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| 20m at 19:10 during the CWops 1 hour contest |
With the increase in sunspots and rising flux comes some solar flares and the Kp-index will have it's ups and downs. This afternoon the Kp index up was up to 5 and 6 and that does not my Mike the ham a happy person. Now having said that right in the middle of the high Kp index the bands at 19:00 UTC came alive! It was the weekly running of the CWops test, a one hour contest. Before the contest 20m was dead and at 1900 UTC life was brought to the band. Stations from Canada, U.S and Europe warmed up 20 meters to a nice glow. It's great mini contests like these happen as it shows some action on the bands.
Another great CW contest is the K1USN SST CW contest this contest happens on Fridays at 20:00-21:00 UTC and Monday 00:00-01:00 ( which for most of us is still Sunday evening) This contest is not one of speed but slower. You will find operators sending from 10 wpm to 20 wpm and if you are not sending at 10 wpm then speed is slowed to match your speed. These are nice contests that only asks for 1 hour a week and it can get your feet wet with contesting.
4 comments:
Hi Mike, it's nice to see the bands come alive on certain events. A high SFI does not always mean that the propagations are good. Yesterday with a SFI of 130 there was little activity. Especially with QRP there is not much to hear. 73 Paul
As a newbie, I always wonder how much of this "good propagation" is actually down to operators getting off their couches and sitting at the radio? Of course, organised competitions promote this.
73, Tom, M7MCQ
Good morning Paul, yes when good SFI is combined with a high Kp index I find that you may get some DX stations but the fading is crazy. I have seen strong signal from just down in the U.S and is a few seconds they are gone. Very deep QSB is something I find often when the flux numbers are good but the Kp index is high.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Good morning Tom, yes it's very true and I have found myself in the past doing just that. I would check the propagation numbers and if they were not looking good the radio would not even get turned on. Now I look at the numbers and give things a go anyway and I just look at it as the magic of radio.
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