[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP46 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 9, 2012 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA Again this week solar activity retreated. Average daily sunspot numbers declined 8.7 points to 49.7, and average daily solar flux was down nearly 20 points to 97.2. The latest forecast (from Thursday, November 8) shows solar flux at 105 and 110 on November 9-10, 115 on November 11-17, 110 on November 18-20, 105 and 100 on November 21-22, 105 on November 23-24, and 100 on November 25-26. Flux values then drop below 100 on November 27 through December 2. The planetary A index forecast predicts an A index of 5 on November 9, 7 on November 10-12, 5 on November 13-18, 8 on November 19, 5 on November 20 through December 4, and 10 on December 5-8. Currently the Sun is peppered with a few weak spots, but there have been 1-2 new sunspot groups every day starting on November 3. November 3 had one new spot, November 4 had two, then two more on November 5, one on November 6 and another on November 7, and two new ones on November 8. OK1HH has a new geomagnetic forecast from Prague, and he predicts quiet to unsettled conditions November 9, active to disturbed November 10, quiet to active November 11, quiet to unsettled November 12, quiet November 13, mostly quiet November 14-15, quiet again November 16-19, mostly quiet November 20, quiet November 21, mostly quiet November 22-23, quiet November 24-26, quiet to active November 27, active to disturbed November 28, quiet to unsettled November 29, and quiet on December 1. NASA tweaked their forecast for the smoothed sunspot number at the peak of Cycle 24 next Fall. On October 2 they predicted a sunspot number maximum of 75 in Fall 2013, and on November 2 they changed that to 73. Scott Wright, K0MD of Rochester, Minnesota shared some brief observations on conditions during the CQ World Wide DX SSB Contest (October 27-28, two weekends ago). He wrote, I did not find the band openings nearly as good this year as last year. Ten meters was very good but not as good as 2011. Propagation was down on 40 meters with lower country totals from the Midwest than I saw last year. 160 was not very good but no surprise there, given it is October. Check out Scott's station at http://www.k0md.com/. The next CQ World Wide DX contest is the CW weekend, November 24-25. See http://www.cqww.com/. A week from now is the Phone weekend for ARRL Sweepstakes, a domestic contest. See http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes. Scott noted the better propagation during the same contest last year. This year, the average daily sunspot number for the ten day period ending on Sunday, October 28, the last day of the contest, was 79.8. But for the same period last year, ending on Sunday, October 30, 2011 the average daily sunspot number was 111.6, quite a bit higher, by 40% in fact. Max White, M0VNG of Worcester, UK sent this article about a coronal hole and a disastrous solar wind back in January 1994: http://o.canada.com/2012/10/17/canadian-scientists-identify-suns-coronal-hole-as-culprit-in-1994-anik-satellite-failures/. We can check an archive of geomagnetic indices to get a sense of what the effect on Earth was: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/old_indices/1994_DGD.txt Note there are days in January of that year when readings from the magnetometer near Fairbanks, Alaska (the College A index) that have asterisks instead of numbers. This is what we see occasionally when the magnetometer is completely overloaded with energy, and cannot produce any sort of meaningful results. We can see there was a lot of geomagnetic activity that year. I would like to refer back to propagation forecast bulletins from January 1994, but unfortunately the online archive at http://arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive-propagation doesn't begin until January 1995. If anyone has copies of the propagation bulletin prior to 1995, please contact me. Perhaps you have an old hard drive from a personal computer used for packet radio twenty years ago? K9LA has some great propagation resources on his web site at http://myplace.frontier.com/~k9la/index.html. He has download links for free pdf copies of both NM7M propagation books, and a slide presentation showing an update on Cycle 24 that he presented in July. If you don't have Microsoft PowerPoint to watch the slides, you can download a free reader at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13. From two years ago, G0KYA has a downloadable pdf eBook titled Understanding LF and HF Propagation at http://g0kya.blogspot.com/2010/11/understanding-lf-and-hf-propagation.html. If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, k...@arrl.net. For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service web page at http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals. For an
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 11, 2011 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA Another sunspot number record for Cycle 24 was shattered on Wednesday, November 9 when the daily sunspot number reached 220. This is the highest the daily sunspot number has been in over eight years. The last time the sunspot number was higher than 220 was November 1, 2003 when the number was 277. The next day (November 10) the daily sunspot number dropped back to 164. Two days prior to the sunspot number reaching 277 in 2003, the sunspot number was 330, a much harder record to beat. Average daily sunspot numbers this week rose over 53 points compared to last week, to 153.4. Average daily solar flux rose nearly 39 points to 173.7. The latest prediction from NOAA/USAF has solar flux at 180 on November 11-12, 175 on November 13-14, 170 on November 15-17, and 160, 155, 145, 140, 135, 135 and 140 on November 18-24, and 145 on November 25-28. Planetary A index is predicted at 10, 20 and 15 on November 11-13, then 5 on November 14-25, and 7 on November 26-27. The A index of 20 predicted for November 12 seems to reflect a warning from IPS Radio and Space Services (in Australia) at 2330 UTC on November 9. It announced expected increased geomagnetic activity November 10-12, with quiet conditions November 10, unsettled to active with isolated minor storm levels on November 11, and quiet to unsettled with isolated active levels on November 12. Geophysical Institute Prague says look for quiet to unsettled conditions November 11, unsettled to active November 12, quiet to unsettled again on November 13, and quiet November 14-17. Much attention has been focused over the past few days on sunspot group 1339, which is now rotating through the region that has maximum effect on Earth, right around the center of the visible solar disk. National Geographic has an article about this at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/10-sunspots-ar1339-earth-jupiter-solar-flare-auroras-space-science/. If you like solar reports with dramatic music, check out a video on 1339 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31gF4YG72D4, and note that you can select a higher resolution and larger screen image. Pay no attention to much of the material that appears after this video about the Mayan calendar, mysterious invisible planets, UFOs, end-of-the world asteroids, etc. Sky and Telescope also features a piece on 1339 at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/Sunspot-Points-at-Earth-133471378.html. Check out the gallery of photos at http://www.solarham.com/gallery/index.php/2011-Photos/nov2_2011_1339. Sebastian Costa, W4AS of Cutler Bay (Miami area), Florida wrote about an interesting experience this week with very low power. He writes, On Tuesday November 9, 2011 at 0121 UTC, I was listening on 20 meters SSB. On my panoramic adapter, I saw a very strong signal. It was Jerry, P40GH in Aruba. His signal was often 30-40 dB over S9 on my Elecraft K3 and Force 12 C-3SS tri-bander. I decided to give him a call barefoot, and after a couple of tries, he came back to me, and we had a short QSO as he was running quite a pileup. I kept the rig on his frequency, and a few minutes later he asked if there were any QRP or mobile stations, I quickly brought the power down to 5 watts and called him. He said I was still S9+, and that he would listen as I dropped my power. With 2 watts output, he said I was about S7. Down to 1 watt I was still S7. So I thought, well what happens with 500 milliwatts? At that 'power' I received an S5 report. Finally, I went down to 100 milliwatts, and at that 'power' he said I could still be copied! It reminds me of years ago as a kid, I received a CB walkie-talkie for Christmas one year, and with the 100 milliwatts it had, I was excited to talk to my neighbor across the street. And now with the great conditions we have, that same amount of power (albeit with a much better antenna), can work well over 1,000 miles. Scott Woelm, WX0V of Fridley, Minnesota writes, When Bill, ND0B asked me for a 17m CW sked request (via the K3UK Sked Page), on 10/25/11, I laughed. Bill is in ND, I am in MN. Fat chance. I was wrong; Bill was solid! We had a nice aurora opening. Needing ND on multiple bands via QRP, Bill got me 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m. This was from 0121z through 0207z. That was fun! Scott mentioned the K3UK sked page, which you can find at http://www.obriensweb.com/sked/. If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, k...@arrl.net. For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service web page at http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals. For an explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin, see http://arrl.org/the-sun-the-earth-the-ionosphere. An archive of past propagation bulletins
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 12, 2010 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA Average daily sunspot numbers and solar flux increased over the past week, with sunspot numbers up 7.4 points to 33.1 and solar flux up 2.1 points to 84.2. Four new sunspot groups appeared since November 4. For some reason NOAA is currently showing a sunspot number of zero for Thursday, November 11, yet there are spots visible. In fact, the total sunspot area increased by 57% from November 10 to 11, and the sunspot number on November 10 was 55. On early Friday morning a peek at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt shows the zero sunspot number for yesterday, but perhaps by the time you read this, it will be corrected. The latest forecast shows predicted solar flux at 85 on November 12-13, 84 on November 14-15, and 83 on November 16-18. Predicted planetary index for November 12-21 is 10, 10, 8, 8, 7, 5, 5, 20, 15 and 10. Last year Steve Nichols, G0KYA wrote the bulletin for us on October 30, 2009, and he has just published a free online book with G3NYK. The title is Understanding LF and HF Propagation, and you can download it from Steve's blog at http://www.g0kya.blogspot.com/. Don Kalinowski, NJ2E sent a link to a blog on the Aviation Week and Space Technology web site about a new international initiative to work on space weather issues. You can read it at http://snipurl.com/1ftp42. In the article is a link to a series from NASA explaining space weather. See it at http://tinyurl.com/2ak5g9f. We got mail about ARRL CW Sweepstakes last weekend. Don Lynch, W4ZYT of Virginia Beach, Virginia wrote, We operated from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and did well on 15 through 80 meters. We did not operate 160, and found 10 meters so unproductive that we made no contacts there. 15 was surprisingly good during the day and more productive than I expected. I found all the bands were long - I was working west coast stations on 80 meters at 0600 UTC, and on 40, could easily work W6 and W7 and KH6 stations, but had trouble connecting with New England and Florida. Our group worked the VY1 as our first QSO and then missed the sweep because of Nebraska. Paul Mackanos, K2DB wrote, I started out on 40 and it was the best start we ever had at K2NNY. Band was great, we ran 40 then went to 80 and had the same conditions, GREAT, everything went well, super rates, etc, until daylight on Sunday, then everything seemed to die down. We could never get anything going on Sunday. Just limped along, maybe we worked everyone over night on 80! Jim Jordan, K4QPL wrote, I thought propagation was very 'normal' for the time of year, with 80M on the East Coast being better than average. This was my first time QRP so I was a bit more sensitive to 'softness' in prop. Really don't have time or memory to give a blow by blow hourly report. 80M- No weird going long as it sometimes does in winter and I heard happened earlier in the week. On the other hand, with the storms having moved out, QRN was low so weaker stations not masked in noise. QRP was good for the entire east coast and to the Rockies and I got several 'FB QRP SIG' comments. Antenna is an inverted V with apex at about 60'. Occasional QSOs with west coast but generally with the stations known to have good antennas and 'ears.' 40M- For some reason 40 is never my best band despite it being a 'money band' for others. It performed about at par with a bit more range into the west than 80 as the skip lengthened. But for sheer numbers, 80 still came in better for me. 20M also performed pretty much as expected. Good transcontinental prop to help me fill in western and Canadian mults and SP (search and pounce) the ones I couldn't work on 80. Went long enough to also get KH6 and KL7 mults. Hard to hold a run frequency there except way high in the band. 15M was surprisingly good and exhibited a lot of normal 20M characteristics. As I only have a tribander for 10-15-20 I sometimes put my second radio with a 40M dipole on 15 while running 20 and it seemed to do as well as the tribander if not better for SP. Maybe the higher angle was getting more refraction in target areas when the band was perhaps actually longer. 15 also did well as a primary band for a short time but didn't generate the same volume for me. Tried a couple runs with both antennas but didn't seem to support QRP very well. 10M- Never went there. Flipped the Orion II to 10 every now and then on Sunday afternoon and could tell from the display nothing was happening. Ted Saba, KN5O who operated W5RU wrote, From W5-land near New Orleans, we found 80M to be in great shape. In fact, we made nearly as many Qs on 80 as we did on 40M. (I use a 40M moxon at 86ft and a phased pair of 1/4-wave verticals on 80). 80 was good all over, very low QRN. We may have
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA October 31, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA K7RA is on the road for a few days, and this bulletin comes to you via a very weak Wi-Fi signal in Atlanta, Georgia. Cycle 24 slowly builds momentum. We saw sunspots for eight days in a row, from October 10-17, then twelve days of no spots. Now on October 30 another sunspot appeared, numbered 1007 and from cycle 24. It is a high latitude sunspot, and may provide some fun for this weekend's ARRL CW Sweepstakes. After a calendar year of very few sunspots, this is the fourth time during October that sunspots have emerged, and all from the new solar cycle 24. Of course Sweepstakes is a domestic North American contest, but it would be nice to have some propagation on 15 and 10 meters. For a comparison, we look at W6ELprop (http://www.qsl.net/w6elprop/) to compare zero sunspots over this weekend to several days of two sunspot groups (a sunspot number of 24, for example). We will look at two paths, the first from Beaverton, Oregon to Savannah, Georgia, and the second, from Cleveland, Ohio to Central California. Because this is a contest weekend, we will only consider the five bands used in most contests, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 meters. From Oregon to Georgia, with zero sunspots we see little or no likely 10 or 15 meter propagation. 20 meters looks good from 1700-2030z. 40 meter propagation is best from 2230-0130z, fair from 0900-1100z, signals may disappear around 1330-1430z, and there is propagation building throughout the day from 1500-0130z, with the weakest daylight signals around 1730-1900z. 80 meters looks strong 0200-1130z, from after sunset in Oregon until prior to sunrise in Georgia. With a sunspot number of 24 for several days, 15 meters has a possible opening 1830-1930z, 20 meters 1600-2200z, and 40 meters looks good 2200-0430z, then with excellent signals 0800-1300z, and weakest 1630-2000z. 80 meter propagation should be about the same as with no sunspots. From Ohio to California, with zero sunspots 15 meters might open 1600-2130z, with a better chance 1730-1930z. 20 meters should be good 1430-1500z, then 1700-2000z, and 2200-2330z. 40 meters should be open nearly around the clock, with weak signals around 1300z, strongest signals 0100-1230z, and strong again at 1400z and again at 2300z. 80 meters should open after 2200z, with strongest signals 0300-1200z, and weak or no signals during daylight from 1500-2200z. With a sunspot number of 24 sustained for several days, from Ohio to California 15 meters comes alive with excellent signals for most of the day, 1630-2130z. 20 meters opens 1400-0030z with weak spots at 1530z and 2100z. 40 meters should be open 24 hours a day, with strongest signals 0100-1230z, then again around 1400z and 2300z, weakest 1700-2000z. 80 meters looks about the same, but opening slightly later than with zero sunspots. Propagation programs give us some general guides to openings, based on statistical models using smoothed sunspot numbers. G3REP, Bob Parkes of West Sussex UK, sends along an interesting link (http://terra1.spacenvironment.net/~ionops/ES4Dintro.html) about visualizing the ionosphere, a subject not mentioned in this bulletin for some time. This bulletin first covered the subject earlier this year on May 2 in ARLP019, which you can find in the archive at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/. Bob is now semi-retired, but his telecom engineering work over the past few decades has taken him all over the world. In 1979-1981 he was VS5RP in Brunei, P29PR in Papua New Guinea in 1983-1987, A45XF in Oman from 1992 to 1993, and 4S7RPG in Sri Lanka, 1993-1997. You can read his bio and find a link to his photo at http://www.qrz.com/g3rep. Joaquin Montoya, EA2CCG wrote this week about conditions last Friday, October 24. He turned on his mobile rig to check conditions before the CQ World Wide DX contest, and found everything dead in the dead of night. Conditions were also poor through the weekend from his location in Spain. But on October 29, perhaps around the time our new sunspot 1004 appeared, he worked WH2P (Guam) on 15 meters. He didn't say what time that was, but I might wager that it was during his morning hours from 0700-1100z, perhaps around 0900z. Joaquin has a very interesting blog at http://ea2ccg.blogspot.com/ which I found along with his photo at http://www.qrz.com/ea2ccg by clicking on ''Detailed info''. Many of us in the U.S. (myself included) unfortunately only speak one language, English, and sometimes not that well. But I used the language tool at http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en and pasted the http://ea2ccg.blogspot.com URL into the http:// field under ''Translate a web page''. Although the translation is rough, sometimes laughable, considering that a mere AI machine did this the result
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 3, 2006 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA Sunspot numbers rose over the past few days. Though the average sunspot number for the past reporting week (Thursday through Wednesday) was about the same as the previous week, the emergence of sunspots 921 and 922 brought the daily sunspot number over October 29 through November 2 to 0, 15, 34, 46 and 59. This number will probably rise through the weekend. The increased sunspot numbers may correlate with some activity observed for the past few days on the higher bands. A glance at http://dx.dxers.info/ on Thursday evening shows that during the day, Asian Far East stations on 10 and 12 meters were hearing and working the XF4DL expedition on Socorro Island (this is in the Pacific Ocean, roughly 300 miles south of Baja California on roughly the same latitude as Mexico City). Also apparent on 10 and 12 meters is E51QMA in the North Cook Islands heard and worked by North American stations. Helioseismology detects (see http://spaceweather.com/glossary/farside.html) a new spot emerging on the far side of our Sun which should rotate to face us in a few days, around November 7. Why this, when we might be only months away from sunspot minimum, predicted to occur some time around April 2007 (see http://sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/weekly/Predict.txt)? Attribute it to the many large short term variations we see in solar activity during any cycle. October is over, and we now know the average sunspot number for the month (14.7) and the average solar flux (74.3). Here are the monthly averages for the past thirteen months: The average daily sunspot numbers for the months October 2005 through October 2006 were 13, 32.2, 62.6, 26.7, 5.3, 21.3, 55.2, 39.6, 24.4 , 22.6, 22.8, 25.2 and 14.7. Average daily solar flux for the same months was 76.6, 86.3, 90.8, 83.4, 76.5, 75.5, 88.9, 80.9, 76.5, 75.8, 79, 77.8 and 74.3. We can compare the recent monthly sunspot averages to the averages during the last solar minimum in 1996. The monthly average sunspot numbers for January 1996 through April 1997 were 18, 9.1, 12.1, 8.5, 11.9, 18.8, 13.2, 20.7, 2.9, 2.3, 25.6, 15.1, 8.7, 11.4, 13.7, and 24.5. We see the lowest numbers were in September-October 1996, and six months prior to that, the numbers weren't far off from what we've seen for the past three months, 22.8, 25.2 and 14.7. Last week was the phone weekend of the CQ World Wide DX Contest. Geomagnetic conditions were a bit unsettled. This weekend is the CW weekend for ARRL Sweepstakes, and conditions should remain quiet through the weekend, with increased sunspot numbers. Many contesters would rather see those conditions on a DX contest weekend, but we can't complain. The predicted planetary A index (lower numbers indicate more stable geomagnetic conditions), for November 3-9 are 8, 8, 5, 5, 5, 5 and 20. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts unsettled conditions for November 3, quiet to unsettled November 4, quiet conditions November 5-7, quiet to unsettled November 8, and unsettled to active November 9. Larry Godel, W0OGH in Gilbert, Arizona reports that he experienced good 10 meter FM openings last weekend to California and Texas. He was able to work through the W5DFW repeater and another near Yosemite in California with full-quieting signals. He comments that on Sunday morning, on the 40 meter AM net, local stations (those within 100 miles) were strong as 20db over S9. Within 5 minutes they were gone and within half an hour they were all back, strong as ever. Conditions stayed that way for several hours thereafter. Finally, I don't know if this fellow in Quebec is a ham operator, but he should be. This illustrates a personal fantasy I had as an 11 year old. Problem was, it was 1963, and we didn't have the technology yet. Take a look at these videos at, http://tinyurl.com/n7agv and http://tinyurl.com/ms6t2. If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service at, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html. For a detailed explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/k9la-prop.html . An archive of past propagation bulletins is at, http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/. Sunspot numbers for October 26 through November 1 were 0, 2 14, 28, 0, 15, 34 and 46 with a mean of 19.9. 10.7 cm flux was 71.9, 72, 74.7 , 73.3, 75.7, 80.1, and 86.7, with a mean of 76.3. Estimated planetary A indices were 1, 2, 14, 21, 9, 4 and 6 with a mean of 8.1. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 1, 3, 12, 13, 6, 2 and 5, with a mean of 6. /EX -- Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news@njdxa.org THE DXR is sponsored by the
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA October 28, 2005 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA No sunspots. The average daily sunspot number from the previous reporting week to the current dropped six points to 7.7. There have been no visible sunspots over four days so far, October 24-27. Don't expect an improvement for the CQ Worldwide DX SSB Contest this weekend. Thankfully geomagnetic conditions are stable, and the longer nights as we head toward winter solstice are good for 160, 80 and 60 meter operation. Solar flux should remain around 70 over the next few days, rising to 80 around November 4. The predicted planetary A index over the weekend, October 28-31 is 15, 12, 8, and 5. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts unsettled conditions for today, October 28, unsettled to active conditions for Saturday October 29, and unsettled conditions for Sunday October 30. The week of the CQ Worldwide DX SSB contest last year had an average sunspot number of 139, 201.4 for 2003, 150.9 for 2002, 222.7 for 2001, 148.7 in 2000 and 160.4 in 1999. The average of 7.7 for the past week is far below any of these. I've received a few reports of VHF openings. Scott Avery, WA6LIE reported an October 20 6-meter opening from east coast to west coast around 0100-0300z. It then shifted to single hop north-south between Washington/British Columbia and California. For the same day, Jon Jones, N0JK reported from Kansas that 6-meters was open from about 2315 to after 0400z. He worked or heard stations or beacons from VE2, VE4, MN, SD, ID, UT, WY and CA. Jon commented that E layer openings are uncommon in October, and these double-hop E layer communications between east and west coasts are very rare. At 0122z, WA6RPD in CM97 and KB6NAN in CM87 worked WZ1V in FN31. On October 9 Steve Carpenter, KG4LDD near Knoxville, Tennessee was listening to the Gatlinburg 2-meter repeater on 146.850 MHz and heard KB5LTB in West Monroe Louisiana. They talked, and while the Louisiana station was scratchy, he was also quite readable. On October 17 through the same repeater he worked N9VX in Connersville, Indiana, who was full-quieting into the machine. If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at, [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more information concerning radio propagation and an explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see the ARRL Technical Information Service propagation page at, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html. An archive of past bulletins is found at, http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/. Sunspot numbers for October 20 through 26 were 15, 15, 13, 11, 0, 0 and 0 with a mean of 7.7. 10.7 cm flux was 76.7, 75.3, 74.7, 74.2, 73.4, 73, and 72, with a mean of 74.2. Estimated planetary A indices were 3, 2, 6, 2, 4, 19 and 8 with a mean of 6.3. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 2, 1, 7, 2, 3, 17 and 8, with a mean of 5.7. /EX -- Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news@njdxa.org THE DXR is sponsored by the North Jersey DX Association. Please visit our website: http://www.njdxa.org/index.php scroll to bottom for subscribe/unsubscribe options --
[DX-NEWS] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 5, 2004 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA The quiet geomagnetic conditions and big sunspots of last week couldn't last forever, and unfortunately there was some geomagnetic upset on Saturday, October 30, the first day of the CQ World Wide DX Phone weekend. Conditions weren't terrible, although higher latitude and polar paths were more difficult. A huge sunspot (693) emerged the day before the contest, October 29, and it moved into position for greatest effect on earth around November 2-3. Another sunspot (696) is moving into prime earth-facing position over the next day or two. A coronal mass ejection from sunspot 696 blasted into space on November 4, and the energy from that event is expected to hit us late November 5 or on November 6. The predicted planetary A index for November 5-8 is 15, 30, 25 and 15. The predicted solar flux for those same days is around 140. This is a little higher than it has been over the past week. This week average daily sunspot numbers dropped a little less than two points to 139. Average daily solar flux rose four points to 134.6. This weekend is the ARRL Sweepstakes CW Contest. With active geomagnetic conditions predicted for Saturday, it could be a bit rough. High latitude and polar paths are affected most. Since this isn't a DX contest, propagation over the poles isn't much concern, but working VE8 and KL7 multipliers could be a bit rough. We hope it is more moderate than the current prediction, but the prediction is for higher A and K indices than last weekend. Now that October has passed, we can calculate and compare monthly averages of daily sunspot numbers and solar flux, perhaps to see some trends. Although both measures were up slightly in October, this solar cycle continues to decline. The monthly average of daily sunspot numbers, October 2003 through October 2004 were 118.9, 103, 75.7, 62.3, 75.6, 81, 59.3, 77.3, 77, 87.8, 69.6, 50 and 77.9. The monthly averages of daily solar flux for the same period were 155.5, 140.8, 116.1, 114.1, 107, 112.1, 101.2, 99.8, 97.4, 119.8, 110, 103 and 106. If you would like to comment or have a tip, email the author at, [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more information concerning propagation and an explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see the ARRL Technical Information Service propagation page at, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html. Sunspot numbers for October 28 through November 3 were 150, 130, 153, 163, 144, 110 and 123 with a mean of 139. 10.7 cm flux was 133.4, 128.8, 136.4, 139.2, 135.5, 133.1 and 135.9, with a mean of 134.6. Estimated planetary A indices were 3, 7, 17, 10, 5, 4 and 10, with a mean of 8. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 2, 6, 10, 7, 4, 2 and 7, with a mean of 5.4. /EX -- Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --
[DX-News] ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP45 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 7, 2003 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP045 ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA The opening line to last week's propagation bulletin read, ''Solar excitement continued this week''. Last week's events caused excitement, but this week was positively historic. The largest explosion ever recorded in our solar system occurred Tuesday, November 4 when an X28 class flare exploded from sunspot 486. See data for this on http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/, from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. The flare erupted as the giant sunspot 486 was about to rotate from the visible disk. This means the blast wasn't aimed at earth, but was in a great position for taking images. The eruption saturated X-ray detectors on NOAA's GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, see http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ), and was so strong that the X28 measurement had to be estimated, as did the solar flux for November 4. The solar flux for that day (taken from the daily 2000 UTC reading) was measured at the observatory in British Columbia at 560.9, which is way off the scale. It was adjusted downward to an estimated 168 by NOAA's Space Environment Center. The flare saturated observing satellites for about 13 minutes during the peak of the event, according to Christopher Balch of NOAA SEC, who spoke with Tomas Hood, NW7US (Tomas' web site is http://prop.hfradio.org/ ). The measurements stopped at X17.4. The level of the flare was estimated by analyzing data from HESSI, the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (see http://hessi.ssl.berkeley.edu/ ). An explanation of the X classes for rating solar flares is at http://spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html. Also, see http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/sftheory/flare.htm. The last time a huge flare saturated X-ray detectors was in April, 2001, and that one was X-20, the biggest recorded at that time. Keep in mind that there aren't any accurate records of flare intensity before about 30 years ago. Roger Bonuchi, WB9JXE of Plainfield, Illinois wrote to say that his astronomy calendar for November 5 noted that on that day in 2001 there was a ''huge red aurora visible for hours over North America''. Looking back to our bulletin that covered that time at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/2001-arlp046.html we see that indeed there was a large geomagnetic storm. The bulletin reported that frightened Midwest residents, unfamiliar with aurora borealis, called 9-1-1 to report a ''nuclear death cloud''. Roger also said he picked up the N9RET CW beacon, which runs 2 watts on 28.2335 MHz. He found it odd that N9RET is about 25-30 miles from him and he was copying it for the first time at around S6. He called Tim Lanners, N9RET who told him he rarely gets reports from Illinois. Tim is in Broadview, Illinois in the Chicagoland area. This bulletin is running late past deadline on Friday, so it is time to end it. Today the solar disk is completely blank with no visible spots. Mark Downing, WM7D of Reno, reported another notable event. He wrote that 298.3 was a new solar flux high for cycle 23. The previous high was 282.6 set on September 26, 2001. The Japan International DX Phone Contest is this weekend, as well as the Worked All Europe DX RTTY Contest. We can hope for lower geomagnetic activity, and the planetary A index for Saturday through Wednesday, November 12 is predicted at 15, 15, 20, 30 and 35. Sunspot numbers and solar flux are way down, and the predicted solar flux for the same days is 90, 90, 95, 100 and 115. For more information about propagation and an explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see the Propagation page on the ARRL Web site at http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html. Sunspot numbers for October 30 through November 5 were 293, 266, 277, 174, 76, 79 and 32, with a mean of 171. 10.7 cm flux was 271.4, 248.9, 210.4, 190.4, 166.9, 168 and 114, with a mean of 195.7. Estimated planetary A indices were 162, 93, 21, 18, 10, 31 and 9, with a mean of 49.1. /EX -- Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems, etc DX-NEWS http://njdxa.org/dx-news DX-CHAT: http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX NEWS items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news%40njdxa.org --
