Very busy the last couple of weeks, so not nearly enough time to blog.
Today I would like to touch on a subject that is a sore spot for those of us looking for DX to work and put into the log.
Let's get straight to it.
Saturday night (GMT+2 / Israel time), I flicked on the IC7300 to see if there was anything doing on 20m at all. To my surprise, the bandscope on the 7300 was full of stations active on 20m at 8pm and later local time. This was completely unexpected. Despite the fact that is was the ARRL CW contest, who would have thought that 20m would be open that late.
To put this in context, every night when I turn on my 7300 or some other rig, I listen on 20m and hear Zippo. I mean that 20m is absolutely dead after dark on pretty much any night, but not this night.
The contest was very active. I heard many NA stations making QSO and sending signals that were good and LOUD, and not just the major big guns either.
Unfortunately I was unable to work this contest due to other pressing commitments, but if I had, then I would have made a lot of QSO s to NA.
Why is this important? Well, for starters, 0 sunspot numbers does not mean zero DX. The massive amount of activity on 20m (at least), was a good indication that there is plenty of DX out there. More importantly, and the main point of what I would like to say, is that 20m is clearly NOT DEAD at 1800 utc (when it is 8pm local here in Israel). So that could mean that 20m is not dead where you are at 8pm local time.
With 100w I did manage to work some DX in a very short period of time.
***Which brings me to my main point in this diatribe***
We all need to start calling CQ on 20m, even at 9pm. I am certain that I am not the first one to say that the band will be "dead" if no one bothers calling. It is like a Catch-22.
1) People don't call on 20m at night because they think the band is dead.
2) The band is quiet because people aren't calling.
Now, based on the tremendous activity on 20m in the ARRL CW contest, I believe it is safe to say that if folks should start calling CQ instead of making the assumption that the band is flat.
I, for one, am going to make a point of calling CQ on 20m even at 8 or 9 pm local just to see if maybe there are some optimists out there who are hoping to make a 20m QSO even when one side of the QSO is at 9pm local time.
Last week, I worked a K3 station on 17m when there was almost no noise on 17m at all. In a big surprise, I had a nice QSO that was 589 and perfectly copyable on a band that was supposed to be quiet and gone for the evening.
So fellow hams, give 20m a try even at 9pm local...there just might be someone 6,000 miles away who can copy you S9.
Anyone else out there have a surprising DX opening at night on 20m (or whatever)?
73,
Mark 4x1ks
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