Hi Alan - if I see anything above Kp=2 to 3 I consider going back to stamp collecting for a number of days...no I serious ness I dont know why its been so bad save a continuing topping up due to Coronal holes and the additional geo effective blast keeping up losses on the  Transpolar double or long length paths within the Auroral Oval . I just take a look at the Proton count and though IPS gives absorbtion levels of 0.1dB I think this is way different for freqs and paths we are looking at here.
 
 If in doubt blame HAARP just up my road here :-)  (everyone else does)
 
The Delta losses on DCF39 are huge between best and worst, Im sure Ive seen over 55dBs or more at times even in Winter night and not just for multi path cancellations in what in reality is a long but not huge path length. Im struggling to get a signal out of here and just managing West coast VE/W with occasional rare weak qrss sigs into JA -
 
Now topo/ground losses may have something to do with it as these mountains are high and close in to the West thru North to South East, but ZL/VK have historically been good from near here. Just more to it up here...
 
I really need a couple of calm days to work on extending the loop a bit but we are plagued with Katabatics kicking up to 80mph and -20C making it a tadge "fresh" as Mr Fiennes would put it.
 
Laurence KL 1 X Alaska