so i've been watching the solar flux index creep up over the past couple weeks and last night it finally felt like it mattered. i was just casually spinning the dial on 20m around 0100 UTC and out of nowhere i'm hearing JA stations like they're across town, not across the pacific. like S7-S8 on some of them which i havent seen in honestly maybe two years on this band at that hour.

ended up working 4 JA's, a couple VK's, and even caught a rare one — BV9P out of taiwan which i'd been chasing for a while. all within maybe 90 minutes before the band just kind of went quiet again. checked the flux the next morning and it was sitting around 178 which isnt crazy high but combined with a pretty calm K-index it apparently was enough to do something nice.

anyway just wanted to share because i know some of the newer folks here might not realize how much this stuff matters and how quickly conditions can flip. if you're not checking DXmaps or pskreporter before you sit down you might be missing windows like this without even knowing it. whats everyone elses experience been lately, feels like the cycle is really starting to pick up

yeah 20 has been doing some weird good stuff lately. i caught a zone 26 opening two weeks ago that had no business being as good as it was, running just 100w into a wire dipole and i was getting through on the first or second call most times. i think people underestimate how important the K-index is compared to the flux honestly — i've seen flux in the 180s get completely wrecked by a geomagnetic storm and then turn around and see flux in the 140s with a K of 1 and have a fantastic time. both matter but when the K goes above like 3 or 4 i basically give up on the higher bands and just park on 40.

BV9P is a nice catch btw, that one sat in my needed list for a long time. what time did you work them, i might try to get on tonight if theres any carry over from yesterday

this is really helpful to read, im pretty new (got my general last spring) and i keep hearing people talk about the solar flux and band conditions but honestly i wasnt totally sure what numbers to even look for or what they mean in practice. like i knew higher flux was supposed to be better but i didn't know it interacted with the K-index that way. do you have a go-to site for checking all this before a session? i've been using the NOAA space weather page but it feels like a lot of info and i'm not sure what to focus on