Exactly everyone listens and says the bands are dead.
10 meters has been fantastic its just that nobody is on their calling CQ.
I hear stations on 40 meter chatting and saying "i used to love 10 meters this cycle is bad" Yet when I tune down their onto 10 meters
nobody around calling CQ. Even if you do call CQ and the bands are open so many hams cant be bothered to get off the internet to
answer your CQ. When the magic goes then ham radio is headed to the grave.
This cycle for me on 10 meters has been characterized by simultaneous openings both long and short. Even in past cycles I never encountered this oddity
as much and with such regularity as I do now.
Even better is 12 meters. 10 dies a bit and nobody is on 12 meters. When I do call CQ signal strengths are fantastic from JA's running simple antennas.
However there is no activity and you struggle to get a QSO when the band is wide wide open.
Yes the bands are open and hams cant be bothered being radio active. It seems hams only want to work those who call CQ. So it seems the ham bands have a standoff,
thousands of stations waiting for someone to call CQ. Why are hams so shy to call CQ these days. In past cycles even if you were using a attic dipole you would call CQ and many times you would get lucky.
Since the boom in mobile HF I work so many HF mobiles who actually call CQ. These mobiles dont search and pounce or pick the strong cherry stations. They call CQ
and even if they S1 or S2 I work them and thank them for call CQ. Its seems the majority of hams have forgotten about the long lost art of calling CQDX. So HF mobile stations at least get a A+ for effort. They understand that even with marginal antennas you create your own success and propagation by calling CQ.
Maybe ham transceiver manufacturers should start putting HF SELCALL On new radios. You can at least check propagation by making a beacon call, or even calling a specific station using HF SELCALL. HF selcall works amazing well even on the low bands. If every ham had a callsign ID and you could work DX in matter of minutes just by using selcall.
???The Bands are open-just nobody using them. Except--Listened during the WPX lately?. No space on the bands anywhere.
73!