I would say “possibility” rather than “probability”, The forecast has been made to test a hypothesis, until the forecast period has passed we will not know if the hypothesis is correct. I have always had doubts about how real the Maunder Minimum was, anyway, both on the grounds of the deficiencies of the instruments in use at the time, and on psychological grounds. We know that some sunspots were seen during the Maunder Minimum, it was not a time of zero sunspots, but in fact the cycle wasn’t discovered until 1843 so during the Maunder Minimum observers would not have known that there was a minimum. To my mind there is a question about how effective the instruments were - I’ve made and used a replica, it was rubbish! - and how effective the observers were. The upshot is that I wouldn’t worry about a Maunder Minimum, even if we get one it won’t be any worse than all the sunspot minima that ham radio has seen, ham radio will be able to continue.
Tasos, think antenna, not mode. Conditions are poor but not unworkable. Last week, working the 20m band from G/CE-004 Bardon Hill, I worked VK’s and California at 0730 local time, using a vertical.
I wish I shared your optimism, Brian. In almost 60 years of listening on the HF bands, I have never experienced a sunspot maximum as poor as the one we have just passed. This is borne out by the smoothed sunspot number which was recorded in April 2014.
The following table, which shows the smoothed sunspot number at each maximum since records began in June 1761, makes interesting reading.
The last decent sunspot maximum we have experienced, from a radio propagation point of view, was in December 1979. Since then, there has been a steep decline.
You would have to go back to the early decades of the 19th century (cycles 6 and 7) to find worse, I suspect, and of course there was no radio back then. But in all honesty, Walt, though the current cycle maximum doesn’t compare well it has still been a lot better than the typical sunspot minimum, hasn’t it? They can’t all be like 1959! And since that monster we have endured five minima but ham radio continued, so it isn’t optimism, Walt, its realism!
Interestingly, in the first few years of the Twentieth Century when Marconi was conducting his initial experiments with long-haul radio communication, there was a period of extremely low sunspot activity. Perhaps this is why the higher frequencies were written off as “useless” until the 1920s and 1930s when radio amateurs started to demonstrate their value for worldwide communication.
Swings and roundabouts OMs… Patience and a good ear needed…
HF Conditions are good today, big signals coming out of Germany on 20m, and 10m is produced good skip from Northern England to DL/HB9BIN/P, EA2LU/P and EA2IF/P in the last 20 minutes up to 0945z.
There was a talk about the Solar cycle at my local astronomical society a few months back. The speaker’s conclusion was that another “Maunder Minimum” wasn’t immediately on the horizon, but that the second half of the last century had been a period of exceptionally high Solar activity, and that the recent cycles were nearer average. Another point the speaker made was that exceptional bursts of Solar activity aren’t quite as well correlated with the peaks of the cycle as is generally implied.
I guess it boils down to “Keep your ears open, and give apparently quiet bands a try, just in case…”
The great thing about amateur radio is the choice we have. There will always be something that works. 40m has been bad, but the CW is still coming thought, maybe not loud and clear, but perfectly readable.
I think this article is quite good. Im not sure about the PCA data used, especially the old data, but the explanation about the 2 patterns makes a bit more sense.
I agree with you Tacos that the bands have been very bad recently. However, back in the 80’s I decided to venture into QRP with 5 watts and home brewed kit. I was unfortunate that this coincided with a cycle low! However, during that low on 5 watts I achieved DXCC on 5 watts, DXCC on 1 watt and DXCC on 1 mW. OK it was using CW but it was still possible. The bottom line is don’t be disheartened, there will always be stations to work albeit on different bands.
Is there any local net or local spot that people hang out? I’d love some local elmer-ing as there isn’t any clubs near me and I thing Im lucking on local info!
I like the confidence that in 2038 KM4JHL will make the first activation of W4C/CM-034 ! Crikey that must be a hard summit to activate if it’s still expected not to have been activated by 2038!
Probably time these Alert posters cleaned up their error alerts.
as there isn’t any clubs near me and I thing Im lucking on local info! 
