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[KD0VE]

Ham for 6 years and really enjoying the recent dramatic improvement on 15M.  Good prop is a new experience.

Wondering why the QRZ prop chart shows 15M as "fair" at best when it is so good.  I am making 15M QSO's with Europe barefoot which seems a lot better than "fair".

thx for anyone taking the time to offer insight to a relative rookie.

[K1VSK]

When you can make those same qsos with 1 watt and receive S9+ signal report, that will be “good”.

[K6AER]

A lot of the path conditions comes down to specific installations. The other ham might live in the country with a low noise floor. Have a 5 element beam up high (70 feet) and be running an amplifier. They are doing the hard work. On the other hand if you are using an end fed wire in the city (high noise floor) and the other ham is also, you will think the bands are dead.

City noise floor can be quite high. I live in the rural New Mexico desert and my noise floor is about S1 on a typical day. I hear a lot of stations who have a hard time hearing me unless I run 1500 watts. Even then they sometimes have a hard time. I have talked with stations that have a S9+20 noise level. As soon as the path is less than optimal they lose me.

Contacts over water are easier then land. Early morning, before lightning activity, the background noise level is less a factor. On the lower frequencies (160-40 meters) the noise level is less in the morning but path propagation is better at night before the gray line moves west. Very early morning (dark) is very good for the low band DX before the sun comes up.

New hams can't wait for the sunspot conditions to improve but 24 hour band openings may not be  the holy grail of DX. When the sunspot is reaching it peak you will have a new problem...DX QRM. You will hear several station on the same frequency. Now you need a beam and an amplifier to work DX consistently and not be lost in the QRM.

I've had my license 62 years and I have seen this conundrum over and over with each cycle.

Patience is the best virtue when working DX. I see on QRZ you have a good station so you will be able to make more DX contacts than most.

Good Luck and 73, Mike

[N2TO]

Congrats on making your contacts! My favorite band is 15 Meters. Years ago I made a 40 Meter dipole shaped like a Z, 44' across with two 11' legs coming down to the roof off 10' Radio Shack masts. Choke at the feed point. It tuned coincidentally REALLY well on 15M CW portion of the band, so had lots of QSOs on 40 and 15M. On 15M I used my tuner up the band. I find 15M the most enjoyable band to operate and there's more elbow room, too.

A bonus is the footprint for a dipole or better antenna is very manageable size-wise. I have worked a lot of portable QRP on 15M.

On my old IC-728 there was a pot on the board that enabled me to lower the minimum power from the front panel of the rig below 10 watts. Also worked lower output on my TS-520SE where I could. Lots of DX CW QSOs on the bottom of the band at 1 watt out, and even less.

Keep filling your log and enjoy working 15M!

73 Kevin N2TO

[K6SDW]

KE0OG, the new technical columnist for QST magazine, has a great video out on propagation you might find interesting...

GL/73

[N8NK]

Working Southern Argentina using 2.5 milliwatts on 15m with a low chimney mount homebrew groundplane, 4 radials laying on the shingles:
'A QRP Story':  https://youtu.be/ja6e_uISvZ8
Chuck, N8NK

[WB8VLC]

My consideration for great Propagation is when I can make 29.6MHz  FM QSO's to South America, Europe, New Zealand, Japan and Taiwan with my 5 watt Motorola P200 Handheld and its stock 11 1/2 inch rubber duck.

Back between 2012 and 2015 I made at least 15 of these type of QSO's and I'm just waiting for this cycle to produce similar contacts.

[KC6RWI]

I hope I get to talk 29.6 fm on my 7300, I don't have a handheld to do it, but that kind of stuff is interesting,
also the QRP story, that stuff is fascinating,
I've experienced something like that but it was decades ago; conditions so good you just are in awe of
what just happened.
To put it in the most untechnical terms you might call it magic.
It would be a great time to show an interested person what ham radio can do.

[K0UA]

12 meters was great this morning. I added several band countries, and a couple even on 10 meters.

[WB8VLC]

py2hp has been on 29.6 MHZ FM for the past 2 days, even though he wasn't workable with my Motorola P200 HT, it was still nice to work some dx on 10 FM.

[KM1H]

At the other end of the spectrum Im up to 19 DXCC with 100 mw on 160, real CW of course and none of this silly FT8 fad.

A few sunspot cycles ago I entered the ARRL 10M SSB contest just to see what I could work and not compete. The result was 141 DXCC and all 40 Zones using hunt and pounce and the DX Packet Cluster on 2M. Power was the full 1200W as I didnt want to waste time in pileups but Im sure most of the ones I worked were running 100W or less. What was amazing was the number of JA's I tuned across on Long Path.

[K4EMF]

Ham for 6 years and really enjoying the recent dramatic improvement on 15M.  Good prop is a new experience.

Wondering why the QRZ prop chart shows 15M as "fair" at best when it is so good.  I am making 15M QSO's with Europe barefoot which seems a lot better than "fair".

thx for anyone taking the time to offer insight to a relative rookie.

I've enjoyed spending some time playing around with propagation prediction sites and I still look at the NVIS, OWF and MUF but when it comes right down to it.  The real time spots on DX Maps or an equivalent are what I focus on over what is "supposed" to be happening.

[KA2FIR]

I would spend more time listening to the bands to see what propagation is like and less time asking questions.

[NN2X]

I use a few tools to figure out is the propagation is "On"

The first one I use is PSK reporter...For example, I will TX using 10 watts, and see my signal strength, across the world...From there I can deduce if my SSB will close the link to the desired DX station

Another tool I use is VOACAP...That is one need tool...Plug in your desired DX, put in your antenna, power, band and assumption of DX Station, and presto, you will know if you can make the DX

But the PSK reporter is the real deal, and in real time...You can't miss

Nothing worse than calling CQ for a Half hour, and no returns! But if you know the bands are "On" by using the above tools, you can have more confidence of success landing DX QSOs

Cheers

DE NN2X TOM
 

[SWMAN]

 For me, from my experience over the years, conditions can change from on hour to the next. I never use any of the propagation charts, I just use my big ears.