You probably won't have to wait too long...a few week's back, sunspots from the NEW CYCLE 25 cycle were found: https://www.space.com/new-sunspot-solar-cycle-begins.html and the consensus is that solar MAX will happen in between 2023-2025. See, for example: https://www.spaceweatherlive.com/co...5-predictionsforecasts-by-1-the-panel-2-nasa/ Right now we are towards the end of the very bottom of poor HF conditions, and by the end of the year---perhaps going into late Spring 2021-- there will be a clear improvement in HF propagation: a transition from 'poor' to occasional 'fair', and much later on, 'good'. 'Excellent' will be rare-- so don't plan on 24 hour a day worldwide prop on 10m in 2024...and there will still be plenty of lousy HF prop days well into next year. But they will be less common . The attached graph is a --ROUGH-- rule of thumb of what to expect for the trend, and when, for cycle 25. Because predictions suggest a similar PEAK value of cycle 25 to cycle 24, I superposed cycle 24 as a very approximate prediction for cycle 25. The black demarcation is Jan 2021. For newbies---by the end of the Fall, we should see SOME better chances for easy DX paths at HF, and lower sky noise. Your patience will be rewarded! 73 Chip W1YW
Dream on Dream Big.... We are actually in a Marauder Minimum and therefore we should be pulling up and see gradual Dx around the Year 2090 73 de KG4BFR
Betecha a cookie DX will be better by this time next year;-) A big... M and M crammed, mouth watering cookie...
I may take that bet. Please send 2 dozen of the above cookies for samples. I cant bet unless I know what the cookies taste like.
To answer the question posed by Chip; YES. I've been avidly following Tamitha Skov's frequent solar reports and I am also encouraged by what she's been observing in recent months. My gut feeling is that 25 will be better than what has been forecast so far. Since I know it will still be a good while before we can work a lot of dx fairly often I am renewing my satellite as well as my 6 meters setup to keep me busy chasing grids in the meantime. Also repairing and modifying one HF antenna for the CQ WW next month (contests are always good for getting a feel for conditions on all the major bands, too). I don't feel the need to make any bets on the outcome of Cycle 25, though, as I just came across a local source for really scrumptious cookies yesterday (bakery at our H.E.B. grocery store makes them). "SENSATIONAL BELGIAN WALNUT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE EACH $1.98" is what the label reads and a whole one is almost big enough for a meal unto itself.* As I've said before, everything is big here in Texas. I would post a picture but I ate the cookie yesterday and need to get more... Thanks again for the encouraging yet realistic prediction/summation of Cycle 25, too. 73, Jeff (*K3LI: Probably no H.E.B.s in the DFW area, but if you ever come to South Texas you will find one in almost every town. )
I believe that it is highly optimistic to believe the next cycle will be as energetic as this last one. Surely there will be fair days and dx will be certainly be worked on several bands....that was done recently with the SFI below 70 on cw and digimodes but low power, marginal antennas and ssb may be another story completely.
As I wrote on my QRZ page, little did I know when I got my first Novice ticket in 1958, that those were the best propagation conditions that I'd experience in my lifetime!
Let's hope we should live so long. Looking in the back of QST in recent times, more and more seem to have run out of luck, hoping for propagation.
"Est anno MMXVIII et, hodie quoque annuntian: Quia sol est austero duo annis magis, Quinquennium ab hodie, sol et apicum. Ego praedicate nuntius anno duo milia viginti tres!" -The High Frequency Oracle Prognostication of 2018 for Solar Cycle 25
