Topband: Daylight QSO's during the SP

[VE3MGY]

Hello Topbanders

During the SP I made 50 QSO's during the middle of the day. Of these 30 were 
farther than 500 km, 5 were farther than 800 km and two were at 1152 km. 
Those last two sounded exactly like DX stations with deep QSB, just not as 
long between fades and peaks. Has anyone else experienced this? Working DX 
before sunset or after sunrise is well documented but 1100+ km seems like a 
long way in the middle of the day. I was under the impression that, like 
commericial AM stations, 160 was limited to ground wave propagation during 
most of the day.

What would be driving the propagation in the middle of the day?  The fact 
that we are at the absolute bottom of the sunspot cycle, and the dead of 
winter with the sun low on the horizion has  to be part of it. I wouldn't 
think my signal would be passing through the D layer so there would be a 
number of hops involved probably. Is this rare or common on 160?

HNY to all

73
Brian
VE3MGY