That must be a really nice hobby @xplosive, and you're right, it's the randomness that makes life good, and often there are lessons to be learned from this randomness! Enjoy the new experiences across the airwaves :)
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It is. Especially the higher bands (above 10 MHz) has frequent surprises. For example sometimes you can talk to certain stations only for a few minutes, and then they disappear because of the changing propagation. The signal strength can often change rapidly. Sometimes you hear one station weakly in one minute, while you hear it strong in the other minute. Above 21 MHz the sunspots has a huge effect on the propagation. For example the 28 MHz is open for worldwide contacts during sunspot maximum, while it is seemingly empty during sunspot minimum. There is a 11-year sunspot cycle, so it is different in every year of a decade.