IF YOUR WAITING FOR BETTER PROPAGATION...WELL PERHAPS WE SHOULD TRY 100 KC.

Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age
Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the 'blankest year' of the Space Age.

As of September 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year.

To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times.

"Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

Coinciding with the string of blank suns is a 50-year record low in solar wind pressure, a recent discovery of the Ulysses spacecraft. (See the Science@NASA story Solar Wind Loses Pressure.)

The pressure drop began years before the current minimum, so it is unclear how the two phenomena are connected, if at all. This is another mystery for SDO and the others.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/
30sep_blankyear.htm?list1066509

I remember being a pre hi school kid and learning of the IGY, International Geophysical Year. Think that was about 1958. It was supposed to be the highest peak in sunspots in recorded history. I believe it made it. I'll guarantee you everything since has been
downhill.

Don't give up, just concentrate on the lower bands. 40 will be
the premier DX band, followed by 20. If you do CW I suggest 30 meters will be excellent.

So unless you want to go with 200 foot towers and phased verticals
and loops enjoy what is available. 80 and 160 will amaze you,
especially since US 80meters is now down to 3.6 Mhz.

Dan/W4NTI