Well conditions bit strange today
On 40m band is full of spanish stations lot of them coming in well strong and over taking local UK stations, even heard EC2AG/P on 7166K 3/3 from EA2/BI-022 ( thanks for the correction Mike )
Yet on 20m trying to hear, let alone reach spanish sotas is nigh on impossible , even at 10:15hrs
Oh its changed, yipppeeee, just worked EA1DD/p on 20m just climbed to S9 10:30hrs Z from back of box.
Joys of being an ionospheric jockey 
Karl
I was hearing VERY deep QSB on 20m today, taking 5-7 signals down into the noise. Just the right conditions to compare my old (loop) and new (mini-tri-bander beam) antennas - NOT! Actually I still have to tune the director on the new beam, so it’s really working as a rotatble dipole at the moment. After all the snow last night, no chance of taking down the beam to tune it today.
Ed.
Hi Karl,
not strange having that large number of EA stations on 40m; there was a spanish contest running till 13:00 utc.
Even myself, I was operating in the local club station!
Hope to hear you soon, VY 73
Ignacio
Thought there might have been yet it continued till almost 1030hrs and then the propagation switched off and 20m came back on line grey line seemed extended sunday.Thanks again for the information.
Karl
Karl you should give the 17m band a go, always good for a suprise DX on an activation, I use an End Fed for the band easy to set up either vertical or sloping.
When i get the chance at home it is easy to set up, due to the size a good stealth antenna from the neighbours who tend to moan a lot.
Hi Karl,
It’s all a part of the interest in the hobby.
Don’t know if you can use 30 m. The 30 m band skip zone typically eliminates most stations less than than 700 km away. Like 17 m it enjoys a lack of contests. A wire dipole gives good results out to 3,000 km at some times of the day.
73,
Ron
VK3AFW
Apart from the qrz.com solar conditions widget, where do people get an overview of the band conditions, noise levels and propagations??
73
tasos
Cheers folks
Restricted to certain bands at moment on Ones TRIO 120v namely 80 40 20 15 and 10.
When funds allow better radio required have used 17 and 12 in past and yes can surprise u at times and lack of contests very appealing…
M6VAR
Best way to see wot bands are doing is tune in have a listen works for one, on QRZ.com there is a corner showing currant solar forecasts on wot the old sun is up too. But have noticed even when its says fair to poor conditions one ended up working Tasmania on 10W and the G5 back along.
Even when bands are quiet one has picked up and worked couple nice Caribbean islands as they first call CQ straight in there before rest of world wakes up. The bands do pull surprises some days just gotta be ready for it.
Karl
Karl,
I agree nothing beats listening. Nothing else will tell you about your noise level. Tuning across the band gives a quick indication of band conditions.
You can spend just 3 minutes and listen to the HF beacon network on your target band (20 m thru to 10 m). You can also look at the WSPR reporter map and see where the paths are.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
.
The 30 m band is great for CW but in our region we cannot use SSB, so those of us that prefer to use a mic don’t use 30.
Brian
There’s no one source.
WSPR reporter shows who is hearing what. Or RBN shows what skimmer stations are hearing. Then you tune about as Ron says.
Then there’s the new real time band conditions website:
http://www.bandconditions.com/
This is unfortunately only for Continental US. It may be useful I guess f you are trying to get to US stations.
I find WsprNet to be the best indicator so far of all the options I have tried. To me VOCAP seems simply WRONG on most predictions where the power is low and the antenna simple.
Ed.