Ralph says:
There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
seem sparse.
************************
I'd wondered about that. I was completely inactive from July 1983 to
November 2004, and I've noticed that the CW bands seem a lot less populated
now than they did 20+ years ago. For example, last night as I tuned across
the CW end of 40 m I heard maybe 6 QSOs. Admittedly, the geomagnetic
activity has been high and propagation over the past week has been actively
stinking.
On the other hand, I wonder if the sparsity of transmissions is really from
fewer hams operating, or simply from fewer hams transmitting. I expect that
quite a few operators do what I do, listen without transmitting until
something genuinely interesting pops up. My reason for suspecting this is
that I repeatedly notice a remarkable phenomenon. The band will seem very
quiet, maybe 2-3 QSOs in a 20 kHz segment, but then a rare (sometimes even
not so rare) DX station appears, and a pileup develops literally within
seconds, and becomes massive no later than the DX's second QSO. This
happens too fast to be the effect of a spotting net or computerized
spotting, I can only conclude that many operators are listening, ready to
pounce when the moment is right.
73,
Steve
AA4AK
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