so ive been on 40m most evenings this past week and something just feels off, like propagation is doing something strange. some nights i can barely hit a repeater two counties over and then last thursday i was chatting with a guy in finland like he was next door. dont even have a particularly good antenna setup right now since i had to take down my dipole after a storm knocked part of it loose.

anyway just curious if others are noticing the same thing or if its just me and my garbage feed line situation lol

yeah 40 has been all over the place, i think we had a minor geomagnetic disturbance a few days back which would explain the weirdness. i usually check the solar flux index before i even bother setting up but honestly even when the numbers look decent things can still be unpredictable. your feedline situation probably isnt helping though, bad coax can mask whats actually going on with the band

same here, 20m too. got a contact in japan on like 15 watts which never happens for me then the next night couldnt reach the club net 30 miles away. ham radio is weird man