A friend and I want to try to some SSB. Could someone wise and
experienced suggest a band for afternoon and evening work for 575
miles. We're both VHF-UHF guys and want to try something new, but are
confused due to the current sunspot mess.

Thanks, Steve N8vkd.

wrote:
A friend and I want to try to some SSB. Could someone wise and
experienced suggest a band for afternoon and evening work for 575
miles. We're both VHF-UHF guys and want to try something new, but are
confused due to the current sunspot mess.

Probably 40 meters during the day, 75 (80) meters at night.

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66

sorry-spammers ""w9wi\"@(sorry-spammers)" wrote in :
wrote:
A friend and I want to try to some SSB. Could someone wise and
experienced suggest a band for afternoon and evening work for 575
miles. We're both VHF-UHF guys and want to try something new, but are
confused due to the current sunspot mess.

Probably 40 meters during the day, 75 (80) meters at night.

That's probably the best. 20 meters is going to be pretty good during
the day, too, and 15 meters was open pretty much over the Americas
yesterday. I was hearing stations on 15m as far away as Uruguay and
Chile, and worked stations in Wisconsin, Georgia, Virginia, and New
York.

--
Mike Andrews, W5EGO

Tired old sysadmin

mikea wrote:
That's probably the best. 20 meters is going to be pretty good during
the day, too, and 15 meters was open pretty much over the Americas
yesterday. I was hearing stations on 15m as far away as Uruguay and
Chile, and worked stations in Wisconsin, Georgia, Virginia, and New
York.

20 will be open *somewhere* every day with few exceptions; as we get
into May and June, the higher bands through 6 meters will be open quite
a bit as well. However, I think on most days the skip will be too long
for an Akron=St. Louis path, and on many days when it's short enough,
it will be open in the wrong direction. (Akron=Atlanta; St.
Louis=Dallas, openings like that) You'll be able to work easily over
the desired path on 20, but you won't be able to do it very often.

40 is the band that will reliably open over this path essentially every
day. Besides, the QRM isn't nearly as bad! (especially if you have an
Extra Class license and can operate in the territory below 7200KHz)

("osr" certainly should get on 20, 17, and 15. There will be a lot of
interesting QSOs to be made. It's just that on most days, his friend in
St. Louis won't be one of them!)

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66

Thank you gentlemen, we're in the process of building the phasing TX
rigs, and next hamfest I'll go take the test to get some phone
access. We both have capable DX receivers.

We're tired of cell phone bills, See you on the air soon.

I will add a few other bands to the radio. :-)

40 was what I suspected.

Thanks,
Steve N8VKD