10 & 15 WSPR on December 08, 2010

In taking Larry's lead (N1TX) where he was operating WSPR mode for three days at KL2R prior to the 10 meter contest, I decided to do the same but for only one day. I started out on 10 meters today but I was not seeing any activity (other than KL2R and myself, hearing each other). I decided to pop down to 15 meters and after I set the station up on WSPR, I waited to see what the propagation looked like. It was not long before I started to see traces of other stations showing up and before long, stations were booming in. I was running 10 watts to my 4 element Mosley at 43 feet. Above is a snapshot of the propagation path I had today on 15 meters. Needless to say, I think it was very good as my arctic rain of DX RF was falling to the lower 48 and beyond.

I went back to 10 meters a few times and eventually started to listen for beacons. The reason being, there were not that many stations on WSPR in the lower 48 on 10 meters. I tuned around and heard a handful of beacons from various locations. When I hear a beacon on 10 meters, I normally post it to the cluster. Reason being, to let everyone know there is a path into Alaska and to turn their antenna's northward (if possible). Some of the 10 meter beacons I copied today are listed at the bottom. It made me realize that there is hope that I will be able to work more stations on 10 meters during the contest this weekend! Could it be? Maybe a bunch of stations heard and worked on 10, again? Is it possible I could get more states for my WAS on 10 meters?

My excitement was short lived when I read spaceweather dot com. Yep, the effects of a solar wind is due to reach earth on or about the 10th of December. What does that mean for the contest weekend? Well, we shall have to see but one things for sure, I will make sure my battery in my iTouch is fully charged as I may be watching music videos rather than callsigns falling into my log this weekend.

28296.1 KA7BGR/B     CN82 > BP53                        2246 08 Dec   

28300.0 K6FRC/B      CM97 > BP53                        2233 08 Dec 

28245.7 N7JS/B       DN41 > BP53                        2202 08 Dec 

28196.2 LU4JJ/B      GF08 > BP53                        2133 08 Dec 

28193.0 VE4ARM/B     Light into BP53                    2125 08 Dec