it's dead out here

[codeman]

You know it is dead when you can't even hear the big radios on channel 6. I have only made about 4 dx contacts in the past week on side band. Only one contact was long skip the others were short skip. What is the propagation forecast for 11 meter? From my very limited knowledge from looking at sites online it is not looking good. Can someone tell me when we should start seeing a spike in activity.

I am even considering looking into getting a tech license and trying out 2 meter radio. Would I find more activity there without relying on propagation? I am looking for the cheapest alternatives to 11 meter.

 

[Robb]

A great reason to cultivate contacts with local operators during the off season.

A great reason to improve the station for the next time skip does pop up and becomes available.

Add your own reason . . .

 

[jdobbs2001]

Work towards your General license. Then you can work 20 meters which is good during the day even now. And you can work 40 meters at night.

2 meters is dead.

 

[codeman]

Thanks for the response, and I have been reading that 2 meters is dead. I am a driver and really enjoy talking skip to help pass time traveling down the road. I travel many of the same places, mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. I have found a few locals to talk to when I pass through but skip is where I find more activity . I will look into 20 and 40 meter, but like I said I am looking for the least expensive alternatives.

 

[M0GVZ]

You know it is dead when you can't even hear the big radios on channel 6. I have only made about 4 dx contacts in the past week on side band. Only one contact was long skip the others were short skip. What is the propagation forecast for 11 meter?

Its summer so its crap. 11m is not a summer band. It peaks during late autumn/winter.

 

[The War Wagon]

Meh... our 4WD Club (like a lotta clubs) actually do most of OUR crawling during the summer. Ch.4 is our club channel, and a couple of us can reach out & PUT 'the touch' on someone. When we're up IN the Alleghenies, we'll also be heard a little better with the elevation, as I'm sure a LOTTA wheelers in Appalachia, the Rockies, the Sierra Madres, et.al. will be. Listen to some 'oddball' channels on a Saturday afternoon, and you just might hear a few folks you hadn't considered before!

 

[Mustang 131]

Been hearing dx all day. Blue waters, Trinidad, Jamaca, PR, and south Florida. East Texas and New Mexico.
Boston, NY,NJ today.

 

[222DBFL]

Shoot DX is rolling here right now at 22:30 here in Daytona Beach. Conditions have been sporadic. Seems like we have been getting some good night dxing at least. Daytime has been sporadic, but there are still some contacts to be made stateside anyways.

 

[Mustang 131]

Everything from the blue waters to Maine right now. Band wide open.

 

[codeman]

Still pretty quite here in central Texas, but I did hear some activity for a while. One operator was Indiana Jones, blowing my speaker up for about 15 seconds then he was gone.

I had no luck today. But there is always tomorrow

 

[Stellasstillarat]

I never thought Spanish would be a language that could one day come in handy.
I slept through my Spanish classes in h.s.

Unfortunate.
It amazes me how many Spanish speaking stations come in skip wise.
Even when all the reliable skip stations are dead there's an unbelievable amount of skip coming in but there all speaking Spanish.
No help for me. I'm slowly make changes in order to improve my station.
And I'm looking forward to the fall and hoping the skip happens then as well as it was less than two months ago.
Here in nj. There's lots of California, Florida, Alabama Arizona and even stations as close as Ohio coming in, mostly in the evening.
The only problem is even though contacts can be made it's only one out of ten stations really making strong loud trips.
All the other's need to have the volume turned up fairly high in order to hear.
And that's with the external maco preamp gain turned up all the way.
I still enjoy 27.5155 lsb as hear in nj those stations (mostly in Jamaica) are sure to be banging my meter 7 out of 10 time I tune in to that frequency.
if I'm doing something in the radio room I'll tune to 27.5555 usb and just sandbag.
Usually within an hour I'll make a few contacts. Curacao, us virgin islands Brazil and central and south America stations.
luckily the contacts I've made to those stations were bilingual. p
Happy DX'ING.

 

[space cowboy]

I never thought Spanish would be a language that could one day come in handy.
I slept through my Spanish classes in h.s.

Unfortunate.
It amazes me how many Spanish speaking stations come in skip wise.
.

I've thought this.

 

[BBB]

Too many Spanish speaking stations for my liking. They kill local communications at times. These are almost always business related with the majority of those being Cab company dispatchers and the cabs they are dispatching. They run roger beeps 100% of the time.

You can easily interact with them using Google Translator:

https://translate.google.com/

Just set the first text box as English then type in what you want to say, then set the second translate box to Spanish and click the speaker icon underneath the text. It will then play. *Set the computer speaker volume loud enough so you mic will pick it up properly.

Please get creative and tell them exactly how you really feel

 

[vkrules]

I never thought Spanish would be a language that could one day come in handy.
I slept through my Spanish classes in h.s.

Unfortunate.
It amazes me how many Spanish speaking stations come in skip wise.
Even when all the reliable skip stations are dead there's an unbelievable amount of skip coming in but there all speaking Spanish.
No help for me. I'm slowly make changes in order to improve my station.
And I'm looking forward to the fall and hoping the skip happens then as well as it was less than two months ago.
Here in nj. There's lots of California, Florida, Alabama Arizona and even stations as close as Ohio coming in, mostly in the evening.
The only problem is even though contacts can be made it's only one out of ten stations really making strong loud trips.
All the other's need to have the volume turned up fairly high in order to hear.
And that's with the external maco preamp gain turned up all the way.
I still enjoy 27.5155 lsb as hear in nj those stations (mostly in Jamaica) are sure to be banging my meter 7 out of 10 time I tune in to that frequency.
if I'm doing something in the radio room I'll tune to 27.5555 usb and just sandbag.
Usually within an hour I'll make a few contacts. Curacao, us virgin islands Brazil and central and south America stations.
luckily the contacts I've made to those stations were bilingual. p
Happy DX'ING.

In this part of the world it's Asian fishing boats that are a problem and in Europe it's the Russian taxi's. Conditions aren't great here either but still getting some international openings . Alfred " international barbecue station" from Hawaii came in on 38 lsb 30 over 9 for about 10 mins then vanished. Thats the way it's its been going lately, here one second gone the next . It will get worse .lets hope the conditions improve in (my)spring.

 

[vkrules]

The band is shutting down completely for a large part of the day now.This will get worse as we move towards the cycle minimum . Being one of the weakest cycles on record we could see the band dead for years.Fingers crossed we will see some improvement with the changing seasons though. Summer band here down under .