How much AM activity is there on 20 meters?

[VE3GZB]

Just testing the waters, thinking about rebuilding my transmitter.....in my area 20 meters seems always to be pretty quiet even at night. 40 meters picks up when the sun goes down but it's still much more quiet than 80 meters (lotta noise always).

Thoughts?
73s
geo
VE3GZB

[KM1H]

There is scattered activity on 20M, a couple of weekends ago there were 3 different QSO's going on Sunday afternoon for several hours with people coming and going. Its pretty quiet during the week but if you have a big signal somebody usually comes back to a CQ. Thats the band I use most of the time as Im on AM mostly during the day. Id say that 100W to a tribander is about the minimum on a sunspot flat band.

Carl
KM1H

[VE3GZB]

Ok, thanks! Then at least if I plan a mid power AM transmitter to work on 20 and 40 meters, it won't be a wasted effort.

73s
geo
VE3GZB

[flintstone mop]

SHOOT...my tribander took a beating from last Winter. I hope a dipole 70 feet in the air would give a nice boost.
Fred

[KL7OF]

I operated a QRO rig into a full wave loop this winter from Tum Tum with some success .....condx never were very good.....Heard W8VYZ calling a few times but Bill was never strong enough for me to answer his CQ's...With the increase in spots we may have better luck...

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Just listened to 20 about a half hour ago. It was full up from 14.150 on up, world wide DX.

[KX5JT]

Just listened to 20 about a half hour ago. It was full up from 14.150 on up, world wide DX.

Steve Steve Steve... *shaking head and chuckling mildy*

How much of that was Amplitude Modulation? 

But on that note, I had a couple awesome QSO's last night on 14.286 AM.  Around 10 pm local time Oregon and North Dakota.  I called cq a couple times and the N.D. station decided to play.  The Oregon station was so very happy to hear AM (he said it'd been a few years on 20 Meter) that he tuned up his old Hallicrafters HT-32 and drove his 4-1000 homebrew into a 2 element Quad and pointed it my way!  We proceeded to have a great time and I even learned what I should probably look for in repairing my Hammarlund HQ-110.  (T1 and T2 IF Cans have silver mica caps that the silver has likely started to migrate rendering the 110 dead but hearing only static.  Apparently common on these things!  Looks like I may have to find a couple 22 picofarad caps)  So relatively long distance and low background noise AM on 20 meters and it's wonderful!  Let's hear more of you AMers on 20!

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

None. But I heard a bunch of strong stateside signals, so it could have been.  I may have to put up an antenna for that band if this keeps up!

Just listened to 20 about a half hour ago. It was full up from 14.150 on up, world wide DX.

Steve Steve Steve... *shaking head and chuckling mildy*

How much of that was Amplitude Modulation? 

But on that note, I had a couple awesome QSO's last night on 14.286 AM.  Around 10 pm local time Oregon and North Dakota.  I called cq a couple times and the N.D. station decided to play.  The Oregon station was so very happy to hear AM (he said it'd been a few years on 20 Meter) that he tuned up his old Hallicrafters HT-32 and drove his 4-1000 homebrew into a 2 element Quad and pointed it my way!  We proceeded to have a great time and I even learned what I should probably look for in repairing my Hammarlund HQ-110.  (T1 and T2 IF Cans have silver mica caps that the silver has likely started to migrate rendering the 110 dead but hearing only static.  Apparently common on these things!  Looks like I may have to find a couple 22 picofarad caps)  So relatively long distance and low background noise AM on 20 meters and it's wonderful!  Let's hear more of you AMers on 20!