I said that 10 was a bit down yesterday.
Today I just left the RX on a "random" frequency on 10m CW.
Being in the other end of the living room I suddenly heard a CQ call, went o answer, and voilá:
First 10m QSO of the year, with 5W. No real DX, but nice to get 10 included in my 5W challenge.
The 5W of the year is now up to 80-40-20-17-15-10m bands, all with the low hanging dipole.
The last few weeks 10m has been a little less active, but with a few days of high activity.
Solar cycle 25 is going rather well. At the moment the solar flux average is ligher than the official predictions, and has been so since the rise of activity started. There are, of course fluctuations, but at present the flux stays above 90 SFU, with periods of flux above 100, up to a peak of around 130.
It still seems to be above the forecast, and it will be interesting to see how 10m and the other higher HF bands - and maybe even 6m - will behave as we approach the spring equinox.
The 5W challenge is on track. QSOs have been made on the bands 80-40-20-17-15m, and no more qre needed to fulfil the January goal. I will still try to make some more this month.
I finally did it!
I ordered the Icom IC-705 portable 5/10W transceiver for MF/HF/6m and 2m/70cm.
Operation is much like the IC-7300 I already had, so it was easy to get started.
After testing that it worked, the first thing I did was updating the firmware from v1.12 to v1.26, so I could get the latest functionality.
Two things were a bit annoying:
- the spare battery I purchased will not attach correctly. It is a third party part with the Wimo logo on it.
the battery cannot be pressed sufficiently down to get the snap lock engaged - at least not without resorting to "violence".
- frequency tuning steps in FM mode. When setting the steps on one band, say 10m, it changes all bands from 10m up to 70cm. Not good, as on 10m and 6m we need 10kHz (maybe even 5kHz) steps. In Europe the tuning steps are 12.5kHz on 2m and 70cm. I would have been happy to see a 2.5kHz tuning step in FM mode, but no, not available. There are 2 work-arounds: For now I use 0.5kHz tuning steps, so I can hit all the frequencies needed. The other option is storing all the frequencies on the non standard TS in memories. This will take time, but can be done. Ideally the tuning steps should be programmable per band (HF - 6m - 2m - 70cm).
Otherwise this is a beautiful little transceiver, and the first QSO - just a Russian on 20m with 5W - has been done in CW.
The IC-705 will be used for some QRP HF work, but mainly as a base transceiver for microwave transverters. The spectrum display is invaluable for propagation monitoring.
Update 2022-01-14:
I did 17 QSOs until now, all in CW with 5W. The bands with success were 80-40-20-17-15m. The antenna I mostly use is a very low hanging 5-band dipole with the feed point less than 4m (13ft) above the ground. A few were made with my R-6000, a half wave vertical for 10-12-15-17-20m.
I think I will try another challenge: 365 QSOs in 2022, with 5W, using either the IC-705 or other 5W TRXs. I have a Chinese 4 band radio for 20-30-40-80m, and also a QCX+ kit for 20m that I should build.
Also needed is a better 30m antenna. That could also be used for 10-6-4m, even as a vertical.
