Topband: predicting 160m propagation

[Carl K9LA]

Bud W2RU said:

>Clearly, Flux / A / K numbers alone are insufficient to explain the
>difference between yesterday and today.  What else should I be looking at?

There have been several attempts over the years to identify trends in solar and geomagnetic indices that predict propagation on 160m. I don't beleive any of them met with much success (as you also concluded).

What that says is there are other variables running around that we simply don't understand. First, I persoanlly believe the biggest hole in our knowledge is events in the lower atmosphere that couple up to the lower ionosphere. Second, I don't think we fully understand all that happens with elevated K indices.

Unfortunately, I don't think we'll figure this out in our lifetime.

So listen, listen, listen.

Carl K9LA