Although there is undoubtedly potentially good propagation throughout 
the year, summer DX is limited by several factors.

(1) The general level of propagation, which can be roughly estimated 
by the Dst figure, which is low at present. This is relevant even in 
winter of course. Losses are cumulative over each hop, so ithere is a 
worse effect over a longer path.

(2) The duration of darkness over the path, This is over a much 
greater period in the winter, so there are many more opportunities 
for a good path. This mutual darkness period is shorter for longer 
paths. 

(3) Background noise level. This is usually storm static which is 
much worse in the summer, and worse still at lower latitudes. 
Therefore this affects the path to the USA more than to Newfoundland.

The conclusion is that there are fewer opportunities to work multi-
hop distances in the summer, though it is not impossible. Note that 
the path to Iceland is a single hop, to Joe it is probably two, and 
to some US stations it may be more.

Mike, G3XDV

> Pity  nothing decoded  in the  US last night , but  signal 's in 1500
> /2000 mile  range where  quite  substantial ... from this , it seems 
> that propagation  on 136  is  really  linked to the seasons ? as  Gary
> , was using  a  small   35  ft  top loaded  vertical  and 300 or  so 
> watts  , for  the  first  TA decode  by Joe,  using the original OP8 
> mode
> 
> 73 -G..