Topband: 160m at solar max

[Carl]

  I recently took a look at Tom W8JI's 160m log for the period September 
1999 through July 2002 - when the smoothed sunspot number for Cycle 23 
was above 100. After deleting Tom's W/VE QSOs, I saw that he made over 
5000 DX QSOs during that period around solar maximum. There were about 
1450 QSOs over low latitude paths (VK, North America, South America, 
Africa, Oceania), about 2700 QSOs over mid latitude paths (about 2350 of 
those were to southern and central EU), and about 975 QSOs over high 
latitude paths (JA and northern EU). This included all 40 CQ zones, too.

Certainly Tom has an exceptional station, but I'll venture to say that 
there's lots of DX to be worked throughout an entire solar cycle - you 
just have to be there. I'm also sure it helps that his paths to many of 
the major ham population areas (southern and central EU, for example) 
don't get too close to the northern auroral oval. Without this influence 
from the high latitude ionosphere (unlike those of us poor souls farther 
north), his log data tends to confirm that the quiet (undisturbed) 
nighttime ionosphere in terms of absorption isn't all that different 
between solar max and solar min.

Carl K9LA