If we were all psychic we wouldn’t need radios or antennas or this propagation business. 
Nick
Spell check seriously needs upgrading LOL
Looking into this more 
In the recent week or so I have noticed the 1200KM + distance Sota on 20m is getting harder to hear yet still reach them ok just:confounded:. But harder to hear and also noted the less than 1000km Sotas are appearing again more often as say in past week been working Sotas at 800km to 1100KM 
. But best time for these Sota’s seem to be between 10am and 2pm UTC 
I am coming to the conclusion its properly due to the fact we are entering out summer time and the F2 layer is increasing its distance from the earth more because of more day light hrs. Thus with this increased height the angle of reflection off the F2 causes the angle to reflected back to earth at a steeper angle causing the hop between station and return to earth to shorten its distance from the lovely 1500KM down back to less than 1000km . So time of day is becoming more important on distance of Sota. So you can be in that part of the day say 1000hrs to 1400hrs utc for less than 1000km and after 1300hrs better for longer distances and increases as the sun passes further over and the F2 layer drops again.
Now this leads me to ask about 40m propagation as we well know now when the critical freq is high signals come off the D layer and when critical freq drops to lower levels we get better propagation but to which layer does it come off then F1 or F2 and again have noticed in past week or so not getting the distance during 1000hrs to 1400hrs utc but its there prior. As for grey line that just moves day to day due to ever changing sun set and dawn can cause some interesting prop at times on many a band at certain times of year.
I just find this fascinating stuff, unpredictable at times and unexplained at times too BUT enjoy able when it does its thing our friend or enemy the Ionosphere hence the term am a jockey and i ride it or as my friend would say "surfing the ionosphere with our radio waves man ".
Karl
OTOH there have been three days in the last week with extensive sporadic E openings both in Europe and the USA. It seems to be shaping up for another one today but who knows?.
Brian
Were HF conditions really dire yesterday (Tuesday) or have I got a problem?
I called from 11:48 until 12:08 on 5.3985 MHz, including a self-spot from GW/MW-003 and had no intelligible replies.
Then later I tried 7.117 MHz from 16:08 until 16:20, also including a self-spot from GW/MW-016 with no response at all.
10W, linked inverted V dipole, centre at 5m.
73,
Rod
Back to 20 m: I remember some QSOs over similar distances within Germany, or between Germany and the neighbouring countries, but I need to check my log for details. IIRC some happened in the early 2000s between central Saxony and the area around Bremen and Hamburg, and conditions remained favourable for several minutes. Might have been sporadic E, it certainly was too far for groundwave.
73, Jan-Martin
But this is what was spotted:
Tue 11:57 MW0JLA on GW/MW-003 - (Posted by M0JLA) 7.111 ssb
Tue 15:56 MW0JLA on GW/MW-016 - (Posted by M0JLA) 14.280 ssb
Confucius he say: “man who spot different frequency to where he call not going to get log full of chasers”
That apparent anomaly was created by my quick edit to spot my QSY. The original spots were for 60m in both cases but the time does not update when spots are edited. I did actually call on the spotted frequency for quite a few minutes, both before and after the spot. The second spot was edited twice. I know I should re-spot; perhaps if I go back to the new-spot screen I can generate a new spot without having to start from scratch; that seems to take forever with fat fingers on small screen keys. (My typing is bad enough on a proper keyboard.)
73,
Rod
Well don’t edit the spot. If you do then there is a strong chance that most software using the RSS feed will not see any change and many chaser will be blissfully unaware of what you are up to.
But this has no bearing on my original 60m spot at 11:57 when there were evidently people around but unable to complete a contact.
73,
Rod
Agree with Andy - I’ve seen this especially if the chaser is using the SOTAWatch Filter, it does not pop-up an edited Spot.
Better to add a new spot.
Ed.
I had forgotten that; thanks for the reminder.
73,
Rod
I was listening at that time but didn’t hear you, the band seemed quite long and you were probably too close to me. There was also a strong motor-boating signal over the channel which I think is locally generated. Just bad luck, Rod, I tend to monitor FE when I’m in the shack.
Brian
Maybe I’m doing it wrong but when I hit the new spot link on my phone browser and then touch the boxes to enter new data the last info is available to reselect. At most all that is needed is a new mode and frequency.
I find it easier to stay on the SOTA watch page and just do the back tab on the browser of my phone then change the frequency and click add spot.
If the signal is not the best or the page times out do the back tab again and click add spot again.
I didn’t have much joy on 40 or 60m either yesterday, but 20 and 30m bands provided the QSOs needed for the activation.
Graeme