thanks to the Australian Government, Bureau of Meteorology for the image above – they go in to huge detail about HF propagation on their webpage here… www.sws.dom.gov.au/Educational/5/2/2
I’m really enjoying the 10m Sporadic E openings this year – its my first ever experience of them other than my CB days back in the early 80’s – then I had no idea what was happening… my comprehension is much better now 🙂
The antenna I’m using can be seen here – it was a fix or throw project which is doing really well coupled to an Icom IC-735 with 100w
17 confirmed DXCC’s on ARRL’s Logbook of The World so far with just 3 Sunday’s of working no more than 2-4 hours each one, many more to come hopefully, the list above is from LoTW and doesnt include any physical QSL cards I may receive 🙂
If you haven’t got Logbook of The World then I strongly suggest you go through the process – it makes DXCC chasing (amongst other awards) so much easier. I LOVE paper cards but sometimes the quick fix of an officially confirmed QSO is as good – no it’s not but you know what I mean eh! 😉
Doing this (looking out for DXCC entities) for 10m is like starting afresh for me as its a new band I’ve never worked before but I’m now working with 12 months experience of operating – when I plunged in to the world of ham radio I wasn’t a collector of anything, just happy for the QSO and the ‘mileage’ – my friend Colin (MU0FAL) always said I would collect something and pointed out my collection of #catintheshack pictures, It now appears I am collecting DXCC’s too 😉
I like the fact that 10m will all but close from these frequent but irregular openings in the not too distant future, thus changing the area of concentration – may be next year I will look at 6m too as that seems to be another area which generates interest with sporadic E-xcitement too.