UK propagation charts for January 2012

Good solar conditions continue and we seem to have gone through quite a long period of settled geomagnetic conditions, which has helped no end. The solar flux index has hovered around the 130 mark with no really large fluctuations and as a result we are still seeing the higher bands come to life, notably 10m. But this is really the month for good low-band openings - 160m, 80m an 40m. Tony G3ZRJ reported hearing long delay echoes on 80m at about 2100z on 1st January 2012. These are either signals coming around the world "the wrong way", or aided by magnetospheric ducting, or some other form of propagation that we don't really understand. Whatever, it makes for some interesting effects. You can read more about one ham's views on LDEs here. Just want to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy new year and remind you that you can still download a FREE guide to ionospheric propagation written by Alan Melia G3NYK and me. Go to the January propagation charts from the UK