On Aug 16, 3:29*pm, dave wrote:
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.

Using 100 watts and a magnetic loop here. Occasionally I will use a
center-loaded vertical antenna that's behind the house, but I prefer
the loop. I operate mostly on 17, 20 and 30 meters, but occasionally
40m or 80m. I'm often QRP on 40m CW.