Last night Alaska opened up again. KICY coming in loud and clear around midnight PDT: Heard Nightsounds before the hour, followed by the now very familiar nightly "we turn our signal into Russia" message. KICY is a regular now, so I have no clue why I never heard them before this month. Time of the year? Midnight sun? Maybe I just never got lucky and now I check nightly.
One clue about what Alaskan propagation might do is the aviation weather forecast from Level Island on 529 AM voice. I've only once heard it for more than a few sentences of intelligibility but even when I can hear a murmur it's a sign that conditions are unusual. One can also hear the "SQM" morse code ID it transmits.
Last night's nice catch was the navigation beacon "ICW" on 525 AM from Nenana, Alaska. Supposedly this transmits with only 25 Watts. Ponder that for a second: From the frustration of trying to hear multi-kilowatt stations in the crowded jumble of the broadcast band to stumbling across a tiny beacon just outside the band where things are quiet, and it's located 2200 km away. That's amazing.
Right now I'm hearing intelligible voice from SQM but nothing from ICW. It faded in and out yesterday so it could still pay a visit. The recent good spell isn't over yet!