at least the far east has been coming in on 40,30 and 20 meters in the mornings here in Vermont. That hasn't happened in a couple of years. There seems to be a little more dx on on those bands lately than there was in the past couple years. Maybe this is an indication of the next cycle? Worked my first JAPAN contact in 3 years last Saturday 5/16/20.
Maybe E-skip is right! The Magic Band of 50 MHz has been hoppin' quite well lately. Late this afternoon from west central Gulf coast FL a QSO was made with JA (7297.3 mi) on FT8 running 80w (IC-7300) to a sloping thin dipole wire, high end at 30ft, fed with 150ft of lossy old badly spliced RG-8X. I hate to think what the EIRP was ... Dr. Skov WX6SWW ought to put some effort into understanding, explaining and even prediciting Sporadic E layer propagation. Never heard her even mention it.
