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Author Topic: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?  (Read 1218 times)

G0HVQ

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #30 on: January 31, 2023, 09:51:50 AM »

The only problem with "rules of thumb" is that there are exceptions to every rule.

There certainly are....the other night Europe worked ZL on 6m Long Path 3 hours after sunset, that was certainly the exception!

10m is a good demonstration of the impact of sunspot, I always judge a good solar maximum by how long 10m stays open after dark: sometimes it's an hour or two, sometimes longer.  Heard tales of it being open all night in the 1950s. But look at 10m at solar minimum and it won't often open even during the day.
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N7EKU

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #31 on: January 31, 2023, 01:14:12 PM »

Do a little reading,

http://www.arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals

Start with the article titled, "HF Propagation: The Basics".

73

I'm embarrassed to be asking this question so please be kind with your response.

I operate FT8 on 80m - 10m using an EFHW antenna from my small HOA-restriction lot. I've been amazed at the contacts I've been able to make around the world.

I make lots of DX contacts during daylight hours on 14m up to 10m. However, when I monitor 15/12m/10m at night I don't hear any stations.

I'm confused by this because it's daytime here in the US and it's nighttime in Africa and I'm making contacts with stations in Africa. It seems like when it's daytime in Africa and nighttime here in Maryland, I should still hear the FT8 stations there.

Do the stations I'm making contacts with have such better antennas that they are able work any time of day, whereas my limited station only works DX on 80m-14m at night and 14m-10m during the day?

I have a feeling there is an obvious answer, but I just can't see it without your help.

John
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Mark -- N7EKU/VE3

K1FBI

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #32 on: February 01, 2023, 04:47:21 AM »

I'm surprised this wasn't thoroughly covered on the Extra Class exam.
What a jerk response. I studied the minimum amount needed to pass the exam. Most of what's required to pass the exam is not useful and/or not required. That has been my advice to numerous hams: study the minimum required to pass the test, get into the hobby, and then learn in the areas that you enjoy. That's precisely what I'm doing. I never cared about propagation before, but now I'm wondering about it so I came here for some advice to help me learn.

Even if I had learned every single topic with great detail for the exam, I certainly wouldn't remember it all. I have a masters degree in electrical engineering and yet I'm constantly learning as part of my job because technology continuously advances.

Thankfully there are other nice people who were willing to share information so I can learn. I hope that you responded the way you did because you're having a bad day and that you're normally a pleasant person.

John

As an Extra you should be embarrassed to ask such a question. Well that's the result of multiple choice exams and having but to memorize the questions and answers from a booklet. And yet you decided it was too much material worth covering.

I'm a lowly General and I know more.
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N1UR

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #33 on: February 01, 2023, 07:38:28 AM »

If you don't know that 14M isn't even a ham band of that nighttime matters with propagation, that's scary.  Be careful firing up the rig...

Ed  N1UR
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W2IRT

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #34 on: February 01, 2023, 08:09:28 AM »

If you don't know that 14M isn't even a ham band of that nighttime matters with propagation, that's scary.  Be careful firing up the rig...
Considering the original poster has DXCC on 8 bands, 10-80m, he must be doing something right, but he is relying strictly on alerting software to tell him when something interesting is on. You'd have to wonder how many other entities or band-fills he missed by not having a better fundamental grasp of HF propagation.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

K0UA

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #35 on: February 01, 2023, 08:52:30 AM »

If you don't know that 14M isn't even a ham band of that nighttime matters with propagation, that's scary.  Be careful firing up the rig...
Considering the original poster has DXCC on 8 bands, 10-80m, he must be doing something right, but he is relying strictly on alerting software to tell him when something interesting is on. You'd have to wonder how many other entities or band-fills he missed by not having a better fundamental grasp of HF propagation.

If the OP really has DXCC on 8 bands, perhaps he just wanted to hear us flap our gums.
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73  James K0UA

K7JQ

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #36 on: February 01, 2023, 09:21:08 AM »

To those chastising the OP because he's asking a question about a subject he "should know":

This is a hobby encompassing people from all walks of life. Some get into it for the technical aspects and hardly ever get on the air, and some for the operational aspect...assembling a station and operating. Not particularly interested in the how and why. Who are you to criticize his particular interests or lack of knowledge? If you're not willing to answer his question or provide helpful information, then I'd suggest you move on to another forum.

As long as there are published question pools for each license class, you're going to get those in the hobby that memorize the questions to fast track obtaining their desired license. You don't even have to know Morse code anymore, which requires actual practice to pass the test. Then it's up to them to take it from there as to how far they want to improve their knowledge from experience. It's not up to you to tell him how he should proceed, or what he should or shouldn't know. We see too much of this stuff from the "holier than thou" know-it-alls.

Kudos to those who gave him detailed answers, or provided useful information where he can do more research on the subject.

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GREYLINE

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #37 on: February 01, 2023, 09:51:42 AM »

I don't think the criticism was meant to be a personal attack on the OP, but more towards the system and the way they're practically giving away licenses these days. Memorize some questions and Poof! you're an Extra. The rapid decline of good operating practice and pile-up technique are obvious on the air. Sadly, a lot of the Elmers these days are "those" guys, but that's for another thread.
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W2IRT

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2023, 09:55:42 AM »

To those chastising the OP because he's asking a question about a subject he "should know":

This is a hobby encompassing people from all walks of life. Some get into it for the technical aspects and hardly ever get on the air, and some for the operational aspect...assembling a station and operating. Not particularly interested in the how and why. Who are you to criticize his particular interests or lack of knowledge? If you're not willing to answer his question or provide helpful information, then I'd suggest you move on to another forum.

In this ham's opinion, being "Not interested in how and why" is entirely the wrong way of approaching this hobby. Intellectual curiosity is the hallmark of a good ham. I don't think anybody faults the OP, or anybody else for that matter, for not knowing something. Don't ask me a damned thing about how to build gear from scratch or design antennas, for example. Not my thing. But the building-block theory for the most basic parts of daily operating should be at least understood from the 30,000-foot level. Kudos to him knowing that software will aid his DXing goals, and that's certainly laudable; it's how I've managed to achieve a lot of my own totals in recent years.

But with that said, there really are some things that an active licensed Extra should just know from the licensing and study phase. And in the old days (GET OFF MY LAWN!), we had weekly license classes run by local clubs, and Elmers to teach us these fundamental topics before we made our first QSO or took our first stab at the exams. New hams were helped along their journey rather than told to "go learn it all on their own, here's the question pool, have at it." This is the end result. I ran into an Extra about 15 years ago who didn't know what a CTCSS tone was and why he couldn't access the club repeater. Same arguments apply.

In an early part of my career I knew a PhD who literally couldn't figure out how to change a burned-out light bulb in the ceiling where I worked as a cinema's chief projectionist. And I knew fellow licensed projectionists who couldn't understand the various complexities of the job, like timing shutters, diagnosing sound outages, filing aperture plates correctly, setting automation cues, and so on. When I began that career had required an 800-hour unpaid apprenticeship, approval by the union to even begin training, and two provincial government-issued license exams at the time, with NO public question pools, either. But the under-trained operators in question had just come in under new rules that had done away with the apprenticeship requirement, and a very simple test—thread up and go, basically, which was later done away with completely. Training by the patient Old Masters, whether in industry or here in the hobby, is the best way to learn. We have done ourselves a Great Disservice by veering from that path.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

ON6KE

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #39 on: February 01, 2023, 09:59:31 AM »

It's not up to you to tell him how he should proceed, or what he should or shouldn't know. We see too much of this stuff from the "holier than thou" know-it-alls.

Strange that as a holder of a 'masters degree in electrical engineering' he didn't search the answer for his question on the internet. Too much material, too much effort to digest at least some of it?
« Last Edit: February 01, 2023, 10:04:04 AM by ON6KE »
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W1VT

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #40 on: February 01, 2023, 10:33:46 AM »

I recall at the peak of Cycle 21 that 10M would still be open for working rare DX on the other side of the world for many hours after darkness.

Zak W1VT
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W2IRT

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #41 on: February 01, 2023, 10:44:31 AM »

I recall at the peak of Cycle 21 that 10M would still be open for working rare DX on the other side of the world for many hours after darkness.

Even towards the end of the Cycle 22 peak. I worked a lot of new-on-band stations over the pole on 10m after local sunset, with only 500W and a dipole at 35 feet. I never experienced the bigger peaks where 10 would be open globally around the clock, however. A couple of weeks ago when we had Flux readings in the mid-200s I was working JAs and even a handful of EUs after my local sunset. But that was clearly the exception. 10 is still basically a north-south band these days, which closes at sunset.

Except when it doesn't.
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Night gathers and now my watch begins. It shall not end until I reach Top of the Honor Roll

Great times are at hand, and soon there will be DX for all—although more for some than for others.

K1FBI

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #42 on: February 01, 2023, 11:40:06 AM »

It's not up to you to tell him how he should proceed, or what he should or shouldn't know. We see too much of this stuff from the "holier than thou" know-it-alls.

Strange that as a holder of a 'masters degree in electrical engineering' he didn't search the answer for his question on the internet. Too much material, too much effort to digest at least some of it?
Maybe he had no real interest in the technical aspects of Engineering either and just memorized the answers for that too. Such things seem to be coming a trend.
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K7JQ

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #43 on: February 01, 2023, 12:23:42 PM »

Funny how the ones that posted what (IMO) I feel were "out of line" comments are the ones that responded to my post ;). Although one that stated "I'm a lowly General and I know more" hasn't. Good for you, very informative...we'll give you a medal.

Greyline:
Question pools are published. Morse code isn't required. It is what it is, and if you use that to pass the exam, you're an amateur radio operator in that respective class. What you feel is wrong, and what someone "should know" is immaterial. It is kind of a personal attack by inferring someone asked a stupid question. I've been a ham for 64 years, a DXer, now mostly an avid contester, and I've seen the gamut of operating practices over the years. Many 1x2 and 2x1 calls signs don't know how to work DX operating split frequency, and attempt to participate in contests without knowing the rules or required exchange. In both cases, they screw up a QSO. They may be propagation experts, but still crappy operators that affect others. Which scenario is worse?

W2IRT:
At least you gave the OP some useful information in your first post, before telling him he should have seen that covered in the exam. One can have "intellectual curiosity" in one area, but not in another. Maybe you think he "should know" about propagation, but apparently he didn't. That's why he asked the question. And at least you admit you don't know much about certain aspects of ham radio, like antenna design. But if you asked a question on the forums about antennas, would you like to be told that you "should know" the answer, without getting a helpful response?

ON6KE:
You're assuming he didn't search the internet. Maybe he did, and didn't see the answer he wanted without getting too technical. Maybe something simple like "Generally 20M and up during daylight, 40M and down during night time, and 30M in the middle", like someone else stated. And there are always anomalies where those don't always hold true. Not interested in F layers or absorption. You know what "ass-u-me" means ;).

K1FBI:
I see you just answered. I see on his QRZ page that the OP has many DXCC and WAS awards without knowing much about propagation. He's an operator...do you have all those on-air achievements?  If you know so much, I suggest you criticize an Extra when you obtain your Extra.

Now here I am criticizing those that criticize others ;). All I'm suggesting is that people should think before posting negative comments that serve no purpose. I'm just a believer that "if you can't say anything nice/constructive, don't say anything". Many OPs on this thread posted helpful comments, and I'm sure the OP appreciates that.

73,  Bob K7JQ

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AA6G

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Re: Why don't I hear stations on bands above 14m at night?
« Reply #44 on: February 01, 2023, 12:44:54 PM »

I'm confused by this because it's daytime here in the US and it's nighttime in Africa and I'm making contacts with stations in Africa. It seems like when it's daytime in Africa and nighttime here in Maryland, I should still hear the FT8 stations there.

Do the stations I'm making contacts with have such better antennas that they are able work any time of day, whereas my limited station only works DX on 80m-14m at night and 14m-10m during the day?

Good observation but I didn't see the answer in any of the responses. Most of Africa is within the tropics, i.e. Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn. MUFs are higher and stay higher at night within this zone. It is a different world there propagation-wise. The higher frequencies may be dead for you at night but not for them. They stay open well into the night and even the early morning hours. You can work them in your afternoon when it's far into their night. I'll bet if you look over your log, that stations you've worked at these times are all in the tropics. Once the path leaves the tropics the normal day/night rules apply. This is why you can't work them in your night and their day.

Way back in 1981 when the solar flux was around 180, I operated from Tahiti in November. 15/10m would die to North America and then it would die to Japan far into the night. But I could still work other stations even on 10M at 3am in the morning as long as they were also located in the tropics. I distinctly remember working Brazil on 10M long path a bit before dawn.

AA6G
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