Band conditions can be evaluated quickly.

When I figured this out I was doing an activation and decided to take a bunch of screen shots to show what I am talking about.

The other day I was activating K-2169 and kept getting signal reports with people telling me there was QSB (that is band fading for those that are not familiar with CW shorthand terminology). A little later into the activation I went to the POTA spot page to check to see what my most recent signal strength report was and thought…self, what does the history look like for this activation?

Now you have to take these reports with a grain of salt as the reporting stations are all over the place, but the signal reports as still indicative of what is going on with the band from where I am to the areas these listening stations are in. It also shows that the signal was fading in and out pretty hard every few minutes which is why I would go for five minutes at times with no one calling me back. then I would work for or five in as many minutes. These little short band openings are all I got when running QRP… So to get these reports you will log into the POTA spots page and pick a station that is active and click the little symbol next to the re-spot button and it will pop up on the screen. Looking at the history a little will show if the band is strong or weak or that it is fading in and out and even what the interval of the fading is so you can kind of tell what will probably happen in the next few minutes. I think this is a valuable resource that a lot of people don’t even know is there.

I hope this helps someone on their ham radio journey. 72