CW on 30 metres: 10120 kHz, a band without voice

What you hear

Morse notes as in the main article, on the quietest of the CW bands. 10120 kHz lies in the telegraph half of 30 m, 10100 to 10130 kHz, with the digital modes above it. There is never a crowd: a few signals at a time, many of them DX, and the mix changes with the clock, nearer stations by day and other continents at night, because the band behaves like 20 m in daylight and like 40 m after dark.

Who transmits and why

Operators who like Morse without the contest rush. The 30 m band was given to amateurs after the 1979 conference as a narrow, shared allocation, with power limits in many countries and an agreement to keep contests off it, so the pace is calm, and expeditions use it to give out contacts when the other bands are closed. The QRP centre of activity is a little lower, at 10116 kHz.

When and where to listen

Any hour; the sunrise and sunset periods bring the longest paths. Summer static bothers it less than 40 m. Any receiver in a quiet place works. The dial is 10120 kHz in CW mode with a narrow passband.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Amateur radio → CW 30 m. The program picks a public receiver that covers 10120 kHz, sets the CW mode with its narrow passband and keeps the note at the standard pitch. Morse is read by ear; the program has no text decoder for it. No receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed.