Solar activity has been abnormal for some time now. There have been a lot of
very energetic flares and coronal mass ejections. Everytime one of these
events happens, the propogation deteriorates. If the ionosphere is disturbed
sufficiently, it will not bend signals back to earth, or it will dissipate
altogether until things settle down again. Conditions will improve, but
until they do, there is not much you can do. If you add twenty or feet or so
of wire to your antenna, that might improve your reception.

"Steve" wrote in message
...
A couple of months ago I got a Bell and Howell $10 radio. I was
surprised that I could get so many stations. At any given time I could
get stations on most of the bands. I haven't listened to SW in about
20 years and am fascinated with the changes. Now I can't get anything
most of the daytime and at night only get reception on the 49m band. I
am somewhat familliar with reception conditions from past listening but
I had better radios back then. I changed the batteries, no difference.
I am in S. Delaware. Have reception conditions worsened severely in the
last month or 2? I have been involved
with ingress suppression work for cable companies, working on cleaning
up the reverse path, which uses 5 to 50 Mhz. That is how I got
interested in shortwave again. I have found many house cable tv wiring
systems double as great antennas. Steve Faulkner