so i've been mostly a 40m and 80m guy for the past couple years because honestly the higher bands just felt dead whenever i checked them. but yesterday afternoon i was spinning the dial on 10 meters just out of habit and suddenly there were stations everywhere. worked a few south americans and even heard something that sounded like it might have been europe fading in and out on the east end of the band.

checked the solar flux after and it was up around 180 or so which i guess is decent? im still kind of fuzzy on how to actually read those numbers and what they mean for which bands are gonna be open. like i know higher is generally better but is there a threshold where 10m really starts to come alive vs just being occasionally useful. also does the K index matter as much as the flux or is that more for like aurora stuff on VHF

anyway just excited, havent had a 10m pileup experience in a long time and forgot how fun it is when the band is cooking

yeah 10m has been surprisingly good lately, solar cycle 25 has been outperforming a lot of the predictions which is pretty cool to see. flux in the 170-180 range will definitely get 10m going especially in the afternoons your time if youre in North America and there's any kind of south american or transatlantic path open.

the way i think about it roughly is anything above 150 and 10m is worth checking regularly, above 200 and it can be open almost all day. the K index is kind of a separate thing — that's measuring geomagnetic disturbance and when it spikes high (like 4 or 5 and above) it can actually knock out HF propagation even if the flux is great. so you want high flux AND low K index ideally. there are days where the sun gives and the magnetosphere takes away, which is frustrating.

DXMaps and the DX cluster are your friends for real time stuff, you can actually see the spots rolling in and get a feel for where the openings are before you even key up

oh man this is timely, i literally just posted on another forum asking about 10m because ive had my tribander up for two years and barely used the 10m element lol. gonna have to spend some time up there this week if the flux stays up. what time of day were you hearing europe, was it morning or more like late afternoon your time?