Solar Cycle 25 has started

[N1LAF]

This is the 3rd consecutive month that Solar Cycle 25 sunspots have appeared: Nov. 2019, Dec. 2019, and now Jan. 2020. The quickening pace of new cycle sunspots does not mean that Solar Minimum is finished. On the contrary, low sunspot counts will likely continue for many months and maybe even years. However, it is a clear sign that Solar Cycle 25 is coming to life.

https://www.spaceweather.com/

[PA5COR]

There's always 160 meter where i'm active most of the time, groundwave reached 100 miles.

[kb2vxa]

Ah but you're right, cycle 25 has begun, but one blackhead on the face of the sun is not a portent if the last two slow start cycles are anything to go by. Meanwhile 160 and 80M are good for rag chewing and with the right antenna DX can be amazing. That antenna I keep advertising is the grounded vertical folded unipole that gives the needed low vertical takeoff angle impossible with any other that come to mind.

On edit, on the Space Weather page the first thing that grabs attention is the day late announcement of the meteor shower last night worth staying up for. It brought to mind the fun I had on 6M with the Leonid shower a few years ago. They're workable on 2 with high speed data bursts, but on 6 they're long enough for a two way SSB exchange, and long ones good for two and sometimes three contacts. So, did anybody work meteor trails?

The left moved to the center, the right moved into a mental institution, and in 2016... I'll let The Specials finish this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf9vz85808c

[N8YX]

Move to the upper HF portion of the spectrum and play with Es if the spots let you down. It would be nice, though, to get some F-layer skip on those bands.

[kb2vxa]

That's why I always had a rig tuned to the 6M SSB calling frequency, that's where openings usually start. Please pardon my bragging rights being I'm a DX magnet and have worked every propagation mode on 6, no lie. Here's my best DX on the magic band, if I hazard a guess it was rare F2 entirely possible at the peak of The Millennium Cycle. Go for it guys, since E is caused by UV independent of sunspot activity it can happen any day, but best in summer so watch the UV index in WX reports.

16777

[koØm]

This is the 3rd consecutive month that Solar Cycle 25 sunspots have appeared: Nov. 2019, Dec. 2019, and now Jan. 2020. The quickening pace of new cycle sunspots does not mean that Solar Minimum is finished. On the contrary, low sunspot counts will likely continue for many months and maybe even years. However, it is a clear sign that Solar Cycle 25 is coming to life.

https://www.spaceweather.com/

Actually, you might be a little late (better than never) to the show.

16792


https://forums.hamisland.net/showthread.php/31124-As-of-12-21-2018?p=667318#post667318

[K0RGR]

The latest semi-scientific wild guess is that this cycle will actually be a little higher than the last one. Hurray if true! Last cycle, 10 meters wasn't great most of the time. 12 meters was more like 10 ought to be. Maybe 10 will return to it's daily DX glory again. We can only hope! There will probably be a few instances of 6 meter F skip, too, as there were in the most recent depressed cycle.

I hope people play with 15 and 12 while they're waiting for 10 to light up. 15 has become a very underused band, and it's a shame. Propagation is almost as good as 10 for DX, and usually opens up at least a year before 10. Last cycle, on many days, about all I heard was DX on 12.

[PA5COR]

Wasn't too bad on 10, worked all continents on 10 last time, Japan, etc all included with 100 watts into a old Imax 2000 vertical.
Same antenna was used on 12 and 15, did quite nice there as well.

[kb2vxa]

"15 has become a very underused band, and it's a shame."
Most of the time I'd agree, but my experience with it under an Amateur Extra license says at the peak of a cycle it opens at sunrise and closes around 2am.
"Propagation is almost as good as 10 for DX"
That's where I disagree, it may be a bit less crowded but the target areas remain the same. I don't know about 12m, back at West Creek the 160m sloping open delta was deaf below 20m and tuning on the grounded vertical folded unipole became too narrow and tricky below 40m to be usable. Otherwise a 20-15-10m beam up 60ft did the work.

COR, you must be the master of understatement. 15 and 10 get so crowded with JAs it's hard to find rare DX that's sandwiched in. There are more hams per square kilometre in Japan than any other country in the world, they take over. I don't consider them as DX and went shooting for Korea, China, and Southeast Asia. Then I played a little mind game with them, when they asked "What are your working conditions?" I replied "Not good, I'll register a complaint with the union.". That left a long pause as they pondered and were too proud to ask "QLF?". What happened to "What equipment are you using?"

100W is quite enough for all around working, it shines with DX and that's all most of the world uses. The big guns don't do any better except in contesting, I don't consider working with 1500W PEP output Amateur Radio, it's more like professional broadcasting. It's wasted energy and making the electric company happy. With a Drake TR-4 and 3el tri-band beam at 60ft I worked the world. One time and one time only I fired up the Collins station with a 30S1 kilowatt kicker in a futile effort to break the 20M Kalifornia Kilowatt Kurtain. (Gee, another KKK! hi) Going back a few decades, I did a very simple mod to a Hallicrafters CB3A and worked QRP with Georgia CCCP with a bootleg callsign. <blush> It goes to show how one can work DX on 10 with 4W AM into a non-resonant vertical, or to use a couple of old expressions, using a wet noodle or loading up the bed springs.

Completely aside, has anyone noticed that Robby the robot has a built in direction finder?

16801

[PA5COR]

Working JA's from Europe or the USA has a difference.
If Conditions over the Northpole are open, easy, if not more difficult.
I ran the Yaesu FT 847 then with Collins filters, 100watt then my Heathkit SB 1000 was then in full repair mode, total overhaul.
Now using the FT 2000 D 200 watts, and if need be Heathkit SB-1000 that has been stuck on 160.
It will work on 10 though, but i noticed i never needed more as 200 watts on 80 - 10 to make reliable chats.
Mostly there i use the "improved" FD-4 with coil and extension wire for 160, or the 160 vertical tuned by the auto tuner.
Living on the edge of the town, noise is low S3 on 80 and S0 on higher bands.

Foreigners that don't have English as first language, give them some slack :mrgreen:
My English is as German passable, Frisian and Dutch quite good as first languages, french so so...:squint:

[kb2vxa]

Of course I understand that while propagation characteristics remain the same worldwide, the target areas vary with location. It's like the disclaimer in car commercials, "Your actual mileage may vary." Certainly, only over windless, flat terrain will it be comparable to what they got with a dynamometer and only the engine. So what do your commercials say, kilometreage? (;->)

Back in West Creek the noise floor was zero between the coastal salt marsh and the Pine Barrens so called because they're barren for farming except for berries. That's why RCA chose the location for WSC, their coastal CW station. It had a 300ft (91M) base loaded mast for LF and a bunch of HF wire antennas out in the salt marsh fed by outdoor tuners near the building and open wire ladder line feeders. After the site was decommissioned it sat unused for years until the Tuckerton Wireless Amateur Radio Club leased it and grounded the mast using it for antenna mounts. If you hear W2WSC it's them. They must have fun battling the New Jersey state bird, giant mosquitoes that make the marsh their home. They're so large they carry victims to their nests to feed their young.

16803

I have known many of the AM Gangstas that visit AM Fone http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php for years and have experienced their troubles. For some odd reason I've not heard AM below 40M although it may be used anywhere. On average the noise floor on 40 is low until the Area 1 broadcasters start rolling in, but on 75 and 160 it's a different story. Living in a rural area like West Creek is a ham's dream QTH where the noise floor depends solely on the ham in question, but in a suburb it's bad, and in a city it's brutal. There you have a double whammy, S9 noise AND no room for a decent antenna system. Under the average conditions, if you don't have a "strapping" signal you won't be heard. John N8YX says "Everyone wants to be an AM Gangsta until it's time to start doing AM Gangsta shit." that means Gangsta shit is a transmitter with 200W output or better, ideally 600-1500W, your 100W rice burner is one of those "piss weakers" down in the mud. Gone are the days when my Gangstaized Johnson Ranger feeding a 1/2 wave inverted L was heard all over the Northeast on 3885. While West Creek is Hog Heaven for AM Gangstas, when I set up shack in Point Pleasant Beach I was shocked by RFI blanketing the spectrum. While dismayed I wasn't surprised living where I could reach out my window and shake hands with the guy next door reaching out HIS window. That is a fire hazard I wasn't happy with either. When surrounded by RFI generators you're limited to bands above 30MHz, but if you're served by a leaky cable TV system you're totally screwed...........