For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been operating on 30m. Overall, I’ve made about 40 contacts, including a handful of DX contacts. Here are some impressions:
- It is a little band–only 50 kHz wide, with most of the activty in the lower 20 kHz of the band.
- Propagation-wise, it’s a cross between 20m and 40m. Lots of domestic contacts, but more DX than on 40.
- The average speed of the CW ops on the band seems to be higher than on 20m or 40m. I guess this is because the dominant mode on the band is CW, so the more proficient CW ops tend to migrate there.
- The DX stations on 30m are in countries that I never heard on 20m. For example, the other day I heard stations from Northern Ireland and the Ivory Coast.
- There’s not enough activity! A lot of times it seems that the band is open, but there are just not enough stations on. Maybe it’s time for a 30-30 club to encourage activity.
- One guy said he thinks that the folks on 30m are friendlier than the ops on the other bands. I don’t know if that’s true–I’ve had many nice QSOs on 20m–but it may be that the percentage of friendly ops in higher on 30m.
- Activity does pick up on the weekends when there are big contests. Today, for example, the band was really hopping due to the CQ WPX contest on the traditional ham bands.
- There are a lot of hams with 1×2 calls on the band. I don’t know why this is exactly.
All in all, I’m really enjoying 30m. I just wish it was a little more active.
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