According to www.spaceweather.com: "Over the weekend, the sun set a Space Age record for spotlessness. So far in 2019, the sun has been without sunspots for more than 270 days, including the last 33 days in a row. Since the Space Age began, no other year has had this many blank suns." Sigh...
Nobody on the 10m contest this past weekend had to be told that! It was dismal. But yes, 160 is in nice shape.
Thanks for the info and the chart. From VT, I worked the 10 mtr contest and squeaked out 48 contacts ( 42 being CW- very weak) to the southern and Midwest US. Most contacts were on Saturday morning, then the band simply expired about 10:30 am eastern. Sunday afternoon came back with a few South American stations- wicked fast QSB- for only about 20 minutes! "Dismal" indeed. Bright side (pun intentional) is... if you had two QSOs you may have won your section!!!
ACTUALLY: It WAS real work, chisel and hammer for every contact. But even with my modest station and no vertical antenna this year I worked about 75 over the event, NA coast to coast, XE, VE, PY and LU. Maybe 8 phone. Yes, the here-and-gone propagation was tough but digging out difficult sigs is great practice for potential emergency operating conditions and mental selectivity. 73 CW
Seems like that would make it tough to get and hold newbies with horrible propagation. Even hard to stay interested unless you are an OT who gets on at night with long antennas that don't fit most yards. I am thinking that 2 meter repeaters are certainly not holding newby interest for an extended period.
People need to quit reading predictions,and just get on the radio, heck if ops are still making contacts at QRP levels 5 watts or less, what do we have to whine about?. This just gives everyone an opportunity to learn how to adjust out some noise and to recognize there is no substitute for a well tuned antenna, and by well tuned I do not mean using what every one refers to as a tuner.
Even in these bad conditions, I make QSOs around the globe. Not as often and not as easily, but it indeed does happen. Success during poor DX conditions will make us better operators when the conditions improve. Head down and a stiff upper lip, the cycle will come around in the future. It always does....
The digital modes...Not bad...I worked about 30 countries...last 24 hours..Yes, FT8...FT4 no QSO, but Olivia is Key board to key board at least one can chat...And JS8, (Is FT8 with key board to Key Board)..Next week CW..! I remember being bored, working DX on 10 Meters SSB...I had a 4 element Mono Bander, with 1500 watts, up at 55ft...That was nuts...Only to last about 2 or 3 years, and then 15 meters, 17 meters, and left with 20 meters...For us Hams that don't have much room, hard on 40, 80, and 160 meters, we are fortunate to have the digital modes! C U on the bands! NN2X, Tom
