What happened to the sun? When they were on the boat propagation was so much better. Here are “the numbers”:

Which is almost half of where they were at when ZL/ZS9HI/MM was on the air. Here is the sun:

In spite of this, quite a few with only rotatable dipoles on the West Coast have worked them on 30M and even 20M. The most amazing thing is that 30M stays open until their NOON! I love 30M – and would sure love it if it stayed open that long here in the SF Bay Area – hi hi . . . . I’d put up a 3  element yagi for sure.

Here is an interesting report from team member Peter, W6DEI, who worked them last night with 100 watts and a home brewed Moxon in Berkeley, CA:

Rich,

Dean’s chart [N6BV] for 20m propagation showed the best time for W6 would be between 0700 and 1200 UTC.  And at 1000 UTC propagation dies out for the mid-west and east coasts.  A look at a VOACAP coverage chart showed that only W6, XE, LU, and VK had any coverage at all (maybe a little for JA) on 20 meters at that time – so competition for us is at its lightest.  I was just praying that they would be pointing their beam our way (i.e., at Mawson Peak).  Indeed, there were very few stations calling them at 0730 when I got through.  W6 should have no problem when they’re at Spit Bay as long as one is willing to be up in the middle of the night!

73, Peter w6dei (on Cloud 9)

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73 – Rich, KY6R