At 09:41 AM 3/27/98 -0600, T A RUSSELL wrote:
>
>On 80 and 40 meters, signals ALWAYS peak AFTER SUNRISE to the west
>and BEFORE SUNSET to the EAST. On 160M, signals can peak at sunrise
>and sunset and can also peak during darkness. 160M is the LEAST
>predictable
>band in the amateur spectrum.
On 160 most of the long haul morning openings that I have experienced here in
New England peak at sunrise +/- 10 minutes. When I worked YB0ARA/9 in
February, his signal came out the noise for about 5 minutes and I got him
at exactly my sunrise (to the minute). Most of the JA's worked here have
been
in a 10-15 minute window centered on sunrise. In the afternoons, most of the
peaks for long haul don't occur until AFTER sunset (unless the other end
of the path goes through sunrise earlier). Similar trends hold here on 80
and
40, too, although the peaks last longer.
>
>To my mind, most computer propagation programs are USELESS for predicting
>optimum times for LOW BAND propagation, especially the Sunrise and
>Sunset
>enhancements.
>The BEST tools for the serious LOW BAND DXer include a good mapping
>program (The DX EDGE, GEOCLOCK, MiniProp by W6EL, etc.) and/or
>accurate tables indicating SUNRISE and SUNSET.
Agreed on both counts!! I run GeoClock all the time in the shack.
73, John W1FV
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