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Author Topic: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.  (Read 588 times)

RENTON481

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #15 on: October 15, 2022, 08:53:59 AM »

My ears. I turn the radio on, tune to a band, and tune through the band (usually from the bottom to the top, so CW is tuned first), and I listen. I've heard surprises before when the prop reports were saying it would be poor propagation, and sometimes when a website shows a ton of contacts on a band I won't hear that much. A lot of it is individual location. A lot of it is just listening time.

Not trying to sound like I'm anti-prop web page or solar indices or whatever, but really it just comes down to listening. If I were a ham, I'd probably send a CQ just to see if anyone hears it.

And like AI5BC says, the WWV/WWVH stations are sort of like propagation beacons. They work well that way, too.
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KC6RWI

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2022, 01:57:58 PM »

Thanks for the responses, I am going to check a few of the sites mentioned,
But I am also going to put into memory the wwv/wvh freqs just to check on stuff.
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AA6YQ

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #17 on: October 25, 2022, 04:59:29 PM »

My ears. I turn the radio on, tune to a band, and tune through the band (usually from the bottom to the top, so CW is tuned first), and I listen. I've heard surprises before when the prop reports were saying it would be poor propagation, and sometimes when a website shows a ton of contacts on a band I won't hear that much. A lot of it is individual location. A lot of it is just listening time.

Not trying to sound like I'm anti-prop web page or solar indices or whatever, but really it just comes down to listening. If I were a ham, I'd probably send a CQ just to see if anyone hears it.

And like AI5BC says, the WWV/WWVH stations are sort of like propagation beacons. They work well that way, too.

If you were pursuing an award like DXCC or 5-band WAZ, you'd soon realize the inefficiency of what you suggest above. There are 10 amateur bands from 160m to 6m (ignoring 60m). Carefully scanning each of them to understand current propagation would take an hour or longer; by the time you finished the scan, conditions could have already changed.

In my experience, the best way to assess band conditions is by analyzing DX Cluster spots in real time. Checking the NCDXF beasons is helpful, but they cover only a few locations around the world.
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K0UA

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #18 on: October 27, 2022, 09:21:12 AM »

And checking propagation of WWV will tell you nothing about DX propagation. WWV is in Colorado. If you want to know if a nearby related ham band is open to Colorado, than this MAY be of some use, but it tells you nothing about DX propagation.  DX to me means countries outside of the USA and DOES NOT include Canada or Mexico either unless you are talking about high VHF or UHF frequencies.
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73  James K0UA

RENTON481

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #19 on: October 27, 2022, 07:32:39 PM »

The original poster mentioned "propagation", as in propagation in general, not necessarily DX propagation. He said "tells you what bands are open."

For just propagation, WWV can work just fine. If WWV or WWVH aren't appearing, chances are less that you're going to hear that rare station from Southern Africa or Asia, although that could be possible. I suppose if you have an SDR waterfall, that will tell you more about general propagation than any website on the net. What the guy 20 miles away from you with the 5 element Yagi hears and what you're going to hear with your dipole may be two different things.

As for pursuing DXCC, if you don't actually hear them, you're probably not going to work them, at least with CW and SSB.

I am not a ham, so I don't have that particular issue (having to work them). However, in SWL if you don't hear them, you can't log them -- with SWL, hearing them is the only point.
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AA6YQ

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #20 on: October 27, 2022, 11:58:25 PM »

The original poster mentioned "propagation", as in propagation in general, not necessarily DX propagation. He said "tells you what bands are open."

For just propagation, WWV can work just fine. If WWV or WWVH aren't appearing, chances are less that you're going to hear that rare station from Southern Africa or Asia, although that could be possible. I suppose if you have an SDR waterfall, that will tell you more about general propagation than any website on the net. What the guy 20 miles away from you with the 5 element Yagi hears and what you're going to hear with your dipole may be two different things.

As for pursuing DXCC, if you don't actually hear them, you're probably not going to work them, at least with CW and SSB.

I am not a ham, so I don't have that particular issue (having to work them). However, in SWL if you don't hear them, you can't log them -- with SWL, hearing them is the only point.

I suggest that you read The CQ Shortwave Propagation Handbook.

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K0UA

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #21 on: October 28, 2022, 06:06:21 AM »

Quote
For just propagation, WWV can work just fine. If WWV or WWVH aren't appearing, chances are less that you're going to hear that rare station from Southern Africa or Asia,

That is simply NOT true.

I do believe you have a lot to learn about propagation. As a matter of fact we all have a lot to learn, but checking WWV from here in the Midwest (Missouri) will tell me nothing about working stations in Africa or Asia.
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73  James K0UA

RENTON481

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #22 on: October 31, 2022, 03:38:59 AM »


I suggest that you read The CQ Shortwave Propagation Handbook.

I probably read it years ago.

Ultimately, you turn on the radio, tune the band, and see what's there. Which is what I originally said in my first post in this thread. My comment about WWV was secondary. I personally don't use WWV as a propagation beacon, I tune the bands. They aren't that big to tune across. It's fairly easy to tell whether a band is active or not. It's not rocket science. 

But I have noticed that if WWV or WWVH are MIA, SW conditions in general aren't as good. it may just be something that is noticeable in my region of the US.

Quote
For just propagation, WWV can work just fine. If WWV or WWVH aren't appearing, chances are less that you're going to hear that rare station from Southern Africa or Asia,

That is simply NOT true.

I do believe you have a lot to learn about propagation. As a matter of fact we all have a lot to learn, but checking WWV from here in the Midwest (Missouri) will tell me nothing about working stations in Africa or Asia.

Every night WWV is missing here, most of the rest of the bands are dead. If WWVH is missing, usually there isn't decent propagation to Asia. That's been my experience over 40 years of monitoring the SW and HF ham bands. It may be something peculiar to the NW US. Obviously, it's going to be different in another part of the continent. Someone in Florida or Maine or South Texas is going to have different reception, as well as different propagation.

Ultimately, you turn on the radio, tune the band, and see what's there.

I just have never found the online propagation sites that useful. If others find them useful, good for them.
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N6YWU

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #23 on: November 03, 2022, 10:58:46 AM »

I just transmit a sequence of low power FT8 beacons on each band, and see what parts of the world that signals from my antenna at my QTH are currently propagating to, and how well (e.g. as reported by pskreporter, et.al.)
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K0UA

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Re: What is your favorite propagation indicator or website.
« Reply #24 on: November 04, 2022, 08:19:44 AM »

I just transmit a sequence of low power FT8 beacons on each band, and see what parts of the world that signals from my antenna at my QTH are currently propagating to, and how well (e.g. as reported by pskreporter, et.al.)

Yes, much can be learned with real signals from your real antenna at your specific QTH into real receivers in some other parts of the world with their real noise floors. WSPR can also work well. and for those who hate FT8 and WSPR, you can use the RBN on CW.
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73  James K0UA
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