Only been licensed since 2016 but I have never seen it like this... 20m is nuts for me.

It was up and down today

Tell them I said hello.

I also started as a ham during the last solar minima. Wait a few more years when the sunspots come back. You are going to be amazed.

Yesterday, I was experimenting with FT8Call, and at the same time was discussing it on their Facebook group.
I was running 25 watts into a half wave dipole (on 20 meters); one end of the dipole was attached to my front porch railing and the other end of the dipole was in a tree at about 20 feet. So the antenna was sloping from about 20 feet to maybe 5 feet sloping towards the south.  I was being heard all over the US: California, Georgia (+0), and I was at +16db in Central PA. For all I know, I was being heard further than that but those stations just happened to be on the Facebook group and gave me a signal report.

One thing I have noticed when talking to some hams about the solar cycle: it seems a lot of people think that HF radio just goes away at solar minimums.  When the solar cycle is at it's minimum or near it's minimum, that doesn't mean that HF radio ceases to work. It only means that the maximum usable frequency is generally lower than it is during a sun spot peak. In other words, the higher bands arn't open as often as they are during a peak. Day in and day out you are going to be on 20 meters and lower most of the time.  BUT, this doesn't mean that you also won't get days where 17 and even 15 meters  open up. In fact, I have found during sunspot minimums that at least 17 meters is open for a period of time most days. In other words, they might not be open all day, but for a few hours; usually in the early afternoon, they open up for a couple hours.
In addition, on 6, 10, and even 12 meters, in the late spring and summer you very well might get very good sporatic E openings that last all day (unrelated to the solar cycle).  Where you are getting reflection off of ionized layers of the E layer of the atmosphere and not the F layer.

So, the point is that at or near a solar minimum, you can still have a lot of fun on ham radio and the band conditions just might surprise you. FWIW, at the last solar minimum I went from having almost no countries confirmed to DXCC. I had been a ham for years at that point, but never seriously chased DX or tried to get those contacts confirmed. I happened to become interested in getting DXCC during a solar minimum and had no trouble doing so. As is the case any time, when conditions arn't optimal, you need to use efficient modes and this will greatly increase your "range". This solar minimum is interesting because of FT8. I have tuned around a given band that I thought might be marginal and didn't hear a whole lot until I got to the FT8 calling frequency where I found lots of stations from all over the world. Again, this is a very efficient and robust mode that works well when SSB wouldn't.

Attached File


These are my contacts during Cycle 24. You can clearly see the peak years net more DX. Currently the only new DX I work comes from the occasional DXpedition. The closer I get to 300 countries the harder it gets to work anything new.

During the past 12 months almost all of my DX contacts have been by FT8. I really don't care for FT8 all that much, but that's where all the action is.