Well, yes, but not quite that long. 13 years from now will be worse
than we're in at the present -- if ol' sol keeps to 11 years, more or
less. Things should start to get interesting again in about '08 to '09
and be nearing peak in '12 - '13 or so. At my age, time goes by so
fast, that's almost nothing grin.
How does that saying go?
Time flies like an arrow...
Fruit flies like an orange.
As for VK/ZL, if 20's in decent shape (relatively speaking) you can
maybe pop a couple of them, as well as the south pacific, around 10pm
till 1am Eastern, but you'll need some decent aluminum and a bit of
wattage to do it. This week looks to be pretty bad, but last week I
was hearing plenty of ZLs around 11pm-midnight here in New York City..
Failing that, yeah, early morning isn't bad. Wait till the fall
equinox and things should improve a little. Summer's always the worst
time, of course.
Don't forget, too, that as the cycle goes further down, look for 40
and 80 to spring to life during the late fall/winter/early spring
months. I've heard many a ZL on 40 in the wee hours at S9+ on phone,
but (sadly) few of them listen up for us 'merkins. Last year was my
first for 80, and with only a low dipole and 100W (later 600W), I
managed to snare about 83 countries on that band.
I heard a VU on 20 around 5-6pm a few weeks back, and I'm pretty sure
he was legit, and YI has been spotted numerous times around the same
hours. Never heard a YA ever, and no APs heard here since 2002. No
YB/YCs either. There are numerous spots from the northeast of VR2s
around sunrise, but I've never heard a one of them :-(. Mind you, I
don't favour a north-south route to begin with so if you have some
aluminum and height you might fare better.
73 de Peter, W2IRT
(ex-AB2NZ, VE3THX)
Please reply to Double-you Two Eye Are Tee at Arrl.net
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