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Author Topic: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX  (Read 362 times)

K0IZ

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Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« on: March 04, 2023, 08:53:47 AM »

My station is in Colorado.  Starting about 7AM local, Indonesia started coming through.  Worked about 15, all had great signals.  Also a bunch of JA's.  AH2 (Guam).  Still coming through as of 10am local.  But now hours later Europe is basically still no where to be found.  Checked SolarHam, looks like solar flare.

My guess is that high solar flux for areas in darkness (no flare) were/are super hot but to east, all in daylight the flare has wiped out signals.  Interesting.
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KH6AQ

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2023, 06:31:02 PM »

That sounds right. VOACAP HF Online shows 20 meters peaking to Indonesia from 1430-1630 UTC which is 7:30 to 9:30 am your time. It shows JA open until 1930 UTC which is 12:30 pm your time. And, Western Europe should begin to open at 2030 UTC which is 1:30 pm your time.

https://www.voacap.com/hf/



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AF5CC

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #2 on: March 04, 2023, 07:21:11 PM »

10 meters was wide open to Europe this morning and early afternoon.
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WB8VLC

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #3 on: March 04, 2023, 10:01:56 PM »

20 15 are still open right now up here in the pacific northwest, 3b7m was in weak on 10 meters, 28.005 an hour ago talking to east asia and the 10 ssb night time openings were long path and short path to scandinavia, northern asia, central and southeast asia and vk,zl simultaneously until 10 closed an hour ago.

15 and 20 are the same and 20 ssb is still open to northern and eastern europe, vk, zl and central asia and east asia indian ocean at the same time both short and long path are workable and now the caribbean and south america are coming in, all that is missing on 20 is africa. 20 stays open to asia and northern europe out here until around 0800 to 0900 utc as does 15meters.
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K3TN

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2023, 03:20:20 AM »

Conditions for the phone portion of ARRL DX contest definitely seemed down from the CW test two weeks ago. I didn't put that much time in but 20M was empty much of the weekend from EU, but as others noted nice clean openings to AS. I did work JT1CO from my single wire station in both contests but he was louder on SSB, unusual.

10 meters was in good shape but not wall to wall signals like in CW. There is more room on SSB (about 500 Khz compared about 200 Khz on CW but signals are 5 times as wide, too.

Actually, many signals were much more than 5 times as wide! Still many problem adjusting those compressors...

A number of locals (like W3IP, N3AM, N1RM) have Elecraft K4s with well adjusted CESSB processing - the audio sounded awesome and CESSB processing is essentially a 3dB power gain - they stomped on me in every pileup we were in together.
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John K3TN

K1FBI

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2023, 04:46:29 AM »

Conditions for the phone portion of ARRL DX contest definitely seemed down from the CW test two weeks ago. I didn't put that much time in but 20M was empty much of the weekend from EU, but as others noted nice clean openings to AS. I did work JT1CO from my single wire station in both contests but he was louder on SSB, unusual.

10 meters was in good shape but not wall to wall signals like in CW. There is more room on SSB (about 500 Khz compared about 200 Khz on CW but signals are 5 times as wide, too.

Actually, many signals were much more than 5 times as wide! Still many problem adjusting those compressors...

A number of locals (like W3IP, N3AM, N1RM) have Elecraft K4s with well adjusted CESSB processing - the audio sounded awesome and CESSB processing is essentially a 3dB power gain - they stomped on me in every pileup we were in together.
20 meter SSB last night around 23:00 UTC:
France, Switzerland, Croatia, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, Argentina, Cuba, Azores, Bonaire and Guadeloupe.
Worked them with 100 watts and an EndFedz EF-20.
Conditions were far from bad at my location.
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K0IZ

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2023, 06:16:17 AM »

Here's my list of tougher worked stations SAT morning from Colorado:
Ceuta & Melilla
Mongolia
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
Indonesia (13)
Thailand
tons of Japan,
and assorted others in far east and pacific.
Meanwhile EU to Colorado was mostly non-existent both SAT and SUN.

John, K0IZ
« Last Edit: March 06, 2023, 06:18:32 AM by K0IZ »
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K1FBI

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2023, 07:10:54 AM »

Here's my list of tougher worked stations SAT morning from Colorado:
Ceuta & Melilla
Mongolia
Kyrgyzstan
Kazakhstan
Indonesia (13)
Thailand
tons of Japan,
and assorted others in far east and pacific.
Meanwhile EU to Colorado was mostly non-existent both SAT and SUN.

John, K0IZ
That's what I'm saying, conditions were actually pretty good.
Including the days working up to the contest where I was able to catch a few new entities.
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N1UR

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2023, 04:46:07 AM »

They were good for DXing but not solid for Contesting.  The flare caused very quick absorption both days.  The overall weekend was great fun, but far shy of the best high sunspot conditions.

Ed  N1UR
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N2SR

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Re: Interesting 20M band conditions for ARRL DX
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2023, 04:47:23 AM »

They were good for DXing but not solid for Contesting.  The flare caused very quick absorption both days.  The overall weekend was great fun, but far shy of the best high sunspot conditions.

Ed  N1UR

Agreed.  CW weekend was far better than SSB. 

Tom, N2SR
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