so ive been noticing 20m has been doing some strange things this past week or so. some days it's wall to wall EU stations in the morning and then by noon it just completely dies, and other days it never really opens up at all. checked the solar flux index and its been bouncing around between like 140 and 160 which honestly i would have expected better conditions from that. had a few moments where 10m almost seemed like it wanted to open to south america but then nothing came of it.

anyway im still pretty new to trying to work DX seriously so maybe this is totally normal and i just dont have enough experience to know what to expect. is there a better resource than just watching the SFI on the NOAA page? i feel like im missing something about how to actually predict when a band is going to be usable for a specific path. like NA to JA on 15m for example.

yeah 20m has been pretty inconsistent lately, not just you. the SFI being in that range should be decent but the K-index has been spiking a fair bit too and that'll kill a path faster than a low flux will. a geomagnetic disturbance even a minor one can wipe out the higher latitude paths for hours. worth checking the A and K index alongside the SFI, the spaceweather.com site is pretty good for a quick snapshot and DXmaps.com will actually show you real time spots so you can see if anyone's actually completing contacts on a given path before you even get on.

for NA to JA on 15m you're generally looking at a pretty specific window around their sunrise, so depending where you are in NA that might be late afternoon or early evening your time. greyline propagation is real and it's worth understanding, there's some good reading on it. the path sort of lights up as the terminator crosses both ends. when it works it really works.

honestly pskreporter is what i use when im not sure if a band is open. even if you're not on FT8 yourself you can see if anyone is getting through on that path and it gives you a pretty good idea. 10m has been teasing people for weeks it feels like, keeps almost doing something and then backing off. supposed to be heading toward solar max so hopefully we get some real openings soon but conditions have been a bit all over the place.