Will the skip traffic get better soon, as it's been not around for bout last month, I'm in Wisconsin.
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Skip
- Thread starter Dirtblaster44
- Start date
Solar Cycle 25 is going to peak soon. Propagation has been very good lately, but there are always day-to-day variations.
en.wikipedia.org
Solar cycle 25 - Wikipedia
So do u think skip will be back around soon?
I believe there was a recent solar event that has negatively impacted propagation. The 10m amateur band has been very quiet for a few days now, while some skip is coming through on 11m/CB band. (I'm on the east coast). The 40m, 20m and 15m amateur bands are also experiencing issues with weaker signals and higher noise.
niceguy71
Active Member
I don't really understand this cycle thing... if someone can shed some light I'd appreciate it.
I like to range test little handheld CB's and see how far I can get, 3 to 5 miles is what I average..... I like to go out on Sunday afternoons.....but the skip is so bad that every channel is full of noise and I'm lucky to talk over all that damn noise at 2 miles away.....
I also like to talk to my friends all around the area... but again all the skip/noise makes it very difficult.
monitoring 19 on the highways I have to keep the squelch dial up so high, ( almost turned to max ) I can't believe I could hear anyone more than 2 or 3 miles away
everyone say's we are in the height of great conditions????? when they go away, I understand I'll be able to range test my handheld CB's without the problems of all that noise and people talking over me?? ( I think that's how it's going to work???)
I also think if the noise is gone, on the highway's I could keep the squelch at half the dial I should be able to talk to other people on the CB for XX miles ( 8 to 10 miles) so we can actually use our radios??? I go out at night and talk to my friends when they drive home from my house.... my house a has a big base station that can transmit and receive to mobiles for a long distance ( 15 plus miles) after 10PM .... when these great conditions go away will I be able to do this in the daytime????
now I also love this skip thing.. I go out to my base if I'm in my garage and pick up the mic turn it to 37 LSB and say anyone have a copy on 155 in Massachusetts???? I get people all across the country and so far 22 countries! .... I know that will go away... and that's ok with me.. I'd like to be able to talk to friends on their CB's.
my friend with the Jeep came over this week and I thought I would see how far I could get him... we did 14.90 miles late at night a couple months ago.
... well he came over at 9AM in the morning with AM Channel 27 turned on.... every time I called out for him some guy in Oklahoma would answer me and he was pegging my signal strength meter!!! so I called my friend on the cell phone and told him to try channel 25.... we then got some guy in Alabama talking to us and over us???
so are these really excellent conditions right now??? meaning they will get worse in the future???
I like to range test little handheld CB's and see how far I can get, 3 to 5 miles is what I average..... I like to go out on Sunday afternoons.....but the skip is so bad that every channel is full of noise and I'm lucky to talk over all that damn noise at 2 miles away.....
I also like to talk to my friends all around the area... but again all the skip/noise makes it very difficult.
monitoring 19 on the highways I have to keep the squelch dial up so high, ( almost turned to max ) I can't believe I could hear anyone more than 2 or 3 miles away
everyone say's we are in the height of great conditions????? when they go away, I understand I'll be able to range test my handheld CB's without the problems of all that noise and people talking over me?? ( I think that's how it's going to work???)
I also think if the noise is gone, on the highway's I could keep the squelch at half the dial I should be able to talk to other people on the CB for XX miles ( 8 to 10 miles) so we can actually use our radios??? I go out at night and talk to my friends when they drive home from my house.... my house a has a big base station that can transmit and receive to mobiles for a long distance ( 15 plus miles) after 10PM .... when these great conditions go away will I be able to do this in the daytime????
now I also love this skip thing.. I go out to my base if I'm in my garage and pick up the mic turn it to 37 LSB and say anyone have a copy on 155 in Massachusetts???? I get people all across the country and so far 22 countries! .... I know that will go away... and that's ok with me.. I'd like to be able to talk to friends on their CB's.
my friend with the Jeep came over this week and I thought I would see how far I could get him... we did 14.90 miles late at night a couple months ago.
... well he came over at 9AM in the morning with AM Channel 27 turned on.... every time I called out for him some guy in Oklahoma would answer me and he was pegging my signal strength meter!!! so I called my friend on the cell phone and told him to try channel 25.... we then got some guy in Alabama talking to us and over us???
so are these really excellent conditions right now??? meaning they will get worse in the future???
nd5y
Member
A Media Primer for the Solar Cycle and Space Weather
(All images in this document are available for download) The Basics: The Solar Cycle The solar cycle is a roughly 11-year periodic change in the Sun…
www.nesdis.noaa.gov
What Is the Solar Cycle? | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids
The Sun’s activity follows an 11-year cycle. Learn more about it!
HF Propagation - The RadioReference Wiki
K6GBW
Member
There is an eleven year solar cycle. At the bottom there is hardly any sun spot activity at all. It slowly ramps up with more and more sunspots for about 5.5 years. The sunspots throw out charged particles that collide with the earths atmosphere and cause it to reflect radios waves. At the peak the sun typically has around 200 sunspots and there is a lot of charged particles hitting the earth, so lots of skip. Then we slowly go down again. Ham radio guys that use HF like the solar cycle to be high because that makes their HF radios work better. Right now we are just about at the top of the cycle so the high part of the HF frequency spectrum is very active. This includes 11 meters (CB). At the low part of the solar cycle the upper HF bands don’t work well if at all, so they are only good for local communications. The lower HF bands still work but are not as good.
niceguy71
Active Member
so when it's over I can communicate with all my other preppers in my local area without all the noise/ skip talking over me???... that sounds great to me!
Same here. Conditions have been to next to nothing around here for a few weeks now. Just little blips here and there. It’ll be back and be booming again soon, but since we are now near this solar cycles peak it will slowly start to fade away over the next few years.
KD8DVR
Member
You could talk now if you used an FM CB with CTCSS tones. Cover the BS right up.
slowmover
Active Member
Nice! (Ability of rig).
It’ll help to back out of RFG a fair amount in a NRC mobile. Not much SQ.
With the base station you’ll have to play with it as well. Can’t get rid of Skip, have to work thru it.
Without DSP filters one gets buried. It’s a matter of distinguishing by audio cues what’s local and what isn’t.
Generally ramps up during the day. Mid-afternoon can be a bear. Sometimes right into sunset (past dusk).
.
Good point. Curious, though.... the CTCSS would keep a skip signal from opening the squelch, but the signal does not disappear. Couldn't a skip signal that is stronger than the local station (with proper CTCSS code) that he wants to talk to be overpowered, hindering reception?
nd5y
Member
Yes. CTCSS/DCS doesn't prevent interference, it only hides it until the interfering signal is strong enough that the FM capture effect causes the decoder to stop working and closes the squelch.
K6GBW
Member
The skip signal will still be there. It will just be competing with the FM signal. The reality of the situation is that most of those skip signals you hear are coming from export radios or modified ham radios and are much higher power than a standard CB. I’m talking up to several thousand watts. Those signals are going to cream local signals regardless of the modulation type. If people were using stock CB’s then the difference wouldn’t be so bad. The simple truth is that AM and SSB will always have a more powerful signal than FM because AM, once modulated, varies its power up to three times the dead key. So a standard CB is really more like a twelve watt radio. But on FM, since it’s a continuously modulated signal, then four watts is four watts. In the real world four watts verses twelve isn’t really that big a difference. What you get from FM is that it’s got better fidelity and it’s quieter. So I’d use FM for close stuff, like in a vehicle caravan, and AM/SSB for any kind of distance.
It's back in Minnesota today finally
The links provided by nd5y are a great primer for the solar cycle. And on another note the propagation has a bit of a shift from dawn to dusk.
That is the solar radiation hitting the ionosphere goes east to west like its visible light.
A product through propagation is maximum usesable frequency (MUF) The highest frequency you might expect to get skip at two or mor places on earth. One handy app displays current MUF on a globe, the map box you can maipulate like Google earth. View two points and shows MUF between them. Ither features also.
Download the app and/or go to the site: 🌎 HamDXMap — Maximize your range !
That is the solar radiation hitting the ionosphere goes east to west like its visible light.
A product through propagation is maximum usesable frequency (MUF) The highest frequency you might expect to get skip at two or mor places on earth. One handy app displays current MUF on a globe, the map box you can maipulate like Google earth. View two points and shows MUF between them. Ither features also.
Download the app and/or go to the site: 🌎 HamDXMap — Maximize your range !
