No Es today?

As far as I am aware, today is the first day in many months in which no Es has been spotted here on 10m and 6m. OK there is still time for an opening, but at the moment it seems unlikely. This points to the end of what has been a good Es season.

As I have said many times, we will still get Es openings, but far less often. Also, people hungry for easy QSOs, will go lower down the spectrum. Even I expect to start on 630m shortly.

Sadly, I think we have seen the best of Es until next spring. There is a smaller peak around New Year and there will be the occasional openings at other times too.

With F layer DX getting much rarer than a few years ago on 10m, we will have to seek other ways of DXing on the higher bands. FT8 seems a good mode and I have been impressed how much DX can be copied on 6m MSK144 via meteors at any part of the solar cycle. My 6m antenna is just a V2000 omni vertical fed via cheap CB coax. I think I have copied European DX on 6m every time I have tried 6m MSK144.