Cycled Out?

Well I don't know about you but here in Bradford the band conditions on an evening have been absolutely terrible with high QRN levels and little activity. 

 

I have made the odd DX contact on 40m but overall the shack has had a lot of noisy AF and very little RF generated  I'm looking forward to getting on during the daytime over the weekend, so let's hope that the solar cycle starts peddling again and gets a bit of speed up offering some decent band conditions.

My Ameritron amplifier with its GI7BT valves has helped me have some fun thankfully. The current band conditions certainly favour QRO operation but even with 400w it's been quite tough to fill my log the way I like to  Not to worry I am sure it will not be long before I am back up on 20m Late night DXing. In the meantime I'm battling it out QRV on 80m and 40m with a terrible high noise level. Boo 👎 

Catch you again soon. Keep a watch for Aurora and vhf band openings as this week's forecast looks interesting. The information is supplied from William Hepburn's DX Info centre.

Tropospheric Ducting Forecast

Best 73. 

Ham Radio In 2022

Greetings to one and all! I hope you had a good Christmas and you are having a great new year so far.

We are enjoying one or two decent DX openings when they occur but overall the bands have been average to poor at my end. 

However I have had a few good DX contacts on HF and worked down on the lower end of HF operating on the 40m and 80m bands. 

My mobile activity has been slightly better than from the shack, mainly due to the time I get on air at home. When mobile I'm hitting the long path DX to VK and ZL on my morning work run. The other day New Zealand was booming into the van as I pulled up into the college car park. Today I worked into Brazil, Iceland and Italy using 80- 100w from the FT-857 and Maldol HFC 20m antenna. As you already know that combo has been an excellent mobile station for me and is still effective 18 years later. Lol,  the durability and robust build of both antenna and transceiver has definitely been outstanding. I have made thousands of DX /M using the same setup in many vehicles and still hammering it out in 2022. Happy DX folks let's hope this latest solar cycle starts to play nice and provides a bit more propagation real soon.