GW4VXE's Station Diary

Solar flux at 98! That feels like it's the first time it's been under 100 in a long while. Maybe I'm wrong as until recently, I hadn't noted it each day - but it hasn't happened often.

Perhaps that will augur well for the Sporadic E season this year. Last year, in Practical Wireless, I explored the 'Old Wives' Tale' as Dave G4ASR called it, that high sunspot years were poor for Es. Yet, it felt to me that it was so. I thought back to, I think 1989, when we went to Porto Santo for 50MHz and 144MHz and operated as G4VXE/CT3 and it was a really tough Es year and it was around the peak of cycle 22. Since then, I've gently noticed a correlation. Last year, I asked Jim G3YLA about it and he felt that there was perhaps a 'loose correlation' on the basis that if there is a lot of solar disturbance, then Es struggles to form. Jim suggested that any day when the K was over 3 then the Es would struggle to form.

HF conditions certainly lived up to the numbers. It seemed to get better in the evening though (Summer conditions?). Worked a few in the Slow Speed Contest on 20m around 2030. N2GG in New Mexico was the best DX. Heard a trace from Steve WG0AT who was out SOTAing, but too weak to do anything with this evening. Hopefully another time. I always remember Steve very fondly from his Peanut and Rooster videos.