10m comes to life big time

This afternoon I took a look on 28/29MHz and the band was WIDE open. We are close to the sunspot peak - some would argue just past it - and at this time of the year conditions on the higher HF bands are at their very best. If you have never worked on 10m get on now (especially for the CQWW DX SSB contest next weekend!) and enjoy it whilst it is so very good. In 5 years from now the band will be very very different with just the occasional African and South American openings and Es propagation.

K1IED who worked many QRP AM stations on 10m today

When conditions really are this good, I recommend listening 29.0-29.1MHz for DX AM stations. Today there were some excellent AM amateur signals to be heard from the USA and Russia. K1IED was S9+ with his 250W to a big beam and he managed to work several QRP stations from Europe. In the past I have worked the USA with a few watts of AM but time prevented me having a decent try today. Andy G0FTD managed to work him with just 1W. You can see his video here.

Listening to 29.0-29.1MHz AM when the band is in good shape is like entering a time warp taking you back to how amateur radio sounded in the 1950s and early 60s. Wonderful.