46 and counting…

I was first licensed in 1991, somewhere around the height of the sunspot activity in cycle 22, and I remember well how much fun I had at the time working the world (or at least most of it) on simple wire antennas. My first ‘proper’ ham antenna was a basic (fairly low) dipole cut for the 10m band that I managed to get working quite well on 15m and 20m. I didn’t much care how or why or how efficient it was because with this antenna I worked North and South America and Asia with ease. Little did I realise at the time just how spoiled I was and how different conditions would be at a solar minimum.

Fast forward 14 years to the bottom of cycle 24. Having been QRT for 12 of those years (for reasons I won’t go into) I’d been spared the decline of cycle 22 and missed cycle 23 entirely. My first experience of how different conditions were was in October 2005 having built a modest station with the intention of working mostly PSK31. This time around my primary antenna was a simple Z-shaped 20m dipole in the attic. Despite the dramatic difference in conditions I soon learned how to make the most of them and quite quickly worked a hundred countries and more. Not a massive achievement but, given the number of people I saw bemoaning their own lack of contacts, one I was personally quite pleased with. Indeed many hams continue to bemoan the poor conditions and lack of contacts.

Which brings us to today, approaching the summer of 2010 (in the northern hemisphere), with a running total of only 19% spotless days so far this year (compared to 71% spotless days over the whole of 2009). Sunspot activity certainly seems to be on the increase and despite a number of apparent false starts cycle 24 does seem to be ramping up, although as I write we are currently on the 4th consecutive day without sunspots. But, looking forward, if conditions do improve to anything like those I last experienced back in the early 1990’s, it’s going to be a lot of fun working what has for the past few years been very elusive or just ‘impossible to work’ DX.

I’m certainly looking forward to it, not least of which, because when you can’t do much to improve your antenna (which I can’t) the one thing that will result in more DX contacts is improved propagation. Bring on the sunspots!

Dean Amateur Radio antenna, propagation, Solar Cycle 24