so i was just messing around on 10 meters yesterday afternoon, wasnt really expecting much since its been pretty quiet lately, and all of a sudden i start hearing stations from south america coming in like they were next door. worked a couple guys in brazil and one in argentina without even trying that hard, running like 50 watts into my crappy vertical. lasted maybe 2 hours before it faded back out.

anyway i know we're climbing toward the solar max and the SFI has been creeping up but i wasnt expecting it to be that dramatic. anyone else notice conditions have been better than usual this past week or is it just me? also saw something about the new Icom IC-905 firmware update dropping but havent had a chance to look into what they actually changed

yeah 10m has been wild lately, i caught some of that too. worked a station in japan on a whim Tuesday evening which i was not expecting at all. the solar flux has been sitting pretty high and we had a couple of X-class flares go by without totally wrecking everything which is kind of unusual. if you havent already set up some alerts on DX maps or even just check the cluster in the morning you'll start seeing the patterns more. its a good time to be on HF honestly, bands like this dont last forever so might as well take advantage

oh man i totally missed it, i was stuck at work. my luck is terrible with this stuff. i keep meaning to set up some kind of alert on my phone when the bands open up but i never actually do it. does anyone use a specific app for that or just check pskreporter and hope for the best? also re: the ic-905 update i saw someone mention it on reddit but couldnt find the actual changelog anywhere