so i was just spinning the dial on 10m last night around 8pm local and i was hearing stations from south america, europe, even caught what sounded like a JA or two in there pretty clearly. like i havent heard 10m this active in probably 10 years or more. i know solar flux has been climbing but man i wasnt expecting it to be this good already.

for context im running a pretty modest setup, just a dipole up about 25 feet and 100w. nothing fancy. but i was working DX like it was nothing, which almost never happens for me. is this normal for where we are in the cycle right now or did i just get lucky with a particularly good evening? i keep seeing people post their solar flux numbers and its been hovering up around 180-200 which i guess is pretty high but im still learning how to read all that stuff.

anyway curious if others are seeing the same thing or if i just happened to catch a good opening

yeah 10m has been absolutely wild, you didnt imagine it. we're heading into solar cycle 25 maximum and honestly it snuck up on a lot of people because the predictions were kind of conservative early on but the actual flux numbers have been blowing those predictions out of the water. when SFI gets above like 150-160 you start seeing 10m come alive in a serious way and when it pushes toward 200+ like its been doing lately F2 propagation can basically make it work like a local band except youre working Europe and Asia.

your dipole at 25 feet is totally fine for this, honestly on 10m a low dipole still works pretty well especially for DX at lower angles than you might think. enjoy it while it lasts, high solar flux periods like this dont come around all the time and 10m can go completely dead for years at a time. i remember sitting on 10m for months hearing nothing but static back around 2018 or so.

I had the same experience a couple weeks ago, worked a ZL on 10m SSB with my vertical and maybe 50 watts and he was 59 both ways. I actually thought my radio was malfunctioning because the signal was so strong lol. I've only been licensed about 2 years so I've never really experienced a proper solar maximum before and it kind of blew my mind honestly. I've been checking DX maps obsessively ever since trying to catch more openings.