This past week end we got the clear sign that Cycle 25 has arrived.
Saturday we had the first X-class solar flare of the cycle. The X-class flares are the strongest category of solar flares, and if they are located near the centre of the solar disk, they can create strong auroras and other disruption in HF propagation.
This flare was near the edge of the disk, and will not produce auroras. Id did, however create a sudden ionospheric disturbance (SID), in essence a short wave radio black-out in the day time zone of the planet.
This time the timing created the black-out in trans-Atlantic propagation.
While the cycle has let us wait quite a while, I think that this autumn/fall we will see the higher HF bands (10 - 20m) wake up and become very good.
With the advent of weak signal modes I think that world wide openings will be quite common on the 10m band, and CW QSOs will certainly be there some of the time.
According to predictions the maximum should arrive in about 3 - 4 years, so I am looking forward to better days for HF propagation on the higher bands.
Who knows, with weak signal modes like FT8, we may see openings appear in the 6m band during the maximum.
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