Topband: 2012/13 season opening up?

[Tom W8JI]

Don't take this the wrong way, but 160 meters is open all summer and all 
winter long ***if*** people take time to operate. This is especially true in 
the southern USA with our shorter summer daylight period.

It isn't unusual to work northern Europe or Japan even in mid-summer. There 
really is just a period of about a month or so when JA openings are rare, 
and JA3KZR is in my log every single month of the year. It wasn't unusual to 
work LA3XI with 579 signals both ways, even in July, let alone more southern 
Europeans.

My observation over the years has been the biggest reason the band closes 
down is no one is active, probably because noise is high and it scares us 
away. :-) Propagation is often there during any season, and it can be quite 
good propagation, as long as the path is dark or near dark.

I feel a bit sorry for people in the southern hemisphere, because we all 
abandon the band until our seasonal alarm clocks ring in the late summer or 
early fall. 160 is open all year, if we look on quiet days.

When no one tries, the band is closed.

73 Tom