Normally on 20m. The Greek Sota’s come in strong to me between Oct and March and then gone with the winter conditions.
Looks like same on 10m been doing the 10m challenge and chasing Greek Sotas from Jan till the past week or so and they have been strong and now barely heard. Conditions are shifting for sure from winter to spring in Northern hemisphere. Suspect its angle of the dangle being effected by rising of the Ionsphere as it heats up with more warmth and longer light hrs.
And of course it changes angle of reflection between sender and receiver of the Sota.
But are working fair few states side BUT mainly western side of the states on 10m, no doubt will change as the year comes along.
Nothing special here only the 40m FW Hoz wire and 90w from the rig as from March.
All being well come spring summer have the beam up more once the new telescopic box mast is in and operational.
Thanks for your chasing Karl - even if it is relatively local mostly on 40m. (According to the DB you are my 3rd top chaser, only pipped to the post by Ken (G0FEX) and Don (G0RQL). It is really good to hear so many chasers - it makes the long walk up worthwhile! 73 Paul ( & Woody who I think you also end up chasing…)
Being a relative newcomer to ham (and my first solar cycle) I am interested to see how this progresses with 10m. I have been wondering if this is sun angle (angle of dangle) or just poor solar conditions right now, maybe a mix ?
On Friday, I could work 10W from GW/SW-004 to South Africa close to dusk but not a single contact from the US. Which surprised me - allot.
No matter what any predictions say, they can never match actually getting on the air (ideally from a portable location).
Over the last 4 days on 10m SSB here from the home location (using a 40m wire loop - no 10m beam or anything), mid-afternoon I have been hearing stations (not SOTA activators) from, Belize, Brazil, India, South Africa, Canada, China and several US and Asiatic Russian stations. I haven’t heard any of the EU or UK SOTA activators who have been on 10m because of the long skip distance of (I estimate - and it’s a variable) 750-mile radius, creating an effective “black hole” for me.
“Normally” as we go into Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, HF conditions should improve ands the Lower bands (340, 80, 160m) become more difficult to work DX on, however at the top of a solar cycle as we seem to be now “all bets are off” - it can be amazingly good of depressingly bad (HF Blackout).
Bit of a low in solar activity for the last week or so, but a couple of bigger sunspots are coming into view
Had 10M Chasers from W, EA8, UR, SV, RO today (as well as a couple of UK ones) as well as a 57 to V31.
It is Ed… Just 1x SV and 1x N4 on 10m today (morning to midday). But 7N1FRE was a nice signal +/- QSB on 15m. 9281km/5766mi wth 10W to my oddball EFHW thing Short path is through the auroral oval.
Take come summer months south in southern way down here parts of UK one gets Scotland rather well in summer months on 20m and not so much in winter expect this year its a been a burst of them during winter months.
Would agree the solar cycle has waned off a bit of late and does effect lower powered stations will fair worse than those using beams and damn site more power also add in to equation also.
Thanks for all the comments jolly interesting stuff and yep, she’s a fickle mistress at times also. And some times produces the strangest of propagation that should not be happening. Still remember listening to Trans polar FM TXs from Gaum down in Europe many many moons ago on 11m as wel peeps working repeaters from UK hitting them in USA and working peeps on other side of repeaters in USA on FM is another bloody strange one.
Short path is through the auroral oval.