We are currently at the "bottom" of our 11 year solar cycle. That is, sunspot activity has been at a minimum for a long enough period of time that our solar scientists believe that we will soon be on the upswing again. We will soon be seeing "spots before our eyes", at least on the sun. Please, don't look directly at the sun, of course; instead, search "space weather"; there are several good "sites" (sorry) that will let you stare at the sun without sacrificing your vision.

While increased sunspot activity can sometimes spell trouble for radio enthusiasts (HF blackouts, auroral activity beyond what is good for propagation, and so forth), it also means that our MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) is going to be higher, as a rule, than in the last few years. What's that mean?

For the ham radio operator, it means that the higher HF and lower VHF frequencies will be seeing better DX or distance communications. We rely on the ionosphere to bend or "refract" our radio waves back to earth; this is our "skip" that we rely on for long-haul HF and VHF communications. The more dense the ionosphere, the better the skip. Also with a denser ionosphere (and this is putting it very simply), the maximum frequency at which refraction or skip occurs goes up, sometimes reaching to 50 Megahertz (Mhz) and higher.

During May-June and again from Dec-Jan each year in the northern hemisphere, we usually have what are called "sporadic E" or Es openings during the daytime; in 2007 and 2008, there were several days when the Es openings lasted until well after dark! Keep in mind, this is during the solar MINIMUM. These E layer openings allow us to skip our signals approximately 800-1500 miles; occasionally, we can "double hop", that is, refract once off the ionosphere, once back up from the earth, and a second time off the ionosphere. Of course, double-hop Es will send our signals twice as far! By the way; the ionosphere is a complicated thing, like a layer cake; the E layer is typically 90-150km (50-100 miles, roughly) above the earth's surface.

 What's going to happen during solar MAXIMUM (currently, due in mid 2011-2012)? Well, we can expect MORE Es openings during the solstices; and something else: there is an ionospheric cloud ABOVE the E layer, that offers promise of even greater skip distances. The F layer actually consists of two layers, F1 and F2; these have different characteristics during the daytime but merge together at night. The F1 layer is about 125 miles up and the F2 layer is between 150 miles and 500 miles (the Shuttle sometimes orbits in the F2 layer!). The skip distances expected when the F layers "do their thing" are from 2,000 to 4,000 km or about 1200-2500 miles. Add to this the possibility of double or even triple-hop propagation, and you are talking around the world!

An additional benefit of all this promised solar activity is that the ionospheric layers also will be of higher "electron density" which means that radio wave refraction will be even more effective; so you will have world wide propagation and be able to enjoy it with low power and modest antennas!

So, the best is yet to come; the time to get our stations and antenna systems ready is NOW. I recommend that when buying an HF multimode rig, strongly consider one that at least also has 6 meters (50-54 Mhz). If you can find a good 100W rig for 2 meters also (144-148Mhz in the US), that is even better!

Antennas don't have to be the monster arrays that you sometimes see on the covers of popular ham radio publications; in order of preferance, it would be: An outside antenna; an outside antenna as high as possible; an outside GAIN type antenna (such as a Yagi beam or a quad), and an outside gain-type antenna as high as possible.

Don't forget to use some good quality coax; any good RG-8 will work fine for 10M and up; LMR-400 is a good choice for 2M operation up through the 450Mhz band.