Topband: skew path

[John Kaufmann]

On Thu, 27 September 2001, Bill Tippett wrote:


>         I have never seen much correlation with geomagnetic disturbances
> on this path which makes me think it is not related to the normal skewing
> seen with a geomagnetic disturbance.  I recall XZ0A coming in consistently,
> day after day, with little apparent influence from the Kp index.  The 80M
> path is also amazingly consistent.  If you listen to K6UA and the dawn
> patrol on 75M, it is a rare day that they do NOT work someone on this path.
> 

>From my experience in New England, the 80 and 40 meter "skew" path openings around local sunrise do appear to be strongly correlated with the sunspot cycle.  I can't say much about 160 because there are just too few instances of it.  Around the peak of the cycle, the frequency of occurrence of these openings increases greatly compared to near the bottom of the cycle.  Last year, for example, I would estimate I worked 150 to 200 JA's on 80 meters, and the vast majority of these were on the southwest skew path (the rest were short path at sunrise and a few were via the southeast long path at sunset).  During low sunspot years, the 80 meter southwest skew path dries up to almost nothing and the JA/Asia openings are almost always short path.  40 meters shows the same type of behavior although not as pronounced as on 80.  To me it is so consistent that I have to believe that other people have noticed it, too.

73, John W1FV