".....the bands are broken, not your radio. It will be very seldom
that you hear anything much on 20 meters. And 40 meters is noisy right now."
How's that again? In the NA QSO party yesterday, both 15 and 20
meters were in fine fettle. On 15, I worked stations as far away as
the west coast. On 20 I worked Brazil and Russia. On a very quiet 40
meter band I worked Samoa. On 80, I worked N6ZZ in New Mexico.
Overall I had about 200 QSOs in 8 hours of operating. All this was
with 5 Watts and dipole antennas from Maine.
The bands are far from broken, and QRP is readily workable.
The only thing to be concerned about is when K>2 or A>10, working DX
on QRP can become frustrating.
Anyway, one does not need to wait for the flux to come up. There's
plenty of activity for QRPers right now.
73,
Steve
AA4AK
At 11:59 AM 8/6/2006, Karl Larsen wrote:
This morning the Flux was 70 and the K index was 0. This is
"Sunspot Minimum" readings of the sun. What does this mean to a QRP Operator?
Do not re-align your K2 receiver, or re-tune the transmitter for
another 0.1 Watt of output. Leave it alone because the bands are
broken, not your radio. It will be very seldom that you hear
anything much on 20 meters. And 40 meters is noisy right now.
In a couple of months we should see the K index get active (a
little) and the Flux will zoom up to 90. When that happens get on the air :-)
You can get the Flux and K index from listening to WWV. At 18
minutes after the hour a muffled voice gives you these current
numbers. WWV is on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. They run 25 KW so
you hear them even when conditions are poor!
In about 6 years QRP will be a lot of fun.
73 Karl K5DI
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