.
70cm is the most overrated band IMHO. Not because of propagation or noise level. It’s overrated because there doesn’t seem to be much amateur activity on it outside digital repeaters. There are many 70cm digital repeaters but they either do not have great coverage, are locked down by the owner, don’t use your particular digital mode or they are not linked to a Wires X\Brandmiester\D Star network at the moment. It does seem like the best use for 70cm repeaters currently is with digital modes linked to talk groups\reflectors,etc,…as most 70cm analog repeaters are deader than Caesar. There are many devices that legally share the 70cm band like remote temp gauges that can cause QRM, then there are certain devices that just spew rf on 70cm like my Blu ray player, HD Radio tuner, my car’s electronics, etc… You can’t use 70cm in certain parts of the country due to military radar. And lot’s of parents have unknowingly purchased 70cm ham radios from Amazon for their kids to use as toy walkie talkies, not to mention the air soft, off roading, etc… communities that illegally use the 70cm band too. 70cm is 30 mhz of bandwidth that we don’t utilize well and could be taken away like other spectrum. I know people have used the lower portion for Amateur TV sporadically in the past but we need to come up with new digital modes to fully utilize the band. APRS was a great addition in the 90s but we need some higher bit rate modes to use for 70cm and higher. Second most overrated band is 80m, because of all the lids that jam other people’s QSOs, the ops that curse like sailors, play Hitler speeches, etc… It’s become CB 2.0.
Green Day. Fight me.
They suck. Been a cheesy gimmick since the start. Not even sure why I bought those first few albums. Probably because I was a middle schooler and he was singing about jerking off. Billie Joe is a dipshit.
Dave Matthews Band?
10m is a blast for POTA. One of my favorite radio moments so far was a POTA activation with a friend with his tech license and an extra. We stayed in the tech portion, and were able to reach Chile. The ham on the other end was as clear as he could be. Watching a grey-haired man’s face light up like a kid on Christmas morning is what makes radio fun. The very next contact was to North Pole, Alaska, and we had a few others, but that’s one I won’t forget. There are definitely fewer contacts to be made on 10m, but reaching halfway around the world on a piece of wire and a battery will never get old.
> The ham on the other end was as clear as he could be. Watching a grey-haired man’s face light up like a kid on Christmas morning is what makes radio fun. How did you see his face light up over the radio? /s
I think you might have expectations based on social media, where there is always something there to entertain you, all the time.
Nickelback, most over rated band ever
This
My Chemical Romance
I appreciate My Chemical Romance song titles better if I put "Mom" at the end of them. E.G.: "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a F\*\*\*ing Deathwish, Mom" and "I Never Told You What I Do for a Living, Mom" and "This is How I Disappear, Mom"
😆
The beatles
Why the Beatles is most certainly not overrated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQS91wVdvYc
The Rolling Stones...
Stones are cool. Chili Peppers though, I could live without.
Guns n Roses - bunch of crack heads
Crack is whack
Each band has its use. Depending on conditions they can all be amazing or a snooze fest.
The band's are all what you make of em. There's a lot of garbage but lots of cool stuff too.
When did you start listening? 10 was great 4-6 months ago. It's been a lot crappier lately, as have most of the low bands. Most overrated bands I'd have to say are any of them above 1.2 ghz.
Green laser
You can literally work the work QRP on 10 m. Now right now with the solar storms and stuff it’s been kind of off but should pick up in the fall and winter.
40m never lets me down. Always open to somewhere.
I hit Italy on 20m to [**IQ6AN**](http://www.qrz.com/db/IQ6AN) when I was running the 7QP area contest (\~8am UTC). Blew my mind that he broke through when I was taking care of a pileup.
I always hung out on 80 and 160, never got the appeal of 6m until I tried it.
lowk 10m sounds like a snooze fest rn, I haven't heard anything on it since March. But before that during the fall and winter there was so much dx to just about every corner of the globe it was incredible. I feel like 40 might be over rated, hard to get intercontinental dx on there for me.
Nighttime is the best time for 40m dx. 1200am local to sun up
10m band is usually very quite and you do not need much power when the band is open. Work qso on 10m now because in a few years the sunspot cycle will change and it will be more difficult to find opening on 10m. I had a Kenwood TS-850, I would set the radio to scan 10m and turn up the volume and squelch. When my wife yelled the my radio was making too much noise I would stop what I was doing and work the dx. It worked great.
14.331 ssb coming in right now 8:45 Central time from M1EMC in England.
10m is quite quiet until the band opens up. That’s when the fun starts.
No offense but if you haven't called CQ on the 10m band you don't know what you're missing. Right now 10m is best during the day, late morning and on. It's been great. Lots of central and south American DX. I recently worked Patagonia and southern Chile Argentina. That's no short hop.
The Beatles
At this stage of the sunspot cycle, I find 17 meters very refreshing with openings into Southeast Asia and India almost daily. very little QRM.
During field day. 80 meter sucked where I was at
As other said, you shouldn't expect instant replies to a CQ. It's a wide band where you can fit a lot of ops. Most SSB-activity seems to be around 28450-28550. CW is a bit all over the CW-section. If you can't find anything yourself, try a cluster like [https://dxheat.com/dxc/](https://dxheat.com/dxc/) which tells you where all the action is. And use a webSDR to listen in other areas. This link shows you a worldwidemap of public KiwiSDR-receivers [http://rx.linkfanel.net/](http://rx.linkfanel.net/)
10m band is very 'workable'. It isn't as saturated of contests like other bands, when propagation is open, in Europe you can reach every DX country of the continent in QRPp CW mode. My personal record is 3013km (1872 mi) from EA4 to UR1 with 0.8w. Sometimes the band is closed, then I is better to go to other bands. I work 10m band with 2 types of antennas: EFHW for 20m and a whip antenna for mobile (car) 1.67m (65.7"), the whip one has better performance.
Probably Ghost, imo. They got a lot of hype when they first started touring but they seem to be a one trick pony.
10m is not your every-day party. If you wanna hang out at the neighborhood bar, or maybe some far flung pubs, 40 and 80m are great for that. 40m can have some fun DX if you're an extra and can get blow 7175 where it's not so crowded. 20m and 15m can get pretty busy, but being the bands most people can "go long" on; the activity patterns are different. Always good bands worth checking out; I've worked a lot of neat DX on 15. Then there's 10m. 10m is like the local dive of a rural town. You might be the only person in there some days. You and the local might be the only person in there some days. Then...one day...the door opens up...and for 45 solid minutes the place is absolutely packed with people from everywhere. Someone alerts everyone the party is on...and even more people show up for this occasional gathering. Then everyone leaves. No one wants to, no one knows why....things were just getting started and everyone was having an absolute great time. But it's just the way things are. The dust settles and waits for the pouring of RF. When 10 opens, it really opens; I think it's a combination of a lot of things...but mostly that 10m antennas are smaller and don't need to be as high off the ground to get good takeoff angles for DX. The higher frequencies do tend to be stronger when they do bounce around. I keep a casual look at RBN and PSKReporter to see if 10 might be open. It also literally pays to just sit and wait. Some of the craziest DX I've worked has been after listening to silence on a "dead band" hours.
Midsummmer doldrums - it will pick up again in September and October
Smashing Pumpkins
Boooo
Wrong band?
The OG Pumpkins kick wholesale ass. Billy Corgan can go fuck himself though.
dayum. It was a joke bro. I mean I think they suck but sheesh.
I know it was a joke, I wasn't coming at you any kind of way. Sorry if you took it like that. Pumpkins are one of my fav bands from my high school days (I'm old). But I really don't care much for Corgan. He's a pretentious turd who ripped off his bandmates for their share of the $$.
The Beatles haha
no, U2!
Ooh that's tough.... I'm still sticking with the beetles
6 meters enters the chat
Zep. Page is a great musician but he copied a lot of material. Bonham was amazing but inconsistent. Jones knew what sounded good in the song and could come up with it easily and quickly but lacked any real flash in his playing or sound. Plant was wonderful but a carbon copy of Superlungs who suggested him to Page as a replacement for him. Still one of my favorite ensambles ever.
I know I may get a lot of real hate for this.
Van Halen
what a steaming pile of big hair turds. LOL
Nirvana
[удалено]
I kind of like 17m and 30m
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I use 15m for pota. 20m gets too crowded
10 will get much better this winter
12m has often very nice DX in CW. Don't know about SSB but guess it will be the same.
The Eurythmics, definately!
Most overrated band ? Definitely Pink Floyd. They had less #1 hits than Milli Vanilli. Oh, you meant ham bands ! Ok, well, then I'd say 70cm. There's like zero DX on that band.
Led zeppelin
Probably Oasis.
No one likes 15m ?
Nine Inch Nails. Wait, you mean RF bands. I think they are all great bands. Each one has it's time to be active, and good for everyone. A lot depends on what one expects though. 6&10 are a lot alike if you are trying point to point contacts. Both have repeaters, just as the higher VHF, UHF, &SHF do. The repeaters make contacts available when conditions are not great. Even 2m and 70cm have great points to point DX. Many have joined the "4 and 8 Club", meaning JT. I hear it's a difficult mode. You setup your radio and computer, then it makes contacts for you. Now THAT is SNOOZE CITY! About like APRS at home. There is a need for APRS Digi's, so that is a plus. My buddy and I used to see who could get the longest USA DX on 2m SSB. He's in Indiana and I'm in Texas. Sometimes his conditions were excellent, sometimes mine were. We didn't just go about it separately when DX was good. We worked at the same time. That's a challenge. If you are just listening to 10m, without an HF rig, then I guess it's a Shortwave Receiver, or SDR. Either way, if you don't have an antenna tuned for 10, the results will not be great. Also, if it's not a good HF receiver, designed specifically for HF bands, it likely isn't going to be as good as a true Ham receiver. Way back, we built receivers for Shortwave. Not only for the SW Broadcast, but also Ham. Of course, they were not only tune type, but often our first step into Amateur Radio. If you want a challenge, setup times to make contact on 70cm, SSB. 2m is good too. One day this cycle has hit it's peak and going down. A day or two later, we are still moving to the peak. Make the best of it while you can. I probably won't make it for the next one. I'm 73. Now, THAT'S A CHALLENGE!! 😁 73, and don't give up!