Topband: Where is everyone?

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

On six meters  here at FK77 it was hot to SA with over 200 PY, LU, CX, 
ZP, and CE contacts a few days ago.  Many stations were well over S-9


On 10/22/2016 9:21 AM, Art Snapper wrote:
> Conditions here in Michigan on 80/160 were poor last night. The signals
> were weak and band noise was high. I managed to work Mali on 40, and
> Hungary on 80, but it was a battle. South America was extremely poor on 80
> for some reason.
> Art NK8X
> On Oct 22, 2016 2:03 AM, "Donald Chester" <k4kyv at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Here it is Friday  night, with relatively little QRN, but only a couple of
>> signals are audible across the entire 160m band.  80/75m has a few more
>> signals than that, but it's sparsely occupied as well.  Usually by this
>> late in the season one will hear plenty of activity in the evening,
>> especially on weekends.  I have noticed this dearth of activity for several
>> weeks now; it's as if this year's radio season hasn't got off the ground
>> yet, despite the fact that we are almost midway through autumn and the
>> summer QRN has substantially subsided.
>>
>> Is this a trend, and is this becoming the new normal?  They keep telling
>> us we now have a record number of hams in the FCC data base, over 700,000.
>> Those hams certainly aren't on the air, at least not on 160, 80 or 40m.  I
>> can  remember not that many years ago when at this stage in the season on a
>> quiet weekend night one had to scout around to find a clear spot to call
>> CQ.  So far this year, the bands have all had vast swathes of unused
>> frequencies, but the signals that are heard appear to be at normal
>> strength, so the  bands apparently aren't dead.
>>
>> Don k4kyv
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