Topband: Better low band conditions?

[Tom Rauch]

> Now, with better antennas and several more years
experience, I didn't
> do as well working east coast stations or Caribbean DX
this winter
> as I did in several of the previous winters.  So I'm still
wondering.

Going by my daily skeds with VK3ZL there hasn't been a
period anywhere near as long as recently with so many days
of weak signals. Same for the number of JA's I hear on a
regular basis. I haven't been active much in evenings.

This should not be construed as saying there haven't been
some really great days where propagation extended to the NE,
but my impression is this has been a VERY disturbed decline
with many days of high solar levels. So high they even
affect conditions over low latitude paths like from the SE
USA to VK.

During the solar maximum there was only a few days out of a
year when we didn't have good signals sometime between SS in
VK and SR here, but on this decline it has actually gotten
steadily worse. There now are as many days in a month when
signals are poor as there was in a year. On those days the
entire thing is shut down, from the north down to here.

Personally I think 160 is much more a function of
geomagnetic disturbances than sunspot numbers. I've worked
very long distances on days six meters was open and sunspots
were through the roof.

73 Tom