I recently took a look at Tom W8JI's 160m log for the period September
1999 through July 2002 - when the smoothed sunspot number for Cycle 23
was above 100. After deleting Tom's W/VE QSOs, I saw that he made over
5000 DX QSOs during that period around solar maximum. There were about
1450 QSOs over low latitude paths (VK, North America, South America,
Africa, Oceania), about 2700 QSOs over mid latitude paths (about 2350 of
those were to southern and central EU), and about 975 QSOs over high
latitude paths (JA and northern EU). This included all 40 CQ zones, too.
Certainly Tom has an exceptional station, but I'll venture to say that
there's lots of DX to be worked throughout an entire solar cycle - you
just have to be there. I'm also sure it helps that his paths to many of
the major ham population areas (southern and central EU, for example)
don't get too close to the northern auroral oval. Without this influence
from the high latitude ionosphere (unlike those of us poor souls farther
north), his log data tends to confirm that the quiet (undisturbed)
nighttime ionosphere in terms of absorption isn't all that different
between solar max and solar min.
Carl K9LA
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