Blog Post

Sunday, July 3, 2016 - The bands have been silent for most of the afternoon.  I completed one brief QSO with K2G in Georgia (Thirteen Colonies Special Event), monitored some stations on 6M SSB and then things became eerily silent.

It seems I search the internet for clear and hopeful insight on HF band conditions. It's pointless, yet I'm curious to learn ... so I continue searching and reading.  Still, I yearn for the conditions from three years ago -- I was able to make QSO's from the back yard using a long wire and operating QRP.

Lately, I've enjoyed the real time data from K7RA.  He writes:

• There were eight days without sunspots
• Sunspots during Field Day Weekend - none
• Slight improvement is expected today

K7RA mentioned that conditions were good last weekend, during Field Day. Unfortunately, things were not very good when I was monitoring HF bands and the DX cluster. I hope things will improve, even just a little, in the coming weeks.

Here's the K7RA band stability data (as of the time of my writing):

Cook, P. P., III. (2016, June 24). LATEST K7RA HF Propagation Bulletin. Retrieved July 3, 2016, from http://www.bandconditions.com/NEWS.htm