so ive been messing around on 15m the past couple weeks and its been all over the place. like tuesday afternoon i was hearing Japan S9 with no problem, worked a couple JAs no sweat, then yesterday same time of day and same antenna and it was dead as a doornail. checked the solar flux index and it was sitting around 145 which i thought was pretty decent but i guess the K index had spiked up to like 4 or 5 at some point.

anyway im still pretty new to understanding how all this stuff ties together. i get the basic idea that higher solar flux is generally better for the higher bands and higher K index messes things up, but is there like a rule of thumb people use for when its worth even bothering to try 15 or 10? or do you just kind of check the DX cluster and see whos getting spotted and go from there? ive been using dxmaps.com which seems pretty good but not sure if theres something better

yeah the K index spiking will kill 15 and 10 fast, especially if you're trying to work into the pacific. what i usually do is check space weather dot com in the morning and look at both the flux and the estimated planetary A index for the day. if the A index is above like 20 i dont even bother with the high bands much, just drop down to 17 or 20 and call it a day.

dxmaps is fine, i use it too, but pskreporter is actually really useful if youre doing digital modes because you can see real time where signals are actually being decoded and get a feel for which paths are open. even if youre doing phone or cw you can kind of infer whats happening from the digital spots. the flux being at 145 is pretty solid for this part of the cycle honestly, you should be seeing some good openings on 10 even, just gotta catch it when the K settles down

this has been bugging me too and im even newer than you probably lol. i asked my elmer about it last month and he said something i thought was helpful which was basically dont look at just one number, its like checking the weather and only looking at temperature and ignoring wind and humidity. the flux tells you the ionosphere's potential but the K and A index tell you if the atmosphere is actually cooperating that day.

he also told me that even on a bad day theres sometimes a short window around sunrise or sunset where 15 will open up for like 30 minutes and then slam shut again. i havent had the patience to catch one of those yet but apparently they can be really good for certain paths even when overall conditions are poor