TenX DX News September 1, 2021
Mike Davidson N5MT, #24949 Download Article in PDF
Welcome to the Fall season of the 10-10 DX News for this September 1st date. The 10-10 organization was founded in 1962 so this is our 59th Anniversary year. The ARRL DXCC program only had 301 DX countries recognized by the world during that year and now there are 340 countries possible.
There was no 10-10 Countries Award program in the early 60's when members collected bar numbers and certificates from chapters. But in the early 70's the Countries Award was created and it follows closely with the ARRL DXCC with a few rule differences. That’s the history lesson for starters, now for good news about propagation and the bad news for us in Louisiana caused by hurricane Ida.
I am writing this section of my article just 24 hours before hurricane Ida will make landfall in Louisiana very close to my home town and just north of where hurricane Zeta made landfall last year. Ida is expected to be larger, windier and wetter than Zeta. Zeta’s quiet eye moved over downtown New Orleans and the weather channel flew a drone with a TV camera over Canal street in the eye of the storm, a first!
Well, I have to finish my comments and get this article emailed to Randy our editor. I will be staying home for the hurricane. Several antennas have been taken down due to the expected high Cat 2 winds predicted for the Baton Rouge area. The area is expected to loose electric power due to high winds for possibly one to two weeks from Ida and we could loose the AC and refrigerator for food storage. One more history item, tomorrow is Sunday August 29th which is the 16th anniversary of hurricane Katrina that flooded New Orleans in 2005! OK now for the good propagation news.
We are beginning to see a slight increase in the number of sun spots appearing on the Sun. This is increasing the amount of solar flux that is available and the new flux has helped cycle 25 to give us better skip conditions on Ten. The east coast of the USA and South America have been talking with stations in Europe. I and others used this skip with our digital FT8 mode to open a path to the east on Ten and talk into Europe this summer.
A minor DXCC country name change happened quietly on May 1, 2018 for the country of Swaziland 3DA prefix in Africa. The official name is now the Kingdom of Eswatini using the 3DA0 prefix. The name change by the ARRL DXCC has been official since the Summer of 2018 and all previous credits for Swaziland are now good for Eswatini.
I hope all who are reading this can feel safer from the Covid virus by having been vaccinated. With the new Delta-Covid variant causing all hospitals to fill-up this Summer, we still have the virus spreading. The virus is not going to be gone until 75-85 percent of All people get vaccination protection. The Delta variant is twice as
ontagious as the original virus, so be smart and get protected if you want to get back to normal and more operators can go places to give you a new DX country. Please listen to the medical science instead of the fake stuff in order to get past this virus.
The Fall DX radio season will be affected by how much propagation energy is put out by the Sun which energizes different layers around the Earth to cause your radio signal to bounce and skip across the oceans. The Sun is providing more energy to allow radio signals to skip and giving us more openings on Ten than this time last year. The 15-17-20 meter bands were the best DX bands this summer so you will find DX by looking, when and if Ten is not open.
We had a first time new QSO party event the second weekend of July called the Weak Signal QSO Party which replaced the Spirit of 76 QSO Party. The 10-10 contest committee wanted the FT8 mode available for members. The Weak Signal rules only allowed us to use QRP and Low Power during the party. So NO High Power was allowed and the normal 10-10 exchange is still the required standard for all of our QSO Parties. The Weak Signal Digi QSO Party was a great start for me as I was on both days and logged 51 QSO on digi to come in first place. I had to avoid several thunder storms that were dangerous with lightning so I missed making my goal of 100 Q’s that I had set before the contest. But I did work some DX and a few new member numbers. This digi contest may have been my best QSO party with my vertical antenna.
You need to stay on the radio and call CQ to see where you can talk. When propagation is poor on Ten, use FT8 and you might find stations to work when you think the band is closed. Here in Louisiana, the FT8 QSO’s were good and a lot of QSO’s were put in the log the past months. I saw a lot of traffic from South America to Europe on Ten but I usually could not see Europe talking back.
I expect to see an increase in DX traveling this winter season as travel restrictions have allowed air travel to increase. But I do not expect a new 10-10 country to show up on Ten for another two years. As a result of the pandemic, weak propagation, and a bunch of DX ops staying home, my 10-10 news reporting is still reduced. Keep using your station to find some DX that may be calling CQ on a band besides Ten.
OK now some hot news from the ARRL DXCC and LoTW. I keep reminding you to submit your QSO logs on a regular basis to the ARRL LoTW database. Once you have your security clearance established, you can upload all of your QSO logs into LoTW from your logbook for no charge. The story that I heard was not good for the future for LoTW reliability and growth. The software is having problems and there is no ARRL staff to fix it. If the database gets hacked, it would be the biggest loss in ARRL history for the DXCC
program. Presently there is no cost for LoTW data entry, only when you use LoTW data to process a new DXCC award or your first application. So the problem will be raising funds to pay for rewriting the software! There would need to be a capital raising project supported by the users of DXCC/LoTW that would make a donation to a new yet unannounced ARRL project to pay the bill.
Remember, this problem is still a rumor but for those of us that are Number One DXCC certificate holders, this is a major database problem just waiting to break!
Remember, for a 10-10 award you can not use LoTW as there is no way LoTW can collect your 10-10 info! I found a website that list ham call signs that are using the LoTW system. Website is: http://www.hb9bza.net/lotw-users-list .
Use our 10-10 website for all award rules and if you are a paid up dues member, you qualify for all 10-10 awards. So you must fill out a 10-10 award form available on the website and send it to the 10-10 awards person as listed on the form. At the present time there is no award cost and no QSL cards are required for all of our awards.
The 10-10 Countries Award Manager follows most of the ARRL DXCC award rules. But you must have swapped your Callsign, Name, State and 10-10 number over the air on Ten, and record that members information for ALL award application. The honor system does apply for all contacts on 10-10 awards. I keep the 10-10 DX records with my job as the DX Countries Award manager. As of now, there remains 22 countries that have not been worked for 10-10 country credit as published in the March 10-10 News.
Countries Award: There were no Countries Award application submitted this past quarter.
You can download the DX’ers Handbook written by Bryce Anderson K7UA, at website: www.K7UA.com.
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General 10-10 DX reported in the past quarter:
4U United Nations. The remote ham radio station 4U1UN #55555, in the New York UN building, has been on the air but only from its radio beacon on 28200 MHZ. So watch DXSummit for QSO reports and hope for a band opening.
5X Uganda. My friend Elvira IV3FSG #54292, is still in Uganda, Africa operating with call 5X3R until September 2nd. She is on SSB, CW and digital from 40 to 10 meters.
FP St. Pierre & Miquelon. James WB2REM #48365 and Mike W0VTT #14404, were using call TO5T from August 8th to 16th on all bands and modes and FT8.
HK0 San Andreas Island. Pedro HK3JJH #47437
has changed his call to HK3X and was reported on San Andreas on August 9th but by August 16th, he was back in Columbia.
C6 Bahamas Isl. Steven WA8Y #11259 was using call C6AYW from July 14-21st mostly on CW from Bimini.
DP0 Antarctica. Felix DL5XL #55519, is in Antarctica at the German Polar Institute station callsign DP0GVN.
EA7 Spain. Geyskens EA7/ON6ZK #70109, was back on San Juan de Los Terreros Island from July 15-23rd.
HP Panama. Steve HP9SAM #75838, likes to operate on Ten if the band is open on Saturday morning. He tries to check-in to the LA Pelican net on 28450 MHZ at 1510 UTC.
TA Turkey. Rene DL2JRM #69623 was back in Turkey for a few days in August on CW as TA2/DL2JRM.
TG Guatemala. Steve K4IM #34770, was back in Guatemala City as TG9AWS from early July to August 15th. Modes were CW, SSB and digital on 40-6 meters. LoTW.
Upcoming DX & New 10-10 Activity:
LX Luxembourg. Andy LX1DA #50458, will be using the callsign LX40DA from September 1st to December 31st.
P4 Aruba. John W2GD #14109 is going back to operate P40W from October 11-31st. He will be on SSB for the CQ WW DX contest.
J6 St. Lucia. Bill K9HZ #2618 will be back in St. Lucia from August 21st to November 8th using call J68HZ on CW, SSB and FT8.
YN Nicaragua. Rob DM4AO #23450, will be on the air for CQ WW CW on November 27-28th as YN5AO.
Miscellaneous Items & Notes:
Propagation forecast: http://www.solen.info/solar/ , www.SolarHam.net and http://ARRL.org/Propagation .
More propagation: http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/ .
DX Calendar: http://www.dxwatch.com/ .
DX: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4dJcK-WVRw.
DXCC Most Wanted at: https://Secure.Clublog.org/mostwanted.php .
NEW-> History of ARRL DXCC program:
http://ebarc.org/pdf/dx-entity-history.pdf .
Propagation: I expect the solar flux to range from 72-98 during the Fall which means the flux is rising for cycle 25. The 2021 Fall Equinox is on September 22nd. Fall starts in the northern hemisphere and the
Sun is above the equator giving the US its equal day and night times. In the southern hemisphere, spring starts on this day. Cycle 25, started on November 18, 2019. The Sun was really active in Nov-December 2020 but now has quieted down with a slow rising flux. A solar flux maximum of 125 has been forecast by NOAA for the winter of 2024. Sunspots are counted by looking at the Sun but the Solar flux is measured by radio at 2.8 GHz.
The 2021 monthly maximum flux was: Jan 79, Feb 79, March 79, April 85, May 81, June 94, July 95, and Aug 90.
The 2021 monthly minimum flux was: Jan 70, Feb 67, March 72, April 71, May 70, June 69, July 73 and Aug 71.
On Sept 1st, the solar flux was 90, the A index was 10 and K index was 2. There were several small sunspot regions on the Sun the past week. An increase of sunspots has helped produced brief increases of solar flux the past months. The USAF solar flux forecast for September 1st to October 15th is from a high of 90 to a low of 73 with most of those days being from 73 to 77!
My Prediction: Over the next three months, the best conditions on Ten could be: Sept 1-4th, Sept 28 - Oct 2nd , Oct 26-30th, Nov 23-27th and December 21-25th. For the USA, expect a 30% chance of DX to Europe or Asia with a 75% chance of DX to South America or to the Pacific. Listen for the CW beacons from 28.175-28.300 to see if Ten Meters is open and use WSJT-X FT8 for all weak/low propagation QSO’s.
There were 6 new 10-10 DX members joining from June to August 2021. June: WH6FYK 77888, WH6FQI 77889, WH6DXF 77895, KH7CN 77896, DO1RWM 77897. July: WH6CYU (YL) 77899. August: none.
Thanks to the Daily DX by Bernie W3UR #25731 and the Ohio/Penn DX Bulletins. This DX News edition is my number 125th of DXing reports. DX Info to: Mike Davidson, 26274 Whispering Pines Ave, Denham Springs LA 70726 USA and Email: N5MT@aol.com .
DX IS! 73 Mike Davidson N5MT #24949
Copyright © 2021 by N5MT
