TenX DX News September 1, 2023
Mike Davidson N5MT #24949
Welcome to the Fall DX season of the 10-10 DX News. The Sun has been producing more Sun spots that has kept the Solar flux high but high absorption conditions have kept Ten meters quieter than expected. We have seen little skip into Europe and Asia but only when the absorption numbers are below A=10 and K=2, and when the Sun is not showing big sun spots. There is a possibly that the High Pressure WX that is centered over southwest area of the USA is also causing less skip on Ten. My theory is this high pressure area is letting signals out of the area during the heat of the day and when it cools a bit at sundown, we see some skip into the Pacific. This may have been the reason we had such a poor Summer QSO Party the first weekend of August. Many members were only able to put one third of the QSO as compared to last years event! I only had 32 contacts all weekend with only 5 Q’s on Sunday. This year is our 61st anniversary for 10-10, so find a members with a 61 in their 10-10 number and log them.
Now to update everyone of the Countries Award program. I have tested the OS program that was converted for us that stopped working in Windows 10. I have found a major problem with the OS data conversion that I can not fix. In testing I found missing QSOs with the converted OS files. Plus, the program that enters data is not saving the added QSOs and the print of that data is failing. Red Flag. When I go back and look at the new data entry, all the adds are missing so I do not see an updated record, plus I then can not print the old record, it abends. I had halted accepting new Countries Award applications in August. I was trying to get the old program to run under an old version of Windows XP, a try with Windows 7 & 10 failed. I was finally able to download XP on a PC and loaded the old Country data and it RAN! I had one pending application that I entered the data for Dan KZ3T #41015 and validated his 90 Bar the last day of August. Congrats Dan. I am now accepting all new Countries Award updates or new 25 country applications.
I have talked about my 10-10 data that I have logged over the past 44 years and especially now that Jim K4HAV, who wrote the Win1010 logging program, is now SK. There is a good chance that a Windows Microsoft update will cause the Win1010 program to stop working! Since I have over 17000 members in my log, I want to get more of the 10-10 awards that I have not applied for out of my data. I started applying for more Bar awards and then I remembered that I had never paid attention to the OM/XYL teams that were saved in Win1010. Jim never coded a way to print an application for this award. But he hid a display of the teams that the program had found as you logged contacts. As a beta tester of his software, I had never found this display of the OM/XYL teams so I started looking for comments and found his hiding place. I found over 250 teams plus another 100 that were only one of the team members in my log. So, I filled out the first application and sent in my first 25. My first 10-10 data was back in 1979 so I was looking through a lot of SK members for pairs. I remembered my first VP volunteer member was easy to find, Grace K5MRU #218! But I had not yet found the hidden file that Jim had created in Win1010 so it made searching hard to find the teams for the application sheets. I knew that Grace was going to be my first team since I knew her OM was also in the log back in 1979. Grace was hard to get since she and I were both in Texas and short skip was tough but I had a good beam antenna and found George K5MRT #08135! After more teams were found and going a sequential search through my data, I created a spread sheet to keep track of my teams. When you get over 50-75 teams you tend to forget who you have turned in for credit so put your data in a spreadsheet, sort it by 10-10 number and look for the dups! This was another reason why Jim never programmed an OM/XYL tab to complete an application form for this award. It is complicated logic finding last names and addresses to prove you have found a team! I slowly increased my count of matching teams and after 150, I found the hidden file in Win1010 and my search got easier.
Thanks to Marcus KM5EH #71103 for sending me a confirmation of 225 & 250 OM/XYLs teams number 1.
OK now lets talk about some DX. The last three months have been the most disappointing period for Ten meter skip that I can remember. This reminded me of the bad skip to Bouvet Island that many DX chasers fussed about this past year. They had bad WX getting to Bouvet from the ship but getting a Ten meter signal from Bouvet to the US was tougher, as they only made two QSO’s.
As I mentioned earlier, the Summer QSO Party had smaller logged entries in submitted logs this year and the solar flux was 176! We should have been talking into Europe for several hours that weekend! My friend Henry DL8YBM #36109 in Germany had only 52 members and 281 non-members in his log which was one half of what he had last year. Congrats to Henry for a first place in the event. Party results are posted in this issue and the 10-10 Website.
Members are fussing about the lack of skip even with the rise in the solar flux. The Sun gave us several solar flux highs last year but also several solar flares. Well, there have been many large sun spots this past quarter to cause bad propagation. I expect we may get more solar flares this year as we get closer to a solar maximum in 2024 or 2025!
One more DX bit of info from Maui, Hawaii. The fires on Maui on August 8th have affected as many as 61 ham ops. I was able to find the zip codes for Maui and Lahaina, then I was able to get a list of hams from the ARRL for these zip codes. I searched for and found two 10-10 members!
Francis NH6RW #49421 Tech license and Marcus KH7QM #70761 General class license. Both ops would have been in the hardest hit burned areas in Lahaina. Both ops are not on the missing published list and they did not have an email listed so I could not track down more info.
Countries Award: There were three Countries Award applications submitted this past quarter. One 90 Bar was issued but two others were rejected.
General 10-10 DX reported in the past quarter:
3B9 Rodriguez Island. Robert 3B9FR #61550 was active in August on FT8 on Ten.
4U United Nations. The UN station 4U1UN #55555, in the New York UN building, was heard in June and July.
C6 Bahamas Island. Joe W8GEX #41393 was using C6ADX in July on Ten for his 62nd trip. LoTW.
CY0 Sable Island. The DXpedition to Sable Island was from March 20-31. Dan W4DKS #5395 and John W2GD #14109 were the members. Website: www. CY0S.com.
FJ St. Barthelemy. Frank K3TRM #69974 was on in July as FJ/K3TRM. LoTW.
FP St. Pierre & Miquelon Isl. Eric KV1J #31247 has been active in June-July as FP/KV1J on FT8 but no SSB.
OA Peru. Ed OA4SS #10802 is back on the Air with his rig an dipole for Ten and Ed likes CW on 28028.
V4 St. Kitts. Gary G0FWX #49106, operated as V47FWX from Aug 12-26th on SSB. LoTW.
V5 Namibia. Mike V51MA #64688 was heard this summer on CW, SSB and FT8 on Ten. Mike lost his 10-10 number and logs a few years ago. Last year in November, I found his membership number and he got active on Ten again. So remember your 10-10 number it’s yours for life.
V7 Marshall Islands. Bob V7/N7XR #26991 was on Kwajalein Atoll until June 22nd. His radio was an IC7410 into a dipole and vertical on CW or digital. Bob has been the only active radio operators on the Atoll.
VP6 Pitcairn Island. Meralda VP6MW #50434, is back on the air with fixes to her rig and computer for FT8.
VP8 Falkland Isl. Bob VP8LP #8854 was on SSB and FT8 from April to August. LoTW.
Upcoming DX & New 10-10 Activity:
FJ St. Barthelemy. Phil K2LIO/FJ4WEB #07746 is expected to be back on St. Barthelemy in October.
H4 Solomon Island. A DXpedition to the H4 is coming on November 15-29th with callsign H44WA. Only member is Tom NU7J #71381. Website: https://www.H44WA.com .
KH8 Swains Island. A DXpedition is going to Swains from October 4-17th. The only 10-10 member is Max NG7M #68542. Callsign is W8S from two separated camps with six stations total. Web: https://Swains2023.com.
PJ7 St. Maarten. Ed N2HX #25435 will be in PJ7 for fall contest like ARRL Ten using call PJ7PL. He was on St. Kitts with call V49R recently.
TJ Cameroon. A Dxpedition from November 2- 15th will use callsign TJ9MD. The only member is Tony IZ8CCW #70101, team leader. This is rare 1010 DX. LoTW.
TX Clipperton Island. A large group of ops is going to Clipperton in January 2024 using call TX5S. Members are: Gene K5GW #15119, Paul N6PSE #68859 and Nodir EY8MM #52767, are experienced DX ops, so good luck. HISTORY: In 1985, FO0XX give us a new 10-10 country.
V3 Belize. Uwe DL8UD #70315, will be in Belize from September 6-14th. His new call will be V31KO or maybe V3O if they authorize his special request.
ZL7 Chatham Island. My friend Holger ZL3IO #22401 is going to Chatham Island for three trips later this year. First trip is September 15-28th to install equipment so he can come back and operate CQ WWDX SSB & CW in October and November. He will be off grid using solar power and batteries at his station on Chatham, so no high power with his special callsign ZL7IO. All QSO’s will go to LoTW. Paper cards go to DK7AO.
Miscellaneous Items & Notes:
TenTen Website: http://www.Ten-Ten.org .
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. Https://Secure.Clublog.org/mostwanted.php http://ebarc.org/pdf/dx-entity-history.pdf
Ham Lookup various ways: https://Haminfo.tetranz.com/map .
Ham LoTW users: http://www.hb9bza.net/lotw-users-list .
NEW: WM7D Solar Values: https://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/
FT8 Fox/Hound Video: https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=GcbtTKSRkus http://WWW.K7UA.com.
Propagation:
I expect the solar flux to range from 139-174 this Fall. The fall equinox is Saturday, Sept 23rd, it’s the day of the year that has equal night and day times in both hemispheres. The Earth is not tilted, giving us the equal daylight in the USA. Cycle 25 started on November 17, 2019. There were a lot of sunspots visible on the sun this past quarter and X and M class flares increased the solar flux and bad skip accordingly. Sunspots are found by looking at the Sun and the flux is measured at 2.8 GHz.
The 2023 monthly max solar flux: January 234, February 215, March 188, April 176, May 180, June 180, July 179 and August 176. Average 191.
The 2023 monthly min solar flux: January 136, February 134, March 129, April 125, May 134, June 144, July 154 and August 139. Average 138.
On September 1st, the solar flux was 140, the A index was 6 and K index was 3. There have been sunspots on the Sun over the past eighteen months with increased solar flux up 15-30+ points. The USAF forecast for Sept 1st to Oct 15th is a range of 168-140 with average flux of 152.
My Prediction: Over the next four months, the best conditions on Ten could be: Sept 18-21st; Oct 15-18th, Nov 11-14th & Dec 8-10th. For the USA, expect a 40% chance of DX to Europe, Asia, S. America or Pacific. Use the beacons 28.175-28.300 MHZ to find if the band is OK and if it’s closed for SSB, go to 28074 and FT8 for a Q.
No new DX member joined in June to August 2023. Stephan DM4KA #78183 was the last DX 10-10 issued and Vicki AD3I #78199 was the last member in August.
Thanks to the Daily DX by Bernie W3UR #25731 and the ARRL DX Bulletins. This DX News edition is my number 129th of DXing reports for the past 32 years. DX news 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 © 2023 by N5MT
