Propagation Check For CQ WW SSB 2010 - Could This Be Another Big Year For 10 Meter Openings?

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted October 25, 2010

Several years ago, most scientists were predicting that 2010 would have been a big year for sunspots, but a prolonged solar downturn has left contesters hardly remembering the "good ole days" when 10 meters was churning out thousands of contacts.

And in recent weeks, there have been signs that maybe - maybe this year will be even better than 2009, when 10 meters broke wide open for a good chunk of the world - all that is except most of North America, which could not break out of the usual North-South openings that characterize a solar minimum.

"Band open big time," was one comment last week on the DX cluster, as spots were flying from all over the world.

If that gets repeated this coming weekend, then it might lead to a repeat of what we saw last year, when operators like overall Single Op High Power winner Rich Smith N6KT churned out big numbers on 10 meters from HC8A, with 1567 QSO's, 27 zones and 76 mults.

Jim Sullivan W7EJ did even better from CN2R in Morocco with 1118 contacts, 26 zones and 109 DXCC.

But across the Atlantic, there was almost nothing. Winning USA Multi-Multi K3LR made 235 contacts with 16 zones and 43 countries.

US Single op winner K1LZ made 19 QSO's with 8 zones and 13 countries, while the winning Single Band 10 meter score in the US was 36k by W5PR.

John Crovelli W2GD was part of a multi-op team at VP5T in 2009, and he remembered watching the spots roll in on 10 meters.

"There was definitely a different contest going on up on 10M a half world away," Crovelli told radio-sport.net.

"They were clearly enjoying enhanced E and F skip that we in NA could only dream about....All of this was later confirmed seeing so many EU and AS M/S and M/M entries with 100+ countries."

That was borne out as well in the Single Band numbers for 10 meters. The winning score was 881k by LU1HF; in Europe, E71A led with 312k.

So what about 10 meters in 2010? Are those actually DX signals some have been hearing, like in the recent CQ WW RTTY contest?

"10 meters opened solidly into Europe and North America yielding a respectable set of mults that haven't been experienced in many years," said Ed Muns W0YK, who operated that test from P49X in Aruba.

"I hope the other two CQ WW contests this fall get similar conditions," he added.

"We are very excited that 10 meters has shown signs of life in the past few weeks with several signals from Europe being heard," said Tim Duffy K3LR, whose team used the last year to add a new secret weapon on 10 meters.

"A new 32 element array (four 8 element OWA Yagis) is tested and ready to go on 10 meters at K3LR. W8WWV constructed the new stack switching hardware for the K3LR array – which works exceptionally well," said Duffy.

"We are hoping for big things out of 10 meters this season."

Sunspot numbers have been hovering around the low 30's, as a series of new sunspots have been steadily emerging in October.

One worry were eruptions that caused a C-class and S-class flares, which sent disturbances towards the Earth. That worries one solar observer.

"The DX contests may be a challenge if the new sunspots erupt with CME and spew electromagnetic wind toward earth, causeing geomagnetic disruption," wrote Ken Standard AD5XJ in a recent post on the ARRL Louisiana Section web site.