Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society
News
December 7, 2020
10-meters is a Hotspot
Rumor has it that the HF bands have gradually been coming back to life. The reasons for the resurgence may be more situational than environmental physics. Researchers have hypothesized the resurgence perhaps may be due to the large number of small but potent Covid-19 parties known as “The Family Thanksgiving Dinner.”
Other researchers disagree with the so-called “Go to your room” hypothesis saying the increase in HF propagation activity is due to extraterrestrials bathing the Earth in HF energy searching for the new operating frequency of the Arecibo station (see related story on KB5A.org).
Since Thanksgiving, some researchers report hams being told by their spouses to go to their room, take their Covid-19 with them, and not come out for 14 days. After giving some thought to their spouse’s demand, some of these hams interpreted “their room” to refer to the ham shack and have eagerly complied. Some researchers hypothesize these spouses, their related hams, and indirectly Covid-19, are responsible for the increase in HF propagation activity. Never before have non-ham spouses been blamed (er, responsible) for increased RF activity.
The ARRL has proposed to conduct an experiment to evaluate the RF propagation on the 10-meter ham band. This experiment will be conducted on December 12 and 13 and will coincide with the annual 10-meter QSO Party. The ARRL requests that hams get on 10-meters to exchange signal reports and their state. At the conclusion of the experiment, the ARRL requests hams submit their operating logs for data analysis. This data will be used to evaluate scores (eh, propagation) and is expected to conclude that propagation is actually possible on the 10-meter band. See http://www.arrl.org/10-meter for complete rules.
My reading of the rules is that QSOs must be either CW or Phone, but I suspect the increased ionospheric activity on the band will enable FT8 propagation also. If you are trying to achieve 5BWAS, this is your chance to pick up rare states on 10-meters. Some researchers suspect the 10-meter band may inexplicitly cease to function at the conclusion of this experiment and perhaps not be revived until the second full weekend in December of 2021.
In a related story, when questioned about the possibility of extraterrestrials communicating with Earth through the Arecibo station, US government agencies quickly said, “No comment” and refused to confirm nor deny the existence of extraterrestrials.
Information in this article is intended to amuse and communicate. It does not reflect the opinions of the Metrocrest Amateur Radio Society, Inc., the ARRL, the ASPCA, or any known or unknown government that may or may not exist in the universe. Rumors and references to researchers are fiction intended to publicize the upcoming ARRL 10-meter QSO party and to bring a little levity into 2020.
73 Ron Reeves, NN5R