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no one talking??????????????
- Thread starter Randall barton
- Start date
Unless you have locals that like to talk to other locals then expect a dead band. The solar cycle is at a low point so DX is pretty slim right now but will pick up again in a couple years.
Locals only here. Luckily I just got a homebrew EFHW antenna 20' up on a tower made out of some conduit pipe touching the clouds at 37' or so at the tip and a simple weatherproofed DIY Fuchs 1:8 matcher for 11m base but it's bumming me out at the same time since all I am hearing is people within 5-10 miles on AM tops. Worse yet, I just got back into the hobby.
Barefoot I am lucky to get 5 miles out to mobiles (tested). Hoping to make contact with a few other people running bases around these parts to reach out 10-20 miles. Right now the trees are full so maybe later fall will help since I live in a tree infested area.
There is still activity here, plenty more than the amateur 2m/440 band, but it's all local now, no skip except in the rare moment. All line of sight.
19 is still active, morning it's all "pull in here driver" and the likes, lots of local construction using a channel or more above 40, locals are quite active on a few channels. My town population is around 11,000 so even for a small town there is someone keying up at least once a minute or more on 19, and occasionally other channels long convos will run.
Wondering when activity will pick back up?
I know we are talking a few years here, but there should be random conditions occasionally correct? If I recall early spring and early winter are good DX times even when the rest of the year is dead?
All I can say is this sucks, I feel for you OP. Really wanted to work DX and didn't pay attention to the solar cycle myself. Oh well. Hoping maybe some fluke happens and I can play around with skip soon.
Barefoot I am lucky to get 5 miles out to mobiles (tested). Hoping to make contact with a few other people running bases around these parts to reach out 10-20 miles. Right now the trees are full so maybe later fall will help since I live in a tree infested area.
There is still activity here, plenty more than the amateur 2m/440 band, but it's all local now, no skip except in the rare moment. All line of sight.
19 is still active, morning it's all "pull in here driver" and the likes, lots of local construction using a channel or more above 40, locals are quite active on a few channels. My town population is around 11,000 so even for a small town there is someone keying up at least once a minute or more on 19, and occasionally other channels long convos will run.
Wondering when activity will pick back up?
I know we are talking a few years here, but there should be random conditions occasionally correct? If I recall early spring and early winter are good DX times even when the rest of the year is dead?
All I can say is this sucks, I feel for you OP. Really wanted to work DX and didn't pay attention to the solar cycle myself. Oh well. Hoping maybe some fluke happens and I can play around with skip soon.
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Found this, may be interesting to OP and some others..
http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/spore.html
I'm still learning about how the sun does its thing to radio and other ionospheric stuff.
"E-layer skip occurs most often from 0900 to 1100 and 1900 and 2300 local time (not UTC!), although it can occur at any time of the day. It is most common between Mid-May and Mid-July, with a secondary season between Mid-December and January. So look for it on mornings, and evenings during Christmas break."
Looking forward to Christmas in more than one way!
http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/spore.html
I'm still learning about how the sun does its thing to radio and other ionospheric stuff.
"E-layer skip occurs most often from 0900 to 1100 and 1900 and 2300 local time (not UTC!), although it can occur at any time of the day. It is most common between Mid-May and Mid-July, with a secondary season between Mid-December and January. So look for it on mornings, and evenings during Christmas break."
Looking forward to Christmas in more than one way!
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BJ radionut
Supporting Member and 6m addict
We are currently over seven years into Cycle 24. The current predicted and observed size makes this the smallest sunspot cycle since Cycle 14, which had a maximum smoothed sunspot number V2.0 of 107.2 in February of 1906.
Statistically speaking, the current Cycle 24 is scheduled to draw to a close about 11 years after the previous sunspot minimum in January 2008, which means sometime in 2019. We entered the Cycle 24 sunspot minimum period in 2016 because in February and June, we already had two spot-free days. As the number of spot-free days continues to increase in 2017-2018, we will start seeing the new sunspots of Cycle 25 appear sometime in late-2019. Sunspot maximum is likely to occur in 2024, with most forecasts predicting about half as many sunspots as in Cycle 24.
So all this being predicted, the forecast is pretty dismal! I was really hoping for ONE more good cycle after I retire next year, not looking good!
So guess that is not going to happen, I'll be 74 at the peak of cycle 25...So better have some damn bad ass antennas up before then, cause it's going to SUK for a LONG time.
Best get some Earth Thumping 20 meter and 40 meter antennas rigged up because the bands above that (15/12/11/10/6 ) are going to be JUNK!
All the Best
Gary/W9FNB
BJ radionut
Supporting Member and 6m addict
I operate 75m almost everyday, and normally 75/40 meters get better as the cycle declines...BUT that is not happening!
They are declining also. Signal strength is down and the short path 100-500 miles in most cases has been dismal! Static levels have been horrendous, even last Winter!
We never got to quiet conditions on either 40 or 75 meters.
Maybe 4 or 5 days out of the last 2 months have been descent, with solid coast to coast openings. The short path North and South even a couple hours before Sunrise has been almost non-existent.
Not sure what's going down, but not liking it at all. Most of the guys I normally work everyday for 10-15 years have stopped getting on due to poor conditions.
Hope things turn around this Winter, already seeing op's selling out and finding other hobbies due to poor band conditions.
All the Best
Gary
There isn't any way to predict how strong or weak any coming solar cycle will be. If you look at the statistics for yourself, you will see that any four in a row are not the same. Shoots any predictions right out the window. You take what comes along and have at it.
BJ radionut
Supporting Member and 6m addict
In May 2009 the NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center's Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel predicted the cycle to peak at 90 sunspots in May 2013. In May 2012 NASA's expert David Hathaway predicted that current solar cycle would peak by the Spring of 2013 with about 60 sunspots.
Results:
In early 2013, after several months of calm, it was obvious that the active 2011 was not a prelude to a widely predicted late 2012-early 2013 peak in solar flares, sunspots and other activity. This unexpected stage prompted some scientists to propose a "double-peaked" solar maximum, which then occurred. The first peak reached 99 in 2011 and the second peak came in early 2014 at 101.
No Robb, I guess the experts don't know what they are talking about!
Looks to me like they were pretty much dead on!
But you know better than Science.
All the Best
Gary
Results:
In early 2013, after several months of calm, it was obvious that the active 2011 was not a prelude to a widely predicted late 2012-early 2013 peak in solar flares, sunspots and other activity. This unexpected stage prompted some scientists to propose a "double-peaked" solar maximum, which then occurred. The first peak reached 99 in 2011 and the second peak came in early 2014 at 101.
No Robb, I guess the experts don't know what they are talking about!
Looks to me like they were pretty much dead on!
But you know better than Science.
All the Best
Gary
I with Robb on this one. If you actually study it, there is one "expert" right, for every 50 wrong. Show me someone who is consistently correct and I will believe.
Here's a guy predicting another "Maunder Minimum".
Wiki that one, if you dare.
http://www.spaceweathernews.com
They're into some other "fringe science" stuff, and Ben, the guy who runs it, posts a daily spaceweather news video on YT.
Covers all the daily data from every solar and solar-wind satellite up there.
73
Wiki that one, if you dare.
http://www.spaceweathernews.com
They're into some other "fringe science" stuff, and Ben, the guy who runs it, posts a daily spaceweather news video on YT.
Covers all the daily data from every solar and solar-wind satellite up there.
73
This prediction is the reason I did a little digging on the subject. The data just isn't there, unless you reject pertinent data that doesn't match their conclusion. They had me going for a minute or a week.
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Solar Cycle 25 has already started. I am not smart enough to figure this out, but this guy appears to know what he is talking about;
"The first sunspot of solar cycle 25 has already been spotted (December 2016). Its high latitude (23°) and reverse polarity showed that it definitely belonged to the next sunspot cycle.
But don’t get too excited as sunspot cycles usually overlap, by up to four years. This again, might put the solar minimum into 2019/2020."
http://g0kya.blogspot.ca/2017/07/solar-and-hf-propagation-update.html
"The first sunspot of solar cycle 25 has already been spotted (December 2016). Its high latitude (23°) and reverse polarity showed that it definitely belonged to the next sunspot cycle.
But don’t get too excited as sunspot cycles usually overlap, by up to four years. This again, might put the solar minimum into 2019/2020."
http://g0kya.blogspot.ca/2017/07/solar-and-hf-propagation-update.html