[DX-NEWS] ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP47 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 16, 2012 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA Suddenly this week we see an exciting and dramatic rise in sunspot activity. The daily sunspot number was 188 on Monday, November 12, higher than it has been in over a year. The last time the daily sunspot number was as high was on November 9, 2011, when it was 208. Prior to last November, we have to go back nine years into the previous solar cycle, November 26, 2003, to find a number this large. Back then the daily sunspot number was 209. The average daily sunspot number from November 8-14 was 104.9, over twice the previous week's average of 49.7. Average daily solar flux was 129.5, more than 32 points above the previous week's average. A coronal mass ejection on November 13 caused a geomagnetic storm on November 13-14, which drove the planetary A index to 33 on November 14. Aurora was visible across the Northern United States. NASA estimates a 40% chance of M-class solar flares today, and if any come from sunspot group 1614, they would be Earth-directed. The NOAA/USAF prediction on November 15 shows solar flux at 145 on November 16-19, 140 on November 20-21, 135, 125 and 105 on November 22-24, 100 on November 25-26, 95 on November 27, and 90 on November 28 through December 1. Then they predict 95, 100 and 105 on December 2-4, 110 on December 5-7, and 115 on December 8-11 Predicted planetary A index is 8 on November 16-17, 5 on November 18 through December 4, 10 on December 5-8, 5 on December 9, 8 on December 10, and 5 on December 11-15. OK1HH from the Czech Republic expects quiet conditions November 16-18, quiet to unsettled November 19, quiet November 20, mostly quiet November 21, quiet to unsettled November 22, mostly quiet November 23-24, quiet November 25-26, quiet to unsettled November 27, active to disturbed November 28, mostly quiet November 29 through December 2, quiet to unsettled December 3, quiet to active December 4, and quiet December 5-8. Conditions should be good for this weekend's ARRL SSB Sweepstakes. This is a domestic contest which counts ARRL Sections as multipliers, and you can find details at http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes. Even if you aren't competing, it is fun to get on and just casually operate. If you do this toward the end of the contest, you will make some operators happy who are trying to squeeze out a few more points. Toward the end they have been at it for more than a day (the contest lasts 30 hours), while searching for new contacts they've heard the same calls over and over, and you joining in during the last few hours will generate fresh excitement. Max White, M0VNG of Worcester, UK calls our attention to an amateur astronomer in Bangladesh who runs a web page for monitoring Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances at http://radioastronomybd.com/onlinesid.html. Fortunately, I have not witnessed any SID events on this page. Check http://www.wunderground.com/blog/MAweatherboy1/comment.html?entrynum=53 for a frequently updated blog about space weather. Stu Phillips, K6TU has a fascinating and powerful new online tool that uses VOACAP, but automates the whole process and generates useful graphics. You can read a description of it at http://1vc.typepad.com/ethergeist/. VOACAP uses the predicted smoothed sunspot number for the month, and will generate the same prediction for the whole month. So there is no variation from day to day. With Stu's service you set up your location, select the month and year, decide if you want all HF bands or just the five bands contests use, select either a worldwide map or just North America, select typical antenna and transmit power configurations, and shortly you will receive an email with a link to PDF images for each hour for each band. It's fun to step through the hours and watch the propagation change. 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 is at http://arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive-propagation. Find more good information and tutorials on propagation at http://myplace.frontier.com/~k9la/. Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at http://arrl.org/propagation. Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins. Sunspot numbers for November 8 through 14 were 71, 65, 68, 106, 188, 108, and 128, with a mean of 104.9. 10.7 cm flux was 104.1, 115.1, 122.2, 133.3, 143.8, 146.2, and 142.1, with a mean of 129.5. Estimated planetary A indices
[DX-NEWS] ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP46 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 19, 2010 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA Five new sunspot groups appeared in the past nine days, and the average daily sunspot number for the November 11-17 period rose nearly 28 points from the week before to 60.9. Average daily solar flux was up nearly four points to 87.9. The current forecast from NOAA/USAF shows a planetary A index of 5 on every day through the end of November, and the predicted solar flux on November 19 at 86, 84 on November 20-24, 82 on November 25-26, and then 80 through the end of the month. Geophysical Institute Prague has a somewhat different outlook from NOAA/USAF. They see quiet geomagnetic conditions for November 19-20, quiet to unsettled November 21, unsettled November 22-23, and quiet again on November 24-25. Conditions should be good during the ARRL Phone Sweepstakes this weekend. Latest predictions show continued solar activity with low geomagnetic activity levels. Dean Straw, N6BV gave a presentation in October at Pacificon 2010 titled Seeing the HF Propagation Big Picture. The slides are available in a PDF file at http://tinyurl.com/2fgrnlm. Download the file, and be sure to click through pages 11-14 to see the predicted propagation shifting over time. Note that the images from the STEREO mission at http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov now show nearly the entire Sun. This weekend the project achieves 97% coverage of the Sun. Patrick Weatherford, AE5PW of Newport, Arkansas (about 70 miles WNW of Memphis) wrote to tell us of the fun he had on the air on Thursday. Running 100 watts from a ground-mounted vertical, from 2106-2156z on 20 meter SSB he worked PJ5/SP6IXF in St. Eustatius and Saba Island, VP2V/NY6X on 20 CW in the British Virgin Islands, PJ5/SP6EQZ on 15 meter CW, YV5AEA in Venezuela on 15 meter PSK31, J29WTA on 17 meter SSB in Dominica, YL2SW/MM near Nigeria on 17 meter CW, C5OC on 20 meter SSB in The Gambia, and KH2/N2NL on 17 meter CW in Guam. Following that, he worked both Central and South American stations on 20 meter PSK31. Conditions have been helped by the increased sunspot numbers. Jon Jones, N0JK in Wichita, Kansas wrote to tell us about sporadic E-skip on 6 meters on November 13. He worked K6JSV at 2028z on 50.125 MHz, from DM12 to EM18. There were reports of a number of beacons copied. N0LL/B in EL09ql was copied by WA5IYX in EM09ow, K7EK/B in DM43 was copied by AC7XP in CN87, and XE2K/B in DN17nt was copied by W7MEM in DM22. On November 14 Dave Sarault, N3XF experienced a great opening on 10 meters. He was operating WP2B in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Dave wrote, Today, November 14th I was operating from Brad's station and experienced the best 10 meter opening I can remember in several years. I ran a pile up from 2015z to 2125z with signals from W1 and W2 running 40 dB over S9 from stations running 100 watts into verticals and dipoles. Also I was able to work mobiles who were stepping over guys running big beams! It reminded me of 10 meters in the glory days a few cycles ago. The band changed quickly, and at 2100z I worked several W6s, but that lasted about 15 minutes and they were gone. Check out the interesting narrative about stealth operation at West Point by WP2B on his qrz.com page at http://www.qrz.com/db/wp2b. Next week for the Thanksgiving holiday this bulletin will be on a different schedule. Only the version of the bulletin linked from the http://www.arrl.org home page will go up on Friday, November 26. The bulletin won't be emailed to readers or transmitted from W1AW until Monday, November 29. 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 is at http://arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive-propagation. Find more good information and tutorials on propagation at http://mysite.ncnetwork.net/k9la/index.html. Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at http://arrl.org/propagation. Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins. Sunspot numbers for November 11 through 17 were 48, 68, 63, 69, 62, 55, and 61, with a mean of 60.9. 10.7 cm flux was 84.5, 85.4, 85.4, 86.4, 90.8, 91.8 and 91.2 with a mean of 87.9. Estimated planetary A indices were 15, 15, 8, 7, 7, 6 and 4 with a mean of 8.9. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 12, 9, 4, 5, 5, 4 and 3 with a mean of 6. /EX --- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list.
[DX-NEWS] ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP46 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 7, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA Sunspot 1007 is still there, but probably rotating off the visible solar disk today. This is the eighth sunspot of the new solar cycle -- and also the largest. We've been posting a three-month moving average of sunspot numbers most months, and now that October has passed, we can update the table of averages through the month of September. Last month the three-month average centered on August was computed by adding together all of the daily sunspot numbers for July, August and September (102) and dividing that sum by the total number of days for those three months (92). The average centered on August is then approximately 1.1. For September, we did the same thing, only this time summing all daily sunspot numbers for August, September and October (230), then dividing by the number of days, yielding exactly 2.5. Here are the three-month averages back through the Summer of 2006: Jun 06 28.9 Jul 06 23.3 Aug 06 23.5 Sep 06 21.2 Oct 06 24.1 Nov 06 23.1 Dec 06 27.3 Jan 07 22.7 Feb 07 18.5 Mar 07 11.2 Apr 07 12.2 May 07 15.8 Jun 07 18.7 Jul 07 15.4 Aug 07 10.2 Sep 07 5.4 Oct 07 3.0 Nov 07 6.9 Dec 07 8.1 Jan 08 8.5 Feb 08 8.4 Mar 08 8.4 Apr 08 8.9 May 08 5.0 Jun 08 3.7 Jul 08 2.0 Aug 08 1.1 Sep 08 2.5 For those who check the daily sunspot number from NOAA, the table at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt was unavailable Thursday evening. As an alternate, the quarterly table is online at, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DSD.txt. The quarterly geomagnetic indices can be found at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/quar_DGD.txt and you can see that the past few days have been very, very quiet. This is something we probably won't see after the solar cycle picks up, because solar flares and high speed solar wind are more common when the Sun is active. Note the numbers for the first week of November. There are many, many zeroes, which means less absorption and chance of ionospheric disruption. There are eight daily K index readings, then one A index for that day. If the K index is 0 for the whole day, then the A index is 0. If you saw K of 1 every three hours, then the A index would be 4, K index reading of 2 yields an A index of 7, K equal to 3 means A index of 15. K of 3 and A of 15 are very common during the active portion of the solar cycle. In the table, there are planetary numbers, which represents an average of readings from magnetometers in multiple locations, mainly at higher latitudes. The middle-latitude numbers are readings from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and the high latitude numbers are from College, Alaska, at the University of Alaska near Fairbanks. But perhaps by the time you read this, Friday, November 7 will have a geomagnetic storm. NOAA and the U.S. Air Force predict a planetary A index of 30 for November 7, then 15 the next day, 8 on Sunday, and 5 every day until November 25. On November 4, Australia's IPS Radio and Space Services issued an alert warning of a high speed solar wind from a coronal hole during the period of November 5-8. For November 7 it predicted unsettled conditions with isolated active periods, and mostly unsettled conditions November 8, with a chance of isolated active periods. Michael Treister, W9NY of Chicago says that during the recent CQ Worldwide SSB DX contest (October 25-26) he worked as many countries, zones and stations on 15 meters as he did on 20 meters. Michael said, Conditions were amazing. He wrote that on the morning of November 2 he, worked all over Europe with many reports that I was 5/9 plus 20 and 30 - just like the good old days. Worked two mobile stations in Greece (they were 5/5-5/7 and Q5) and one station in southern England running 10 watts to a dipole who was 5/5. He was so excited about the contact that he followed up with an e-mail to me! Most of the stations I worked were running 50 to 100 watts and were coming in on my TH7 beam 5/7 or better. This was really good propagation. Michael also said that he tried 10 and 12 meters, but got no response. He wrote, I have not heard signals like this on 15 meters for a couple of years. Last week Pat Dyer, WA5IYX of San Antonio, Texas wrote concerning the CQ Worldwide SSB DX Contest that using a 3 element Yagi at 20 feet he worked 10 meter stations, mostly in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Chile. He said, This is typical of the band at solar minimum where the F2 path is double-hop without an intermediate ground reflection (oft-called chordal or trapezoidal). The only things from northern South America noted here were HC8 and OA. There was a conspicuous lack of any Caribbean or Central Americans, though I'm sure that US stations further north (so with longer skip distances) probably had some. They also could
[DX-NEWS] ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP46 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 4, 2005 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA Conditions recovered from zero sunspots, which lasted for five days. Average sunspot numbers rose nearly 10 points to 17.6 this week. Average daily solar flux only rose 1.2 points to 75.4. October just ended, so let's look at monthly averages for sunspot numbers and solar flux to see if the trend is still down. Last month we looked at quarterly averages, but with monthly averages this time we'll see more volatility. The average daily sunspot numbers for the months September 2004 through October 2005 were 50, 77.9, 70.5, 34.7, 52, 45.4, 41, 41.5, 65.4, 59.8, 68.7, 65.6, 39.2 and 13. Average daily solar flux for the same months was 103, 106, 113.7, 95, 102.3, 97.2, 89.9, 85.9, 99.5, 93.7, 96.5, 92.4, 91.9 and 76.6. You can see that the numbers declined every month for the past four months, especially October, which was like dropping off a cliff. There has been some geomagnetic disturbance over the past couple of days, but conditions should settle down for the ARRL CW Sweepstakes this weekend. The predicted planetary A index for Friday through Monday, November 4-7 is 20, 20, 12 and 8. Sunspot numbers and solar flux should rise slightly, reaching a peak around November 6-8. If the planetary A index is 20 or higher this weekend it may cause some difficulty reaching those VE8 or KL7 multipliers in Sweepstakes, but don't count on any major flare activity. 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 27 through November 2 were 0, 0, 11, 14, 29, 33 and 36 with a mean of 17.6. 10.7 cm flux was 71.6, 73.1, 74.1, 75.6, 77.8, 77.3, and 78, with a mean of 75.4. Estimated planetary A indices were 6, 5, 2, 5, 13, 8 and 6 with a mean of 6.4. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 5, 4, 1, 3, 6, 7 and 5, with a mean of 4.4. /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] ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP46 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA November 12, 2004 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP046 ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA This was a wild week for propagation, fraught with radio blackouts, 6-meter auroral propagation, wild solar wind and severe geomagnetic storms. Looking at the numbers summarized at the end of each bulletin, this week's average daily planetary A index (indicating geomagnetic instability) was up by nearly 70 points to 77.6, and the mid-latitude A index increased over 36 points to 41.9. Average daily sunspot numbers and solar flux declined. Our reporting week, for the convenience of putting out this report prior to each weekend, runs from each Thursday through the following Wednesday. The prediction for the next few days is for continuing aurora displays and geomagnetic storms, but the storms should subside. The predicted planetary A index for today, November 12, is 100, followed by 30 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. Today's possible geomagnetic storm is predicted because of a coronal mass ejection blown into space on November 10. But this blast is not aimed at earth, so the effect is not as strong as it would be if the event were squarely in the middle of the solar disk. Predicted solar flux, which averaged under 130 this week, is expected to decline over the next few days and then rise again, with predicted flux values of 90, 85, 85, 90, 100 and 105 for November 12-17. Solar flux and associated sunspot numbers for the short term are expected to peak some time around November 23-24. A good web site to look at to see the rise of geomagnetic numbers over several latitudes is at, http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DGD.txt. This shows the previous month, so if you're looking at this in the future (perhaps on the archive on the http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/ web site), you'll only see the current conditions, not what we're seeing today. The numbers are quite dramatic, especially if you have a feel for the A index and K index that you hear on the hourly WWV broadcasts, and how they relate to what you are hearing on the air. Lots of mail came in concerning geomagnetic storms, which accompanied unstable and often unusable conditions on the HF bands, but produced interesting propagation and excitement on VHF. Jon Jones, N0JK, paraphrasing last week's bulletin, wrote that The VHF Community *is not* hoping 'it is more moderate than the current prediction.' Chip Margelli, K7JA wrote an interesting note concerning HF conditions at the end of the CW Sweepstakes followed by all the excitement on 6-meters. He said that some signals on 15-meters had a distinct aurora flutter, but others were completely flutter-free and quite loud. About 50 percent of the stations to the east of him (he is in Southern California) had an auroral characteristic. I'll let Chip tell the rest: About 0545z November 8th (late Sunday night in California), KH6SX reported on the 50 MHz Propagation Logger that he was hearing the K6FV beacon on 6-meters. I quickly rotated my beam in his direction, and with one call I had him in the log. His signal was full of rapid aurora flutter, which is astounding for a path to Hawaii! He goes on to say, The opening then moved westward, with W6YM, WA6KLK, KG6I, and others in the Northern California working him. It progressed to the Northwest, where N7EPD, KE7V, K7SS, and undoubtedly more logged him. Then further west to KL7FZ in BP51! And then JA2DDN and a host of other JAs were worked by KH6SX! Chip adds, From here in Southern California, the signal characteristics suggest some odd auroral-E to AU link. It's hard to imagine a normal E opening with such a wide distribution, and the westward progression suggests an enhancement ahead of the heliopause. But I think the book may need some re-writing on this one, and the exact mechanics are a bit of a mystery to me. I bet an inspection of the solar wind velocity plots after 0500z would make interesting reading. He continues, No easterly propagation was observed, to my knowledge, from Southern California prior to the KH6 event. If this really was an aurora event worked from Hawaii, this may be a first, and KH6SX is to be congratulated for being so on the ball! The 50 MHz Propagation Logger web page that Chip mentioned is at, http://www.dxworld.com/50prop.html. K7SS here in Seattle related moments of sheer joy on 6-meters. It was reported that in Connecticut, Dennis Motschenbacher, K7BV, bagged his fiftieth state on 50 MHz when he worked Kevin Forster, NL7Z in Wasilla, Alaska via aurora. Junji Saito, JA7SSB wrote that he was on 20 and 30 meters on November 8 around 1430-1500z (late evening in Japan) when the bands are usually closed for him, but he generated a big pileup of European stations. He noticed that the signals had deep fading and echoes. Carl Zelich, AA4MI sent in a useful link to a glossary of
