‰ NOW 25 WPM ‰ TEXT IS FROM SEPTEMBER 2013 QST PAGE 80‰ INCOMING BUREAU AS A RESULT OF THE ARRL DX CONTEST ACTIVITY THIS YEAR. BACK TO THAT SUN, THOUGH. CONDITIONS WERE A BIT WORSE THAN THOSE IN 2004 BOTH FLUX AND THE A INDEX WERE A LITTLE HIGHER AND LAST YEAR FLUX WAS LOWER BUT THE A INDEX WAS HIGHER BUT NOT DRAMATICALLY. THIS SHOWS THE VALUE OF LARGE WORLDWIDE PROPAGATION EXPERIMENTS SUCH AS DX CONTESTS. WITH SO MANY STATIONS ACTIVE AND ON A WIDE RANGE OF BANDS, THE EFFECTS OF SOLAR AND GEOMAGNETIC PHENOMENA ON PROPAGATION ARE MUCH CLEARER THAN DURING DAY TO DAY OPERATION WHEN ACTIVITY IS MUCH SPARSER. THIS IS A GOOD REASON TO UPLOAD YOUR CONTEST LOG TO LOGBOOK OF THE WORLD WWW. ARRL. ORG/ LOTW AND DEEPEN OUR HAM RADIO DATABASE OF POINT TO POINT COMMUNICATIONS ON THE HAM BANDS. IT WAS DEFINITELY NOT ALL DOOM AND GLOOM, EVEN ON FRIDAY AS THE CORONAL PARTICLE STREAM COLLIDED WITH THE MAGNETOSPHERE. THE FIRST NIGHT OF A GEOMAGNETIC STORM PERIOD OFTEN EXHIBITS IMPROVED PROPAGATION ON THE ‰ END OF 25 WPM TEXT ‰ QST DE W1AW ƒ