[CQ-Contest] need thoughts on how to cope with era of no sunspots

[Charles Harpole]

W5VX, Heck old chum, I remember in oh three (that is 1903) when Edison was
selling those new fangled picture show machines, they came to my spark
shack to film.....

 W5VX, why nay-say something that is lately claimed scientifically
possible, a Maunder Minimum again?

I got my Novice in 1957 in the last spectacular solar maximum and lived
thru what I hope will be similar ups and downs.  HOWEVER, it is possible
that this time, things will be genuine downs.  I suggest we talk about what
to do IF.

73, Charly

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Bill Parry <bparry at rgv.rr.com> wrote:

> How old are you Charlie? I have been through several sunspot cycles since
> the late 50s and this is nothing new.  If you have been around for a while
> this is same old...same old. What discussion? Besides the bands are not
> dead. I hear your part of the world on 20 M in the morning fairly often.
> Worked XV9NPS and he had a good signal. In the late evenings EU and the
> deep
> Russians are common almost every night.  40 is not great in the evening
> because of the QRN here in Texas but I work EU almost every night and the
> mornings into JA the path is great. We have basically lost 10 except to SA
> and 15 is puny but this ALWAYS happens as the sunspots go away. But...they
> will be back.
>
> Be calm.  The sunspots will be back. I was just thinking the other night
> when I was working a UA in zone 18 on 20 that the conditions are pretty
> darn
> good for there to be no sunspots. I have been trying to concentrate on
> getting my DXCC totals on 17 and 30 to a more respectful level.
>
> I am thinking about doing a single band 15 for the IARU this weekend. I bet
> we can work a bunch of countries.
>
> Bill W5VX
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> Charles Harpole
> Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2016 8:35 PM
> To: CQ-Contest Reflector
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] need thoughts on how to cope with era of no sunspots
>
> The current sign of stretches of no sunspots are a significant challenge to
> ham radio and to multi-band contesting particularly.  Maybe we hams will
> have to just put up with the prospect of absent propagation on 20m and up,
> but it is said possible that the 'good old days' of great propagation are
> over for most current hams' lifetimes.
>
> It seems time to formulate real plans for possible bad condx.  Personally,
> I
> do not know how to cope, but believe we need a hobby-wide discussion about
> what to do.  Maybe there is some technology to help or very wide spread use
> of remote stations (even crediting contest credit for contacts
> originating from several, wide-spread operating locations?).   Receiving
> 'below the noise' may be a solution?  HAARP to heat up 10m?   Semaphore?
>
> Lets get real and have a planned discussion with concrete "thoughts out of
> the box" to face really bad times !
> 73
> Charly, HS0ZCW
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>


-- 
Charly, HS0ZCW