It's good to see the 10m band opening up despite the sunspot minima. This last week or two I worked K9RX in Arizona and UA0FO in Asiatic Russia. I have had a good time working FM repeaters in the southern States as well. Saturday morning had some stations around Townsville coming in at 5/9+ 10dB here into Brisbane.
I find listening on 27MHz is my best guide to openings - I have the channels programmed into my receiver so it's a matter of pressing a button to see what action there is. Yes, the beacons do fulfil their role as well, but CB channel 35 is just one button press away...call me lazy if you want.
My set-up is very basic - the curse of rented accommodation. I'm using a centre-fed vertical half-wave cut for 28.500 or a 40m 1/4 wave vertical mounted just above the ground (on the back fence) with 100 watts from my IC736; so if I can hear and work DX on 10 others out there with towers and mono-banders (the stuff of dreams for this ham) must be getting some good signals.
