station Radio

Propagation and the shack

The bands and the weather are measured a few metres apart and behave nothing alike. Space weather comes from outside; everything on the rest of this site is measured here.

HF band conditions

calculated, day and night
BandDayNight
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These are modelled from the indices, not measured on air. They say what the ionosphere should support, which is a different claim from what you will actually hear — and the gap between the two is most of what makes the hobby interesting.

VHF and sporadic-E

the openings worth watching from here
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The European E-skip rows are the ones that matter at this latitude. A 6 m opening to the continent is the difference between a dead band and an afternoon of work.

Grey line

Terminator computed for this station’s clock · Tiles © Esri — Esri, HERE, Garmin, © OpenStreetMap contributors

Aurora tonight

prediction, not a sighting

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Planetary K index

7 days · geomagnetic disturbance

Kp below 3 is quiet. From about 5 it is a geomagnetic storm: HF paths over high latitudes degrade first, aurora becomes possible, and the higher bands close. A single current figure cannot show a storm arriving — the shape can.

Where this comes from

Solar indices and band conditions by N0NBH, hamqsl.com. Planetary K index from NOAA SWPC. Satellite element sets from CelesTrak, pulled by group every six hours — their own update rate — and propagated here rather than fetched per satellite. All free and unauthenticated, fetched on a schedule and cached here — so opening this page costs them nothing, however many people do it.