#28MHz Warming up for the 10m ARRL contest

10 meters or 28 MHz can be a great DX band. If propagation is right you can work the world with low power and a small antenna. Remember my sudden great DX with QRP to Malaysia in 2014? Or my mobile efforts in 2013 I worked Puerto Rico, Haiti and UAE with only 5W and a quarter wave 10m antenna on the car. But this band can also be very difficult when there are less to no propagations. For those who don't understand, there are certain layers around the world that get more or less ionized and reflect radiosignals which is called propagation. Propagation because your radio signal is getting a step, or more if lucky, further away as normal. Unfortunately propagation on the 10m band is not too good lately and after years of good DX it will be probabely a real pain to get some stations in the log. That's were things are getting interesting for me. My worst year in the 10m ARRL contest was 2010 with only 5 QSOs. But back then I was using my multiband vertical. I was using a Avanti PDL2 before in 2008 when just moving into the house were we live now and remember it did reasonable in the 2008 10m ARRL contest. It confirms at least a small directional antenna is needed under bad circumstances. So I assembled the HB9CV which is using the boom of the PDL2 by the way. My first 10m contest was in 2006 under bad circumstances but with a excellent antenna, a 6 element logcell yagi on 12m agl. It is already 10 years ago but I still remember I really made nice contacts although propagation was completely rubbish. Best DX was Brazil and only 21 QSOs were made 10 years ago without much contest experience.

Some ARRL 10m results from 2006-2015 (Rank is in Netherlands):

2006 PE4BAS Score: 640 QSO: 21 Mult: 16 (1st place)
2007 PA25HSG Score: 660 QSO: 30 Mult: 11
2008 PE4BAS Score: 228 QSO: 19 Mult: 6
2009 PE4BAS Score: 378 QSO: 21 Mult: 9
2010 PE4BAS Score: 60 QSO: 5 Mult: 5
2011 PE4BAS Score: 27792 QSO: 193 Mult: 72
2012 PE4BAS Score: 126 QSO: 10 Mult: 7
2013 PE4BAS Score: 13786 QSO: 117 Mult: 61
2014 PE4BAS Score: 24674 QSO: 173 Mult: 73

Various antennas @PE4BAS in 2007

2015 PE4BAS Unknown

Unfortenately the ARRL database is not able to display the rank inside a section outside America. Why my score is not displayed in the 2015 results is not known? I'm shure that my log has been received.

I only had this setup on the photo for about 2 years it seems so long ago. I shure hope I will get the mast up again next year. Till then I have to do with the HB9CV which is a excellent antenna as well of course but with 6m agl just too low to get the DX when things are getting difficult. Still it is a lot better as the vertical.

So what times are best to be on the band for the contest?
The best way to warm up of course is to be at 10m WSPR or JT65 and take an eye on the DX cluster to see what contacts are made. Unfortunately time is always a issue and I just started today. I will keep you informed over the next few days about what I think is interesting about 10m.