…..and all with a dipole and 100 watts.

These propagation icons are everywhere, including the home page of the DX cluster. Yesterday there was a huge solar flare which can be read about in detail here. Blackouts may well follow but conditions right now are amazing.

I guess the relevant numbers are digested and then the supposed result is displayed, so I reckon it’s not their fault when the ionosphere refuses to behave accordingly. But regardless, it’s foolish to judge band condtions based on what these little screen gadgets tell you. You have to turn on the radio to get the true picture.

In the space of 20 minutes at about 3pm my local time, I worked AL7R (Alaska), CE1/K7CA (Chile), ZL2IFB (New Zealand) and N6ML on 12m CW. All of those stations are widely separated and all were quite strong.

The solar activity that may shut down the bands tomorrow have enhanced them today.

And, unlike on the lower bands, antennas for 12 meters are manageable by most everyone. A dipole is 19 feet long, a vertical whip is just over 9 feet tall. Either will provide DX when the band is open like it is now.

All of the screenshots of the images in this post were made within minutes of each other.

If you’re interested in useful information regarding DX & propagation, here’s a quick read for ya…

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