The bands have been interesting...

The bands have been interesting for me over the past few days. 

I've struggled to be heard anywhere on FT8 outside of VK using 40m.  I've faired marginally better on 15m, though the usual daytime traffic has dropped significantly these past couple of weeks.When there is traffic, I'm not getting quite as far as I was.

I started on WSPR yesterday, and found similar things. 15m was kind to me at the time, being heard in North America by a couple of stations, whilst running 2 & 5 watts, but otherwise it was closer to home with JA and ZL.

10m was quite bizarre - at the time I don't recall being heard past VK6, but looking back later at the maps, it seems I was picked up in the Hawaiian Islands. 

40m made it to VK6, VK5 and VK7.

Listening to an 80m net briefly last night that is attended by a number of non-VK3 members I found those who I could hear well a few weeks ago were difficult to hear. A couple of the locals were noisier than usual. I didn't hang around. My wife is eager to get through Game of Thrones and her wrath is the stuff of nightmares that even George R. R. Martin himself wouldn't be brave enough to write about. I may not need a lot of arm twisting to go watch it anyway.....

I'm not 100% convinced that the dipole is working quite right at the moment, though I can't see a fault. I did notice that it seems to be reasonably resonant on 40m now (and it should be), so that's about the easiest test I can come up with that it's probably OK.  I did run out and check it, and it everything seemed OK when I brought it down (something that is damned handy about using flag poles..).

Combination of the bands + whatever other issues I have here that I'm yet to resolve I guess. I did note during that period that the S-meter didn't even appear when the non-VK3s could faintly be heard. I could hear them marginally better on the G90 with the vertical, but with the expected increase in noise. 

40m goes through interesting phases - it'll all have the same sounding noise one end to the other, and next time I tune through, in the middle I'll find some VK2s having a chat reasonably clearly. 

I need more experience in order to get some kind of baseline of what to expect when. The changing nature of the results I get is one of my biggest frustrations - I make a change to improve something, but then other factors change resulting in that change having only been a brief improvement. My brain is used to a fair simpler process of identify problem, create solution, test solution, implement, problem gone. This is far more like identify problem, create solution, test solution, implement solution, marginal improvement of problem, rinse, repeat, marginal improvement, and so on then randomly an invisible change occurs throwing the baseline for improvement out the window. 

The bands have been interesting. I think it's a bit of a catchall for "I dunno what I'm doing", "I've broken something and I don't know it", "Maybe my radio is misbehaving", "My antennas are crap", "It worked last week, why doesn't it bloody work now", "Everyone's gone back to work so no one's actually using the bands" and some kind of Murphy inspired law that suggests a direct inverse relationship between needing to test a problem and there being anyone with a radio on anywhere with which to receive you while you do it.

Carry On Regardless. 

What else is there to do?