A group of hams around Panama City is meeting on 28.4 MHz at the conclusion of the PCARC Monday night 145.210 FM net that starts at 7 PM. All hams are welcome to join in. This is a great opportunity to test out your HF rigs. Technicians have privileges on 10 meters for up to 200 watts of power. Corey N4UVR has a nice signal on 10 meters using a MicroBITX available for $129 at http://www.hfsignals.com/ and also from Gigaparts.com. The local propagation mode seems to be line-of-sight, so you may not copy everyone. Vertical antennas do well. There will be a polarization mismatch between vertical and horizontal antennas. In any case, try what antenna you have. See a plan for a 10 meter J Pole here. At this point in the 11-year solar cycle, ten meters is mostly closed for distance, particularly at night. But you never know. Phil N4STC reports success with FT8 on 10 meters lately. Over the years there have been similar nets locally and we occasionally get calls from out of town stations when the band happens to open up. 73, Greg N4KGL
