Is the 10 Meter Band Dead?

When I started off in January this year with my new FT-710 radio, one of my friends told me to try 10m as he found it to be excellent for working DX. This was because Solar Cycle 25 was nearing its peak and higher bands are coming up while lower bands like 80 and 160m were going down. I was quick to take his advice as the limited space on my terrace would easily take a 10m dipole antenna. Initially I was on a simple 10m dipole which was almost horizontal, being mounted on 3m CPVC pipes fixed on the parapet of my terrace, with total height from ground of about 7m. I could work DX daily using this rather limited setup. But now, look at the waterfall display on 10m in my radio, not a single signal is seen.

I have been noticing this for several weeks or months now and started enquiring with multiple friends both locally and DX over online forums. Many have told me that their experience is also the same. Some suggested calling CQ as many would be waiting for a CQ call to see whether the band is open. So today evening I spotted myself on DXwatch.com and started calling CQ on 28.445 MHz. Continued for about 15 minutes with no response from anywhere. Waterfall display continued to be blank in my radio. Of course 15 minutes is not a long period for getting response with my ‘100 Watts and Wire’ setup. Today morning I had a talk with a VU ham with a three element Yagi, who also told me that he also found a similar situation.

Earlier 10m was my favourite band for DX and many online and offline friends also said the same to me. For me the advantage was a low noise floor of S3, compared to S7-9 on most other bands, most of the time. It is only very occasionally that I have short periods of S3 noise on our favourite local band 40m. If you look at the Solar Terrestrial Data provided by N0NBH on qrz.com, it says 10m is good by day. But many of us find that it is not at all active either at day or night. Even on DXwatch.com, most of the spots are either on FT-8 or local. So I do join with many of my friends in saying that even though solar data makes us think that 10m band is alive, it is practically dead. Do you have a different opinion? I will be the happiest person if 10m band is indeed alive and I can have plenty of contacts on 10m.