The Higher HF Bands Are Good Again.

 Now that we have more daylight in my area (55 deg. N), the propagation on the higher HF bands is improving again.
On top of this, the solar flux numbers have been above 100 for several weeks, with very few days below 100 SFU, I is now about 60 days ago we had no sunspots visible. Cycle 25 has started in earnest.

In my 5W challenge I have now had QSOs on the 10-12-15-17-20-40, and 80m bands.

Testing the SWR with my 5-band dipole showed that it is also useful  for a few more bands than the design frequencies - 10-15-20-40-80m. The dipole can operate on 4-6-12 and 17m. SWR is too high on 30 and 60m, and far too high on 160m. But not bad to be able to operate 9 bands on a 5-band antenna. This may change when I get the feed point higher up, as it is less than 4m above ground. I will have to improve the HF/MF antenna system, so I can include the remaining bands, and maybe try out the 630m band, or the 2200m band.

Last night I made what I refer to as a real CW QSO on 80m. F6BBQ with much more exchange than calls and report. Nice and moderate tempo, perfect for my modest CW capabilities. 

As it is right now, I am using the IC-705 for all the 5W QSOs. When I add an antenna for 30m (planned as a 1/4 wave ground plane), that should be usable on 10m (possibly with a tuner), 6m and 4m on thr 3rd, 5th and 7th harmonic. Not ideal, but probably slightly better than the performance of the low dipole on 10-6-4m, until I can get my 4-6m Moxon rectangle assembled and mounted.

The 30m vertical could be expanded to other bands with parallel (band) elements. This antenna would most likely be used with the IC-7300, with higher power on 4 and 6m, and likely set to 5W on the HF bands. Spring is allowed to begin, but I will probably have to wait another month here.