Roger,
Quote "I've never felt that the Sunspot Cycle has much affect on Topband”
From my location in VE6, at 51 deg. north (similar to yours Roger), there is a
VERY strong correlation with DX conditions and the lower solar cycle.
I have been a very active 160m DXer for over 25 years. I am QRV virtually
every single night on 160m. I run 3 RBN skimmers and monitor DX activity all
the time.
As far as trans-polar DX, which means ANY Europe from here, the propagation
crashes quickly when the sunspots rise and the Ap numbers increase with more
geo-mag activity.
Perhaps when you say “DX” from the UK, to the extent that is East coast NA,
then that path is likely less effected. Same with our propagation to VK-ZL.
Even during the higher sunspot years, Oceania remains relatively viable since
that path avoids the AU Oval.
However, “global DX” becomes strongly muted as the sun becomes active.
This season from August to Oct 23 I have worked 46 EU. That’s actually better
than last year with only 3 (three!) EU logged by this time in 2022.
Anyone interested, here is a list of the EU I have worked this season:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e53JejNz7lVHKdXj3tLHYWLVSdLDkwuw/view?usp=sharing
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e53JejNz7lVHKdXj3tLHYWLVSdLDkwuw/view?usp=sharing>
However, during the past solar MINIMUM years it is quite striking.
For the 5 month period August to January here is the EU QSO count from VE6:
2021- 484 EU QOqs by January
2020- 1,184 EU QSOs by January
2019- 1,445 EU QSOs by January
Somehow, I don’t think I will ever see that many EU QSOs this year in the next
2 months!!
Here is a plot I made back in 2021 showing the very strong correlation between
EU QSOs and the Ap index from 2018-2021.
I plotted my nightly EU QSO count on an EXCEL chart vs the Ap index.
For the Europe trans-polar path, there is a good correlation with lower
geo-mag activity and increased QSO count.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ddh830UKbvgSwekJHjYfquo_WrfNs3g2/view?usp=sharing
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ddh830UKbvgSwekJHjYfquo_WrfNs3g2/view?usp=sharing>
73, de steve ve6wz
Sundre, AB
> On Oct 23, 2023, at 3:47 PM, Roger Kennedy <roger@wessexproductions.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
> Quote: "We are approaching a solar maxima. Conditions on Topband peaked at
> the solar minima several years ago."
>
> I've never felt that the Sunspot Cycle has much affect on Topband.
>
> And apart from the poor conditions for the last couple of weeks, as I've
> said before, 160m DX propagation very rarely seems to be as good as it was
> 20+ years ago. (and I'm talking about the 30 years prior to that)
>
> Roger G3YRO
>
>
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