I have intermittent line noise and it is loudest on 10 meters. I am telling you this to explain why I was on 10 meters. The noise is loudest pointing south toward the noisy pole. I heard several stations from MD and NJ calling CQ I called the MD station and turned the antenna toward him and lost him. I was working him by back-scatter. To make a long story short I worked other stations in TN, TX, and NC all on back-scatter. In order for these stations to hear me better, I was running my linear. When I finished talking to NC station, I had a pile-up of South American stations calling me. Before I went QRT I worked several of them. I thought this is interesting because most hams believe 10 is dead and I didn't know back-scatter occured at the sunspot minimum. Because there was a group of code free Technicians working 10 meters I found out ten meters was open. Give these code free Techs a thrill by giving them a 10 meter QSO. BTW, the line noise stayed quiet to allow me to make these contacts. Jim N4JA
