The past few nights on the bands have been disappointing to say the least. There have been very few signals; and all of them have been faint. I understand that from Friday through Sunday we were under the influence of disturbed geomagnetic conditions; but today things have returned to "normal".
However, the bands have still seemed anything but normal. Calling CQ on 80 and 40 yielded zip. Dialing through the bands yielded zip also. But yet, what will be amazing is what the bands will be like over Thanksgiving weekend, during the CQWW DX contest, a scant week and a half away. You will be able to knock me over with a feather if the bands aren't wall to wall signals that weekend, with RF flying everywhere!
Which begs the question .... do the major contests, with the abundance of RF flowing through the aether, cause their own propagation? It seems a silly thing to think; but the flood of signals that will be on the air all weekend will suddenly vanish when the contest ends. It's almost as if someone will have flicked a switch. Then we will go back to these weeknights, where if it were possible, you could hear someone drop a pin on the bands.
If the lack of activity on the bands these nights is any evidence that we are approaching the sunspot minimum, you will get no arguements from me. I can't wait until things get better. I miss my CW ragchews!
73 de Larry W2LJ
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