Quiet field, but busy higher HF

Rather oddly, despite very low geomagnetic activity over the past couple of days (Kp ~1 or less), the higher HF bands have been active to some extent.  I suppose one must wonder as to the cause, especially as signals I've seen on 12m have been very transient and weak Es-like.  The recent meteoric input from the Draconid shower may have something to do with it.

I've seen activity and made QSOs up to and including 10m this weekend.  But 15m has been especially good, with very early morning (~08:30UT) openings as far as Indonesia, even with simple wire antennas. 

12m has been reasonably busy, but as is often the case, seems to suffer from the 'band in-between' syndrome, where 15m and 10m are active, but 12m isn't very.  Even so, signals have been getting to South Africa and Latin America, albeit not very strongly on this band.

In the next year or so, we might see these openings become near-daily features of our radio days, as we climb into solar cycle 25.  But then, after a lot of hype and excitement last month about cycle 25 definitely being on the up - seemingly the product of three consequtive increases in spot numbers - the Sun had other ideas, with the sunspot count taking a nosedive!  Well, the trend is still, probably, upwards. But the timing of the drop in spot numbers was impeccable!