ARRL10M experience

Objective: For Amateurs worldwide to exchange QSO information with as many stations as possible on the 10 meter band.   28MHz

the history of contesting goes back to 1920 with the first Transatlantic radio test transmissions.

final result  band closed early Sunday afternoon 1700 local 

There was no evening SS peak to USA signals faded early afternoon already.

10m was poor running empty CQ long times but result was better then expected

the decay of high band propagation is clear.

   cycle 24 had its weak peak 2 years ago.

This could have been the last 10m contest with reasonable propagation before we go into the long solar minimum towards cycle 26

Realtime score report rank 8 in single CW high at our band close 17:00 local 

 The last result for our Veron competition closes 15 -12-2015

The 4 el 10/15 beam Friday  night  up again in relative good wx 

a good decision  I have 10dB noise in north direction but with the beam I could eliminate that and could pick up some very weak  iono scatter signals from EU at close distance.

and every contact is 4 points no DX bonus..

10m was very poor last week´s WSPR wise not very promissing.

But today Saturday in the test more than expected DX was worked VK2 3 4 6  and USA  mostly the southern states.

Montana the deepest  into USA reachable

most call from Gulf area FL GA VA TX TN AL SC NC  and north east OH MI WI NY NJ MD ME   

The north-east path was closed at 28MHz  the only JA was JA6GCE  good signal  antenna over south  longpath the only JA heard   

called by VP8NO  Falklands 

 4x VK2  3xVK3 1 VK4 1 VK6  no ZL heard  nil from the Pacific 

  

limited opening time 28MHz in JO33hg

Saturday night  another weekend storm  3th time in a row after I set up this beam a storm breaks out..   

the i-L 160 the wire was broken and gave ARC error on 10m

had to fix that early morning

band was very quiet Sunday morning   VK2IA the only good signal at some time

And JA6GCE  the only JA  over the south west good signal no other JA!

moved to N1MM+  works nice but needed 1x reboot total hangup no data loss

Had that before 2 times  never with the classic N1MM. 

10m opened about 9 local and closed 17:00 local 

Sunday early close  all signals   died out only S and P  for the few SA signals left.

PJ6/G3TXF Nigel only Caribbean signal  left at closing time.

finally blue sky today 

Hidaka Denki Works  seems no longer  in antenna business  no email reply for spare parts of very nice 4 band beam VS-2440 

Light construction beam in 3 parts of 1.8m that makes setting up easier.

But now the 20/40m trap is damaged at photo the extension at the radiator.

Without the extension it is 4 ele  10 and 15m beam.

If anyone know where to get this VS-2440 traps? or how to get 

 isolator tubes made of  polyetheen?