Things are starting to look a little better - 20m open on SSB from EU/UK to W and VK at 0530 UTC this morning.
73 Ed.
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I’m just back from a week of SOTA activations in the North of Scotland and 20m was the band that saved some of the activations from being complete duds.
Andy
MM7MOX
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Hi Ron,
VK/ZL LP on 10m around UTC midnight was usually not very pronounced. The stations I worked (with 100 watts and a vetical on the roof) were all big guns, usually running several hundred watts into (stacked) monobanders. All QSOs were in CW. I think there won’t be many SOTA QSOs exploiting this path (not to speak about S2S QSOs) 
But I agree, nothing heard so far in this cycle…
73, Roman
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Having all the bands fairly poor this week during daytime, I’ve just wanted to share Allan VK2GR signal I’ve recorded on 20m CW on Tuesday around 2000 UTC here in EI. Allan was working on 4el and 400W, but still impressive to me, on my window frame loop 
That was over the gray line though. 73 de EI4JY, Alex
https://youtu.be/Wq1tYniHrgQ
https://youtu.be/z-Y93QHNwxI
https://youtu.be/l7fXG1uSwIw
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I would activate around local midnight for the chance of a 10 m LP s2s qso. 
Wx depending.
Ahoi
Pom
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This morning, a member of a local contest club to which I belong reported noteworthy propagation to:
EU on 15 m and 20 m short path and
JA on 15 m long path
in the CWops Test from 0700 to 0800 UTC today. This was two to three hours before our local sunrise, an unusual hour to be working DX on 15 m.
At 0730 UTC, a little more than half the short path from eastern NA to central EU is darkness. Perhaps this is enough to circumvent the twin problems of the “F2 region diurnal summer anomaly” and “F1 blanketing of the F2 layer.”
The NA - JA long path, passing through the Southern Hemisphere and low latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, avoids both problems.
Perhaps the best strategy for those in the NH looking to take advantage of “incredible DX propagation” now through the end of summer is to focus on to working the SH in general, NH via long path, and NH when the short path is mainly in darkness.
And, of course, one can hope to catch good sporadic E openings this time of year.
As far as NA-EU SOTA is concerned, the long path is a long way for a portable QRP signal, plus night isn’t usually our thing. 15 m and 17 m seem to be the best short path options at the moment. In the last seven days, I’ve worked nine EU SOTAs on 15 m and 17 m, and only one EU SOTA on other bands (10 m with QRO activator OE9HRV, who was barely copyable).
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Hi Paul, there’s also a thread here:
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Here’s a website that visually illustrates what W3LPL &W4GO are describing: https://prop.kc2g.com/ Click on the MUF tab to see current MUF propogation conditions for your intended path.
I also find very helpful the eSSN tab which is confabulation of ionsonde stations. Interesting to note the impact of recent solar flares.
Guy/n7un
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Hi Guy, I used to watch that website a lot until I found this one: https://hf.dxview.org/ which I find is even better.
73 Ed.
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I agree Ed. Very nice depiction of current propogation. My new favorite!
Thanks, Guy
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Here’s a very nice illustration of timing between a Solar Flare (xray) which impacts our ionosphere in 7 or so minutes and the subsequent CME debris “cloud” some 72-hrs later. From Paul/NA5N.
FDIM presentation. https://www.qrparci.org/resource/FDIM81.pdf
Guy/n7un
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Hi Guy,
Nice diagram, the time between the first hit and the Plasma arriving 2-3 days later can create “pre-Auroral-Enhancement” on the HF bands, especially those above 10MHz. The problem at the moment is that, with so many CME hits one after the other, we don’t get to take advantage of PAE as the Ionosphere is already being battered by the next CME. Once all the storming dies down in a few days, hopefully, we will see the propagation enhancement shown by Paul’s 2nd [QRP] indicator on the bottom of his chart.
73 Ed.
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I activated The Cheviot on Saturday 11th May. Weather was good - Conditions were bad.
I got 8 QSOs using CW.
2 on 7mhz,; 3 on 10mhz; 3 on 14mhz
Hard work. Those bands were pretty quiet with hardly any other folk about - on a Saturday morning !!
After 1:20hrs I gave up and went home.
Dave/ M6GYU/P
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After more than half an hour of calling in vain, I gave up…
At least a QSO to make the summit valid for the complete.
The only QSO was an S2S with HB9AFI/P… now I also know that without 4 QSOs there are no S2S points…
73 Armin
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Have been on HB/SO-015 on Saturday with KX1. (My first solo activation)
On 40 m there was only noise.
20 m got me two QSO. But at least 2 x S2S thanks to HB9DQM/p and HB9DST/p.
Any other calling or searching was in vain.
73 de
Gerald
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Are you sure? I cannot see the S2S in your chaser log so did you enter it correctly as S2S?
HB9IRF has got S2S points even though he only had 2 QSOs.
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S2S points are per QSO.
For every unique summit you chase from your summit you get S2S chaser points.
You get S2S activation points once per summit you activate.
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“W3LPL (Frank Donovan) [….] propagation “aficionado” is reporting that now and for the next 2 weeks conditions are incredible……10m open well past midnight!”
So much for the predictions of amateur experts!
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