Steve wrote:

On Aug 16, 8:35*am, dave wrote:

The Cycle is determined by the region where new spots form and the
magnetic polarity of the spots. Cycle 24 began a couple years ago. We
are nearing Solar Max, and only half the sun is awake.

I'm not having any trouble making contacts. I didn't have that much
trouble making them during solar minimum, to be honest.

What kind of contacts? How much power? How much antenna?

I do mostly QRP HF digital, with a giant groundplane on my roof. When
there are ample sunspots I can work the world with 5 Watts on 24 MHz and
28 MHz, which don't hardly work at all right now.