so ive been on 10 meters pretty much every evening this week and i dont know if its just me but the band has been open way longer than usual, like i was working stations in europe at almost 10pm local time last tuesday which almost never happens around here. picked up a few new entities too which was a nice surprise.

also wanted to mention for anyone who hasnt heard, looks like Icom finally confirmed the IC-905 is actually shipping to dealers now, not just the early review units. few guys in my local club got theirs and the reports sound pretty promising, especially for the microwave bands if youre into that sort of thing. i havent played with one personally but from what i saw at the last hamfest it seems like a serious piece of kit.

anyway just curious if others are seeing the same propagation or if im just getting lucky with timing. feels like the solar cycle is really starting to cook now.

yeah 10m has been crazy good, i worked a station in south africa on a wire dipole last weekend with like 50 watts and he came back first call. first call. on a dipole. i almost fell out of my chair. the SFI has been hovering up in the 200s which i havent seen in a long time, definitely feeling like we're getting close to the cycle peak or at least near it.

on the IC-905 thing, my buddy has one and says the rx on 2.4 ghz is surprisingly decent but he's still working out the antenna situation for the higher bands. its a cool radio for sure but not cheap, gonna wait and see if prices settle a bit before i pull the trigger.

im pretty new to hf, just got my general a couple months ago, so i guess i dont have much to compare it to but my elmer told me to get on 10m right now because conditions wont always be like this. so ive been trying to get on whenever i can after work. made my first ever DX contact last week, guy in brazil, i was so happy i forgot to write down his callsign at first haha. had to ask him to repeat it.

what should i be looking at to track propagation? someone mentioned pskreporter but im not sure how to use it exactly