Friends in Radio Land,
The questions about 160 meter propagation into the Caribbean are
interesting as I think they will be found to deal more with noise
than the physics of the ionosphere. I say that as Steve, VK6VZ,
and Greg, ZS5K, are in the opposite hemispheres from the VP5, 6Y5,
etc that were mentioned.
Looking at my global maps of thunderstorm activity, the two
hemispheres are out of phase - there is low thunderstorm activity
in the winter of Africa and Australia while high thunderstorm
activity in summer in the Caribbean. All of this brings me back
to the idea of individual and joint probabilities.
Thus, we might focus on some planned DXpedition to the Caribbean,
work out the number of thunderstorm days per month from the global
data base, do the same for locations in the opposite hemisphere
and then make a product of the two, pair by pair. On the average,
the best chance for making a DX contact would be at the time when
the product is the smallest, the worst chance when it is the greatest.
This is like Bill Tippett's idea of common darkness and the DX
Feasibility that K9LA and I use in connection with the product of
the path availability (MUF) and reliability (S/N) on HF. It might
be fun to work out for a future effort but we need something of a
specific plan. Any takers?
73,
Bob, NM7M
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