so ive been trying to work some DX on 17 and 20 meters for the past couple weeks and the conditions have just been all over the place. some days i can hear europe no problem around 0900 local, other days the band sounds completely dead and i cant even pull in strong stateside signals. checked pskreporter and its showing spots but i just cant hear anything.

looked at the solar flux index this morning and it was sitting around 145 which i thought was pretty decent, but the K index was like 4 last night so maybe thats part of it? i dunno i feel like im still trying to figure out how all of this fits together. does higher K index always kill the higher bands or is it more complicated than that? any good resources to bookmark for checking conditions before i sit down for a session would be appreciated

yeah the geomagnetic stuff can really mess things up especially on the higher bands. K index of 4 is pretty rough, anything above 3 and you start seeing degraded conditions on 20 and up, and 10/12 meters basically forget it. the solar flux being decent doesnt help much when the K index is elevated because you've got ionospheric absorption eating your signal before it even gets anywhere useful.

what i usually do is check Space Weather Prediction Center in the morning before i even turn the radio on, they have a 3-day forecast that gives you a rough idea of whats coming. also DXMaps and DX Heat are solid for seeing where the activity actually is in real time. honestly though sometimes you just gotta spin the dial and see whats there, propagation prediction tools are great but theyre not perfect. 17m can be tricky because it opens and closes fast, like you'll have a 45 minute window to central europe and then its gone. been doing this 20 years and it still surprises me sometimes.

same boat here, im pretty new to HF and the whole solar flux / K index thing is still kinda confusing to me honestly. i downloaded that HamSphere app that shows a propagation map but im not sure how accurate it actually is. did get a surprise 10 meter opening last tuesday though, worked a station in Argentina which was my first south america contact so that was pretty cool. wasnt even looking for DX just tuned around and there he was.