Your Best DX-ing Band Throughout a Cycle . .

[KY6R]

I used to believe that 20M was the "money band" - where you could work the most entities in one full cycle.

I no longer believe that. I think 40M is open more throughout a full cycle than 20M. My 40M totals have caught up to 20M, and I just think 40M is more consistent throughout an entire cycle for DX-ing.

And for me - factoring in the bottom of the cycle - and an anemic cycle like 24 is what is inflluencing me.

Rich

[K3STX]

I'm with you, it is 40 for me and my 40M DXCC totals are much higher than my 20M totals. Maybe because without a Yagi I can compete better on 40 so I spend more time there. But I just recently worked 4S7 on 40, NEVER heard it on 20.

But give this cycle a break, it'll be great. It's just starting.

Paul

[WW3QB]

40m by far. I've got 163 confirmed on 40m since 2007, the low part of the cycle. Dipoles are very competitive on it.

[W2IRT]

I think it depends on the times of day you operate. Although 20 and 40 are both excellent, I still have more on 20 (312) than I do on 40 (299).

It's also much easier to have a very good antenna system for 20 than it is 40: Three elements at 35' will work very well on 20 with fairly minimal expense. Think "rooftop tower and an old trapped tribander." 40m is a different animal. For the same level of performance the height of the tower puts you into the "big gun" range and 3 elements (6dBD) atop that it even more impressive (and requires a heavy-duty tower, rotor, etc), for the same ERP and performance that that little trapped tribander has on 20. Plus, if you do have the means to put up a good 40m yagi, chances are you'll be even better on 20!

I think it also depends on your operating mode. Despite the absence of broadcasters between 7100 and 7200, 40m is still very much a CW band, whereas 20 is an even mix of all modes. Much less digital on 40 than on 20, too (though that's slowly changing, thankfully).

If I were building a station from scratch, I'd still put more money into 20 than any other band, though having 2 elements on 40 would also be a goal. Remember, in many cases, it's much easier for small DXpeditions to rare locations to have a stronger signal on 20 than it is on 40. So for overall numbers, 20 is still the moneyband for me.

[KY6R]

I've had 2 phased verticals on 40M in three different antennas:

Two DXE 24' hatted verticals phased Christman with 64 buried radials - with broadside / end fire switching
Half square - voltage fed at the base of one element - just broadsided NE - SW
2 element Bruce Array - broadsided E-W

I've found that with 3(+) dBd gain and 12 dBd directionality - I am more competitive on 40M than pretty much any other band. You absolutely don't need a yagi on 40M - 2 vertical elements phased right is the same as a 2 element yagi up 1/2 wl.

Plus - the gray line on top of that makes it easy to snag very rare DX where 20M would have been a big pileup mess.

[K0RS]

For me, it's 30 meters.  I'm going through the unenviable task of manually entering my logs into Dave's DXLab and I'm amazed at what I've worked on 30 over the last 6 or 7 years.  30 demonstrates much of the fine propagation of 20, but is more resilient.  It's open more hours of the day than 20, especially during winter and the sunspot minimum.  It doesn't shut down during the day  for DX like 40.  Long path openings can be spectacular.  I blew A45XR's mind one morning by busting a JA pileup on him by pointing my beam southwest.  After working him, he began calling "CQ NA," but I was the only one!  Lots of "point and click" phone lids don't have antennas for 30, so QRM is less and pileups are smaller.  Yagis are physically more managable on 30 than 40, but there's still fewer of them, so my 3 elements at 60' makes me very competitive.  Hope there's never an SSB allocation there in the future!

[NU4B]

20 meters always ends up as my best DX band. I ran some numbers during the solar min (from 1/1/06 - 12/31/10) and 20 meters was again the best. Mostly using a windom since that was the only antenna I had for about 99.9% of the time.

Band               Entities Worked (don't laugh, I was only using 5 watts, most of you guys probably work this many in a couple days or so    )

80                      65
40                      97
30                      72
20                    137
17                      91
15                      66
12                      35
10                      16

Of course there are many variables like operating schedule, available antennas, operating habits, in my case power output, etc... - but 20 meters is THE DX band (at least at NU4B).

[KY6R]

For now - my antenna farm is best (most versatile) to ride up and over the top of cycle 24:

A3S up 46' with 30M add on
Nested Moxon for 17/12M up 30'
40' tee hatted vertical - with two 20' hats for 80 - 30M and with 64 buried radials
K9AY Array for 160/80M - RX

After the peak of cycle 24, I will modify the A3S and turn it into a long boom 20M mono bander
and put a K8UR half wave dipole 4 square (using the Comtek Hybrid) for 40M under that - after extending the AB-952 tower to 55'

I'm going to go into the next bottom of the cycle prepared - hi hi.

[W7ETA]

It's hard to know without going through paper logs.  For the past two cycles, towards Honor Roll, 20 has the most countries closely followed by 10 meters.

I haven't bothered to submit any new cards unless it is a new country.

The last new one, other than newly created common countries, was those few rocks barely above high tide off the coast of China.

I'm looking forward to when 10 is open all of the time so that I can finish 5 Band DXCC with 100 cards(working contest stations and Dxpedetions).

73
Bob

[AA6YQ]

I used to believe that 20M was the "money band" - where you could work the most entities in one full cycle.

I no longer believe that. I think 40M is open more throughout a full cycle than 20M. My 40M totals have caught up to 20M, and I just think 40M is more consistent throughout an entire cycle for DX-ing.

And for me - factoring in the bottom of the cycle - and an anemic cycle like 24 is what is inflluencing me.

20m, but 15m is close:

160m	228
80m	304
40m	338
30m	312
20m	345
17m	337
15m	342
12m	322
10m	328
6m	098

    73,

        Dave, AA6YQ

[K3TN]

In previous cycles, I would have said 40M as my station has always been simple wires and multi-band verticals. But since I got back on the air in 2009 I've noticed there has been huge growth in stations with beams, or at least rotatable dipoles, on 40m - the Steppir effect. I think that has caused it to be a lot harder to get in and out quickly on 40.

So, 20M is still the workhorse - especially since much of my country total comes from contesting.

Now, if someone said "you can only operate one band for an entire 11 year cycle, which would you choose?" I'd probably say 40m, but 17m would be my second choice - that is a fun band.

John K3TN

[W2IRT]

If money and space weren't an object, then I would take a 3 element 40 meter beam at 110 feet and make that my money band.  However, most people can't put up such a setup, and a monoband yagi on 20 is much more managable.

That would be a great setup for sure, but honestly it's not needed. I have a small Force-12 Delta 240 up at 75' and that does the job beautifully. It needs a tuner to cover the whole band but it's lightweight, doesn't intereact with anything else up there and has a small wind-load. I get roughly 130kHz usably out of it (2:1 points). It's resonant at 7045 and good without a tuner from the bottom of 40 up to about 7100. If I were to use it on SSB, it would cover the entire phone portion of the band.

[KD8MJR]

20M for sheer overall quantity
17M gets the award for longer distance contacts in good quantity

[N5UD]

This has been a good read. I generally agree with W2IRT in both of his posts.

In my experience, the band used has factors to consider like time of day you operate, and size of antenna you can tolerate (cost).

I have been through several cycles. It appears all previous cycles will be better than the current one. I have posted previously
that 40 meters needs a high antenna. Maybe not so critical on the coasts as you fellows get different openings as compared to us in the middle
of the country. 40 has the advantage of being open to some place ! My rotatable dipole at 90 was at least as good as my 2 el yagi at 55 feet. DX on 40 does require high power. Again, at least from the middle of USA.

When I had the years of a day job, my time on the air was at night. I could count on 40 if lightning noise was not too high. Most of the time, 20 was a winner.

I would hate to have my DX limited to one band. 20M is a better band for the polar paths, at least in Texas. 20M is the money band for all but the bottom of a cycle.  Then too how many large DX-peditions are mounted during a solar minimum ?

Today, with modest antennas, 30M is a good band. However what band(s) do the vacation DXers work consistently ?

GL with just one band

73 Tony N5UD

 

[KH6DC]

For me in order it's: 20m, 12m, 15m, 17m, 30m, 40m, 80m and zero for 160m.