Ref: Bad SWL conditions..

SpamBlock..

Things have been bad on the shortwave and amateur frequencies
for a long time. Nothing is coming in as they did years ago
in the 13 year upcycles that are generally present. Even in
the periods that things should be good, the signal to noise
ratio is terrible.

Back in the early 50's I remember when there was a great amount
of activity going on on 20meters and those higher shortwave
bands...It seemed like the shortwave stations were on 40meters
in the middle of the day, interfering with Ham radio chatter.

That day has been gone for a long time. It seems that the
projected upcycles are not that "up". Seems to be some other
Cycle involved here. Your receiver and antenna are probably
O.K...its just the overall conditions.

Leonard..
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On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 22:28:14 +0000, SpamBlock wrote:

Hello, I live in the northeast USA. I've returned to SWL'ing about a
week ago after many years away. I'm just a little concerned about
something.

Have conditions here for the past 2 days been very poor? It seems
like like everything died somewhere between 0600 and 0800 GMT, 09/16,
and never returned. I haven't been able to hear WWV at all except for
very short periods on 10, and 15 Mhz with very weak signals. I am
used to receiving WWV on at least 2 frequencies with good signal at
any time of day! DX'ing is impossible as there are very few signals
audible beyond the usual super-power broadcasters. Up till 2 days ago,
there were lots of signals on every band!

The only other possibility is that my radio has died. My longwire
antenna is still up and in good condition, and there haven't been any
electrical storms to fry the radio's front-end.