Hi Steve,
Thank you for your comments and helpful insight.
Certainly does appear that the propagation was with me this year. Barry VK2BJ commented on similar propagation differences from Sydney.
Indicative path openings from Queensland (Ocean View) to North America (NA) on 20m, 40m, and 80m are shown in the table below. The data is collected by my reverse beacon and forwarded to the RBN. Anyone can freely download and analyse the RBN raw data for any reverse beacon. I find this data useful for planning ahead.
To download data for any day in March 2020 visit: http://www.reversebeacon.net/raw_data/#202003
| VK4CT Beacon NA Spots 14-15 March 2020 | ||||
| UTC HOUR |
NA Path |
20m NA Spots |
40m NA Spots |
80m NA Spots |
| 10 | Short | 2 | 33 | 25 |
| 11 | Short | 1 | 36 | 18 |
| 12 | Short | 21 | 44 | 4 |
| 13 | Short | 14 | 14 | 1 |
| 14 | Short | 12 | 9 | 1 |
| 15 | 3 | 0 | 0 | |
| 16 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
| 17 | 10 | 0 | 0 | |
| 18 | 4 | 4 | 0 | |
| 19 | Long | 49 | 13 | 0 |
| 20 | Long | 57 | 51 | 0 |
| 21 | Long | 56 | 67 | 0 |
| 22 | Long | 22 | 47 | 0 |
| 23 | Long | 15 | 6 | 0 |
| 0 | 7 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | |
| 2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
| 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | |
| 5 | 0 | 8 | 0 | |
| 6 | short | 0 | 22 | 3 |
| 7 | short | 3 | 34 | 9 |
| 8 | short | 3 | 35 | 5 |
| 9 | short | 2 | 27 | 6 |
Both paths to NA on 20m and 40m were clearly open from Queensland (Ocean View) – especially the long-path.
A multi-band vertical antenna collected all of the VK4CT reverse beacon spots.
Limitations:
Some spot counts are understated because my beacon stops while I transmit.
The table only provides the number of spots.
This table does not show variations in Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR).
73, John
VK4CT