so i was just spinning the dial on 10m last night around 8pm local time and i started hearing stations from South America coming in like they were next door. like genuinely couldn't believe it, i was running maybe 50 watts into a dipole and a guy in Brazil came back to me first call. that almost never happens for me on that band.

ive been watching the solar flux index on that space weather site and its been sitting up around 180-190 for the past week or so which i guess explains it, but honestly i dont really understand the relationship all that well. like i know higher flux number = better conditions in a general sense but i'd love to understand a bit more about why 10m specifically lights up when the sun gets active. is it just the F2 propagation thing or is there more to it?

also curious if anyone has been working any good DX on other bands too. 15m felt pretty decent to me this weekend but i havent had much luck on 12m, not sure if thats me or the band.

yeah 10m has been really good lately, i worked like 30 countries in one afternoon a few weeks back which honestly felt surreal after years of that band being basically dead. we're climbing toward solar max so this is kind of what everyone who survived the low years was waiting for.

the short version on your flux question is that the solar flux index reflects how much UV and X-ray radiation the sun is pumping out, and that radiation is what ionizes the F2 layer up in the ionosphere. the higher that ionization gets, the higher the maximum usable frequency climbs, and 10m sits right up at the top of the HF range so it only opens up when conditions are really cooking. during solar minimum the MUF often doesn't even reach 10m for most paths so the band just sits there dead. 12m is kind of the same deal, it's a bit more forgiving than 10m but still needs decent solar support. might just be timing on 12m, try it mid-afternoon your time when the path geometry is right for wherever you're trying to work.

oh man im jealous, i tried getting on 10m last weekend and just couldnt find the right window i guess. caught maybe 20 minutes of it being open to Europe on Saturday morning then it just kind of faded out. i'm still pretty new to all this so i'm learning when to even look for these openings, do you just check the solar flux number every day or is there a better way to know when to tune in