[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 18, 2013 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA Solar activity pulled back over the past week, following a stellar performance in the week prior. Average daily sunspot numbers were down 34.3 points to 129, but average daily solar flux actually rose 9.7 points to 157.4. This was because solar flux values seemed to lag behind last week's activity, raising this week's average in the first few days of the current week. The current prediction is for solar flux at 125 on January 18-20, 120 on January 21-22, 115 on January 23-24, 130 on January 25, 135 on January 26-28, 130 and 135 on January 29-30, 140 on January 31 through February 1, 150 on February 2, 155 on February 3-4, 150 on February 5-11, then 145, 140, 135, 140 and 145 on February 12-16. The predicted planetary A index is 10, 15 and 18 on January 18-20, 8 on January 21-22, 5 on January 23 through February 4, 8 on February 5, 5 on February 6-8, 8 on February 9-10, and 5 on February 11 through the beginning of March. The most active geomagnetic day was January 13, but only in relation to very, very quiet recent conditions. The mid-latitude A index was 10, and the K index only reached 4 in one three-hour period. The college A index (from Fairbanks, Alaska) was 11 and 12 on January 13-14, with the K index reaching 4 in two 3-hour periods on February 13 and 5 in one 3-hour period on February 14. The reading before that K index of 5 had a K index of 0. There is a possibility of aurora on Sunday, January 20. NOAA reports the geomagnetic field is expected to be at minor storm levels today (January 18), active levels on January 19, and minor storm levels again on January 20. A strong solar wind on January 17 was from the waning effects of a CME (coronal mass ejection) on January 13. On January 19 solar wind may rise again as the result of a coronal hole rotating into geo-effective position. A January 16 CME could cause a rise in geomagnetic activity on January 20. Effects should decrease into background levels by mid-day (UTC) on January 20. The Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a warning at 2335Z on January 17 about increased geomagnetic activity January 19-20 due to a CME. For January 19 they predict quiet to unsettled conditions, but with active to minor storm periods after 1200Z. For January 20 they predict unsettled to active conditions, with minor storm levels possible. OK1HH predicts geomagnetic activity will be quiet on January 18-19, mostly quiet on January 20-21, quiet to unsettled January 22-23, mostly quiet January 24-26, quiet January 27 through February 1, mostly quiet February 2-3, quiet to active February 4-5, quiet February 6-7, quiet to unsettled February 8-9, active to disturbed February 10-11. Jon Utley, K7CO reports that on January 11 he was in the state of New York, and using a 5 element monoband Yagi at 100 feet he worked XV1X at 1334Z and XW4XR at 1600Z on 10 meter CW long path. Also on January 11, Jeff Hartley, N8II in West Virginia reported, I have operated every evening this week with poorer than expected results. Before Thursday January 10, 12 and 10 meters were closed here very shortly after sunset to all areas. A45XR was S9 on 10 meter long path Sunday morning January 6, but the band was never open well to Europe unless I rechecked it a bit late. VR2XMT was about S5-7 on 12 meter SSB long path as well Sunday. All of the higher bands still seem to close pretty early including 20 meters both west and north by 0200Z, but I expect by today things are better. On 10 meters Thursday, KH6 was heard until past 2250Z and there were west coast and South American stations on 10 until around 2230Z. I have been looking for Asia long path QSOs on 20 and 30 meters without much luck, but did manage to catch UK8OM on 30 meters short path around 0100Z. Rick Radke, W9WS of Balsam Lake, Wisconsin wrote: Just wanted to share an experience I had on Wednesday January 9. I was checking the bands for DX. As usual, I start on 10 and work on down to 20 to see what's open. Nothing was 'happening,' in fact there were very few signals at all. So I went to 40 just looking for a ragchew and out of nowhere there was ER4DX calling CQ with a big signal. We exchanged 59 reports and went our ways. This was 1400 local (2000Z) on a sunny afternoon in northern Wisconsin, a good three hours before grayline on this end. In almost 50 years of hamming I've never seen 5K+ miles of 40 meter propagation mid-day. Nothing special here, running 1 kW to a vertical with a bunch of radials. That is an interesting time to work Moldova. ER4DX is Vasily Romanyuk, and just doing an internet search with his callsign yields some clues that he operates a pretty serious big gun station. For instance, using a popular search engine to search that callsign, then hitting the Images option
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 20, 2012 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA New sunspot groups appeared on every day over the past reporting week (January 12-18), until yesterday, January 19 which had no new spots. On January 12, new sunspot group 1396 appeared, and the next day two more - 1397 and 1398 - popped into view. On January 14 four new sunspot groups appeared: 1399, 1400, 1401 and 1402. January 15 saw group 1391 vanish and new group 1403 emerge. Two more appeared January 16 - 1404 and 1405 - while 1397 vanished. On January 17, 1406 appeared and 1395 disappeared while 1407 emerged on January 18. Average daily sunspot numbers rose this week from 90.6 to 116.9, or 29%. But solar flux was about the same, changing from 134.9 to 133.4. The latest prediction from USAF/NOAA has a solar flux of 150 on January 20-21, 155 on January 22, 160 on January 23-27, 140 on January 28-29, and 135 on January 30 through February 6. We are still looking for a solar flux peak of 165 on February 17-21. The predicted flux values of 160 on January 23-27 are markedly higher than the 145 predicted last week for the same dates. Predicted planetary A index is 6, 10, 8, 10 and 8 on January 20-24 and 5 on January 25 through February 1, 6 on February 2-4, and 5 on February 5-8. Roger Larson, KF6IVA of Harrison, Maine wrote and referred to errors in the solar article in The Atlantic which was linked from last week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP002. I think perhaps he is referring to the article's statement that Hydrogen, the lightest element and the Sun's primary constituent, fuses to become Helium, releasing energy. Roger wrote: The Sun converts 600 million tons of hydrogen to 596 million tons of helium every second. The missing 4 million tons of matter are converted to energy by E = mc sq. The Sun is approximately 4.6 billion years old and will live another 4.6 billion years as a yellow main sequence star. The Sun has become about 30% more luminous since it began burning hydrogen (the faint Sun paradox). Earth's early atmosphere had more greenhouse gases which allowed the surface temperature to be warm enough for life to form. It is also thought that in 100 million years or so the Sun will become more luminous and may cause Earth's temperature to become too hot to support life. Currently the green house gases raise the surface temperature about 60 degrees F. In 4.6 billion years the core of the Sun will run out of hydrogen, the Sun will begin to swell and the helium in the core will fuse to carbon and oxygen. The Sun may swallow the Earth in its giant phase which will last about 1 billion years. The Sun will never go supernova (it does not have enough mass) nor will it be able to burn carbon or oxygen. It will puff off its outer envelope and become a white dwarf. We mentioned Belgian website http://www.spaceweatherlive.com in Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP003 on January 22, 2010. If you click on the Solar Activity link toward the top and select Sunspot Regions from the drop-down, it takes you to http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity. When I see this early Friday morning (1145 UTC) it lists seven regions (sunspot groups) in the table and gives the number of sunspots in each. You may recall from past bulletins that the daily sunspot number is calculated by multiplying the number of regions by ten, then adding one for each sunspot. As there are 7 regions and 47 spots, the sunspot number would be 70 plus 47, or 117. When I look at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/DSD.txt I see that the sunspot number for January 19 is 117. If you click on the image of the Sun to the left of the table, it takes you to http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/solar-activity/sunspot-regions. Here are details and recent images for each sunspot group. You can also see details on these at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/SRS.html. Note the daily reports are shown with the date for the following day. So the January 19 report was issued in the early part of January 20, so it gets a January 20 date. Note the Space Weather Live site offers an email aurora alert at http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/aurora-alertmail. On Wednesday, Science Daily published a brief article on the Solar Dynamics Observatory at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120118203110.htm. Charlie Carroll, K1XX of Grant, Florida (on Florida's East Coast, about 70 miles southeast of Orlando) notes that the ARRL CW DX Contest is February 18-19, right in the midst of that period (February 17-21) in which NOAA predicts solar flux values of 165. See http://www.arrl.org/arrl-dx for details on the contest. He is looking forward to operating PJ4X in Bonaire for the contest, so he is watching this prediction closely. Jon Jones, N0JK wonders if a solar flux value of 165 in February
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 21, 2011 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA Average daily sunspot numbers dropped from 50 on the reporting week ending January 5, to 38 on January 6-12, and now 21.3 on January 13-19. Average weekly solar flux over the same three periods dropped from 89.5 to 83.8 to 80.4 over this past week. The latest solar flux prediction shows a value of 82 for January 21-27 and 88 on January 28-30, followed by 87, 85, 85, 84 and 84 on January 31 through February 4. Geomagnetic predictions have the planetary A index at 5 over the next couple of weeks, except for a value of 7 on January 22 and February 2-4. Geophysical Institute Prague expects quiet conditions on January 21, quiet to unsettled January 22, and quiet January 23-27. Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA, has a propagation column in WorldRadio Online for February 2011 titled Using Antenna Height As An Aid to Propagation. Of course, the higher the better, right? But Carl calculates the propagation modes over a particular path at a particular date and time, and shows how the antenna radiation pattern at different elevations would affect the signal. Download the latest issue at http://www.WorldRadiomagazine.com. Carl used the propagation prediction program VOACAP, and this program as well as W6ELprop and others use the monthly predicted smoothed sunspot number. The latest predicted smoothed numbers for January, February and March 2011 are 39, 43 and 47. They show it increasing four points every month through July, then three points from July to August, and two points per month after that, through June of 2012, followed by one point per month increase through October 2012, then one point every two months until a peak of 90 in 2013 during February through July. You can download W6ELprop at http://www.qsl.net/w6elprop and see a tutorial in PDF format by K9LA at http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/propagation/W6elprop.pdf. K4LWS has another guide at http://www.datasync.com/mdxa/w6elprop.html. Information on VOACAP is at http://www.voacap.com, and there is a fascinating online version at http://www.voacap.com/prediction.html in which you can calculate MUF from any point to any other point. At http://www.voacap.com/coverage.html you set the time, month and year, and it generates a coverage map with your station at the center. Color coding on the map shows the percentage reliability. For location, they have many prefixes selectable in a drop-down menu, or 59 locations in the United States, and 16 across Canada. As an alternative, you can enter a four or six character grid square. You can find six character grid squares by call sign online at http://www.qrz.com after you create a free account and log in. Then another drop down gives you a wide variety of antenna heights for vertical, dipole, and 3, 5 and 8 element Yagi antennas as well as a theoretical isotropic radiator. Any of nine HF bands, 80 through 10 meters, are selectable in another drop down. The sunspot number used is the International Sunspot Number, which is lower than the NOAA Boulder number reported in this bulletin. For each month they use the predicted smoothed sunspot number for that month. This tool is fun to play with! One cool trick is to open the page in two web browsers, set up parameters (for example) to have everything equal except the year, then use Alt-Tab (if you are using Windows) to take you back and forth between the two maps, easily seeing the differences. Or you could do the same thing with a page open in each of multiple tabs in a single browser. I actually found this easier than doing the Alt-Tab selection. So for instance, I set up five tabs in my browser, one for each month, January through May 2011, and used 10 watts on 10 meters into a dipole at 10 meters high at 2100 UTC. It is fun to click through each tab and see how my 10 meter coverage would change over the end of this winter and through spring. Strangely, they have separate pages for the 11 meter band for each type, point-to-point, and area coverage. I suppose there are still operators on the Citizens Band who might want this, and for the extreme (and illegal) CBer, you can actually select up to 1500 watts, and an 8 element Yagi at 198 feet! Doing this for March, 2013 sets up an impressive coverage map. I can hear the howl of heterodynes now. Scott Bidstrup, TI3/W7RI sent in an article about creation of a three dimensional model of the ionosphere that helps explain F layer anomalies in equatorial regions after sunset. Read it at online at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118113138.htm. Patrick Dyer, WA5IYX of San Antonio, Texas (EL09ql) wrote last week: Several 6-meter ZL/VK-US events occurred since around Christmas, mostly involving just K6QXY or N5JEH (NM). (Check the lookback/search
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 22, 2010 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA A steady stream of sunspot activity continues to dot the Sun. We had just one day with a daily sunspot number of zero this week, January 19 (Tuesday) when sunspot group 1040 moved over the horizon. But the next day old sunspot group 1039 re-emerged as 1041, and it now graces the Sun's southeast (lower left, relative to our view from Earth) quadrant. In fact, now that we have a view of most of the Sun (87.35% as of 2359z today, because of advanced orbiting instruments) it appears that the sunspot group that just left is nearly antipodal to the current visible spot, just exiting the Sun's northwest quadrant. If they stay strong, when the current one leaves, the other should return. The current prediction from USAF/NOAA has the solar flux rising from Friday, January 22 through Tuesday, January 26, at 84, 85, 85, 86 and 87. Barring any unforeseen flares, planetary A index is seen as steady and quiet at five. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts quiet geomagnetic conditions January 22-23, quite to unsettled January 24, and quiet again January 25-28. A Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) occurred on Wednesday after a solar flare. The IMF (Interplanetary Magnetic Field) between Earth and the Sun was pointing south. When it points north, the Earth is less vulnerable. You can see a detailed graph of the latest orientation of the IMF at http://www.spaceweatherlive.com. See the graph labeled Direction of the IMF. It took me a while to figure out what the Y axis was for. I expected it to represent time, but it seemed to show meters. Then I realized it was minutes, and this record covers the previous two hours. When that graph goes above zero, the Earth is protected from the effects of solar flares. Thanks to Beth Katz of the Space Weather Discussion Forum at http://www.spacew.com for that resource. A SID will often cause a complete HF radio blackout, the duration varying with the intensity of the energy from the flare as it (the energy, not the flare!) reaches Earth. You can monitor SID events yourself with homemade equipment shown on a Stanford University web site at, http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/sidmonitor/. Note the useful links provided, which lead to other pages and links, many quite useful. Check out http://sidmonitors.blogspot.com/ and http://solar-center.stanford.edu/SID/map/. Thanks to http://www.spaceweather.com for this tip. Kermit Lehman, AB1J of Waltham, Massachusetts commented on last week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP002: I have stayed on the air, refusing to let the good be the enemy of the bad, but it hasn't been easy. Since every cloud is reputed to have a silver lining, even this valley of the shadow of the dearth of Sun spots has been good for me in some ways. I was forced to figure out how to get on 40 and 80 on a postage stamp-sized piece of real estate and as a result worked 5BDXCC, something I would never have tried if there had been any propagation at all on 15, 12 and 10. Thanks, Kermit! Check out K9LA's Propagation column in the current issue of WorldRadio, available free online at, http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/. Click on the WorldRadio Online logo on the left side, and see the Propagation column on pages 25-26. To find the obscure unnamed article he refers to under Is there DXing on 4 MHz?, just enter a part of any phrase he quotes into your favorite web search engine. When I did it, I got a couple of hits, but when I clicked the link for repeat the search with omitted results included I saw many more. Apparently that article was circulated widely, starting around ten years ago. In the current February issue of QST in the Up Front section is a piece about ham radio in the Linux Journal. What the short item doesn't mention and isn't in the Linux Journal is the fact that the founder and publisher is a ham, Phil Hughes, WA6SWR. Phil generously gave me my first internet access via his company back in the 1980s, years before the worldwide web. There is a letter in the same issue of QST from KD4SKB telling about finding some QSL cards from his Novice days back in 1971. He checked on various callsign sites on the internet, and found that three were from hams who are still licensed, and had email addresses. He attempted contact, and got a response from one who agreed to meet him on 40 meters for a reunion QSO. He mentioned that the other fellow was 14 years old when they made contact 38 years earlier. That reminded me of 1966, when I was 14, and brought my receiver and DX-20 CW transmitter with me on a Summer visit to my grandparents in Topeka, Kansas. I strung up a wire antenna and did a little operating, and ended up exchanging cards with a fellow in Illinois, about 300 miles away after a QSO on the 40
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 16, 2009 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA A nice sunspot group, number 1010, appeared for five days from Friday, January 9 through Tuesday, January 13. Daily sunspot numbers ranged from 11 to 20, and this one was another Cycle 24 appearance. The Cycle 23 sunspots seem to be gone, while the new solar Cycle 24 isn't picking up very quickly. 1010 was here for five days, following a whole solar rotation--27 days of no sunspots since 1009 was visible for just three days, December 10-12. Prior to that were 23 spotless days since seeing sunspot 1008, visible for eight days from November 10-17. This minimum looks longer and lower than the last solar minimum, but there are many ways to slice the data. For instance, on http://solarcycle24.com/ search the rather cluttered home page and click the Sunspots tab to the right of Trend Charts toward the upper right on the page, then inspect the bar graph titled Spotless Days vs. Cycle 23 Minimum, the second one down from the top on the right. Click on it to fill the page, and see the comparison of spotless days per month for the period June 2007 through November 2008 with the earlier period June 1996 through November 1997. With all that red showing for spotless days in the recent period, this certainly looks like a big difference between the recent period and the one 11 years ago, but there is an inherent bias in comparing May 2008 and May 1997, for instance. This comparison might be valid if solar cycles were precisely 11.0 years long, or in this case, 11 years from a cycle minimum to the next cycle minimum, but of course this is not the case. 11 years is an approximation, and in fact if you average all 23 of the previous solar cycles, the average number is less than 11 years. The problem becomes apparent if we look at the data and compare spotless days for the five months prior to the beginning of this graph, January through May. It turns out that those months had a sixty-eight percent higher number of spotless days back in 1996 than the same months 11 years later. From January 1, 2007 through May 31, 2007 there were 40 spotless days. But January 1, 1996 through May 31, 1996 had a total of 67 spotless days. Data that is uncertain is in August 2008, which is listed with all spotless days. But August 21-22 there was a brief sunspot appearance, although it wasn't widely reported because there was some speculation regarding whether it was big enough to be counted as a sunspot. Check http://www.spaceweather.com/ and on the archives area at the right side of the page, change the date to August 21, 2008, and note that under the Daily Sun on the left margin, it shows the daily sunspot number as 11. To the right of the daily Sun you can click on the photograph under the heading New Sunspots for a closer look. Now check August 22, and see the same sunspot number 11. It is easy to inspect this data and make comparisons if you download the Solar Data Plotting utility mentioned in our first bulletin of this year, Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP001, at http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/2009-arlp001.html. The GRAPH.dat file for this program has sunspot and solar flux numbers since the start of 1989, and if you copy it into your documents folder and rename the file to graph.doc, you can page through it easily with a word processor. You can also take this file and load it into a spreadsheet program. At least with our quiet Sun the geomagnetic indices continue to stay quiet. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts quiet days from January 16-22, except January 18 to be unsettled, and January 19 at quiet to unsettled. NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center along with the U.S. Air Force predict quiet conditions with a planetary A index of five for the rest of January, except 8 on January 19, 10 and 8 on January 27-28, and 8 again on January 30. Last week's propagation forecast bulletin mentioned the STEREO mission, and how to find out what the current satellite positions were, relative to earth and the Sun. John Fors, WD7Z of Capulin, New Mexico sent a link to a page which allows you to see the positions for any date or time at, http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/where/. John said that from February 2011 onward, STEREO should get a detailed simultaneous view of all sides of the Sun. This will give a precise reading of activity soon to rotate into view. Currently it shows the two satellites at nearly a 90 degree angle from each other. Six months from now the angle will be 104 degrees and a year from now it should be at 134 degrees. Two years from now they will be nearly opposite each other at 177.6 degrees. The last date I can generate the listing of angles for is January 21, 2012 when STEREO-B is 113.669 degrees relative to earth, and STEREO-A is 107.583 degrees relative
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 18, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA We've seen another seven days with no sunspots. After observing the first sunspot of Cycle 24, we hope to see more and more of these, signaling the beginning of the next sunspot cycle and the end of Cycle 23. Dick Gird, K6PZE of San Diego, California wrote asking how to distinguish Cycle 24 sunspots from Cycle 23 spots. There are two features that differentiate spots from each cycle. Old Cycle 23 spots will appear near the Sun's equator. The first spots of Cycle 24 are at a high solar latitude, and will have magnetic polarity opposite of the old spots. Last week there was a brief appearance on January 11 by an almost-sunspot which disappeared by the following day. It appeared to be a Cycle 24 spot, which had polarity reversed from Cycle 23 spots, but it was near the equator, which is the wrong place for a new cycle sunspot. Tom Schuessler, N5HYP of Irving, Texas wrote to ask about the differences between the geomagnetic A and K index. He asks, I know that both of them are indications of the instability of the geomagnetic field. The K index is logarithmic and the A index is linear, and they track together -- kind of. K indexes are given every three hours while A index readings are for a full 24 hour period. Do the two indexes have different uses or tell a person different things about what to expect on the air? Based on three hours of magnetic data, a particular magnetometer or group of them is used to track the change in nanoTeslas, which are the international units for measuring magnetic flux density. K index is based on changes in the flux density over a 3 hour period, and the difference between the highest and lowest values at the magnetometer is converted to a semi-logarithmic scale that runs from 0 to 9, yielding a K index between 0 (very quiet) and 9 (extreme magnetic storm). An example is the latest Boulder K index, as reported by WWV at, http://tinyurl.com/3bsu74. Note at the end of the line giving K index is a nanoTesla (nT) reading. At the end of a UTC day (midnight in Greenwich Mean Time) a new A index is reported, based on the latest eight K index values. A nomograph showing the relationship between A and K index is at, http://tinyurl.com/3a5rmg. Note that if you have K indexes for one day averaging 2, the A index for that day would be 7. But if the average were 3, this corresponds to an A index of 15, and an average of 4 equals 27. You can see a table of three different A and K index readings at, http://tinyurl.com/24psl3 . They are both derived from the same magnetic readings, but the A index is for a whole day, and has an expanded scale. When those numbers are low, we expect less absorption and in general better propagation of radio waves. But sometimes high geomagnetic activity can signal improved VHF conditions, allowing distant propagation of 6 meter signals, for instance. Because there is a new K index every three hours, this gives us a more immediate indication if conditions are changing fast. So if WWV reports a K index of 2, then three hours later reports a K index of 5, this indicates a dramatic event, such as an earth-directed solar flare, or a blast of strong solar wind, and a resulting geomagnetic storm. Josh Sawyer, a shortwave listener, wrote, The sunspot minimum such as in 2007 and 1986 seems to yield the best conditions for working far away DX on the 80 and 160 meter bands, and at the same time the worst conditions when 15 and 10 meters are dead. Does this mean lower frequency bands such as 80 and 160 meters don't use ionized F-layers or sunspots at all during these lows, that its just real far E layer or groundwave and we can work these stations because it's the period of minimum noise generated by the Sun? 160 and 80 signals do propagate through the F layer. During daylight most of the RF energy is absorbed by the ionosphere's D layer, but at night the D layer disappears, and 160 and 80 meter signals can be refracted off the ionosphere. But it doesn't take much ionization at those low frequencies to propagate signals. The more energy charges the ionosphere, the denser it becomes, and it will refract higher and higher frequencies. That is why the MUF (Maximum Usable Frequency) increases as sunspot numbers go up. With zero sunspots on January 16th, early in the morning (West Coast Time) the MUF is at a minimum, 10 MHz, between San Diego and Australia, as an example. So that supports 160, 80 and 40 meter propagation. MUF is calculated for a specific path at a specific time and season. If you download W6ELprop (free at http://www.qsl.net/w6elprop/) you can try out difference scenarios. If you change the sunspot number from 0 to 150, and change the date to March 16 instead of January 16, instead of the MUF
[DX-NEWS] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 20, 2006 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA As we cruise into the low part of solar cycle 23, the sun has been very quiet, save for some coronal holes providing solar wind streams. This week average daily sunspot numbers were up nearly ten points compared to last. The geomagnetic field has been mostly quiet, although a little more active than the previous week. Over the next week expect solar flux to stay around 90, with geomagnetic conditions quiet, except for some unsettled to active conditions around January 23-24. Geophysical Institute Prague expects quiet conditions January 21, quiet to unsettled January 20 and 22, unsettled January 25 and 26, unsettled to active January 23, and active conditions (higher A and K index) on January 24. Rich DiDonna, NN3W of Virginia writes that, While conditions on the high bands may stink, conditions on the low bands have been spectacular. 40 meters is opening to Europe as early as 2100z from the East Coast with reliable openings to the Middle East, and long path to Southeast Asia. 80 and 160 have also been amazing. So, while Old Sol may be in nap phase, one should not assume that there is a lack of DX to work! Jon Jones, N0JK of Kansas echoes Rich's comments about the lower frequencies in a January 14 email. He writes, 160 meter propagation to Europe from the Midwest and western USA is picking up. For a low band propagation beacon I listen to the 1.2 megawatt AM station from Kvitsoy, Norway on 1314 kHz. Its signal has been very strong the last couple of evenings. Great 160M conditions were noted by W8CAR and others the same time to Europe. Jon also noted an extensive 6 meter E layer opening on January 13-14 in which W1, W2, W3 and W4 stations were coming in. Charles Lewis, S9SS of Sao Tome and Principe (an African island in the Atlantic Ocean about 150 miles west of Libreville, Gabon) was one of the stations reported in a recent bulletin by K7HP in Arizona as worked on 10 meters. Charles writes, The reason Hank worked me that night is that I also use propagation beacons. On 10 meters, I primarily depend on the W3VD beacon in Laurel, MD. That evening, as I often do, I had the receiver tuned to the W3VD beacon while I worked at the computer across the room. About 2110z I heard the beacon rise dramatically out of the noise. I checked and found the band was becoming live with 10 meters stations. I fired up my amp and called CQ. In a period of about 40 minutes I worked about 40 stations. I would have worked many more, but it took a while of rag chewing before I was discovered by the crowd. He continues, These late 10 meters openings are not very unusual for me in the 2015 to 2130z time frame. They more often start around 2030 to 2040z. They might last a few minutes or they might last a couple of hours. Until early last year, they were nearly nightly. Now they are a lot more scarce. There have been many times that I heard W3VD with a good signal and could raise no one or perhaps had a long rag chew with someone followed by no takers afterward. Charles goes on to say, I also had a very good opening on 12/11, the second day of the ARRL 10 Meters Contest that began about 2010z. I worked about 115 contacts coast to coast in NA over a period of about 50 minutes until it died. In that case also, I was working at the computer and heard W3VD pop out of the noise. The band usually dies about as suddenly as it comes to life. He continues, I am only about 20 miles north of the Equator. There is only about a 20 minute variation in sunset time over the year. The sun is usually down well before 1800z, so these openings are long after my sunset. Charles says that on 20 through 12 meters he uses the IARU beacon system, and on 12 meters he often hears 4U1UN in NYC coming in strong, while no one else seems to be on the band. He says 20 meters is his best band for working the USA, and is the best way to communicate with friends near his vacation home in Western North Carolina. Charles has an interesting challenge operating from his QTH, and that is from a huge Voice of America transmitter site that seems to hover over his station in a photo he sent. Check out a similar image on the web at, http://groups.msn.com/s9ss. A couple of weeks ago Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA had some comments about SSNe, or Effective Sunspot Numbers, and the T-Index. He continues with more comments below, through the end of this bulletin. Carl begins, In the January 6 Bulletin, I said the T Index and SSNe were similar methods that give a better picture of what the ionosphere is doing now. Both represent an effective sunspot number based on real-time sounding of the F2 region critical frequency. Let's look at the basic difference between SSNe and the T Index. SSNe is calculated from a worldwide set of ionosondes at
[DX-News] ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP03 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA January 16, 2004 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP003 ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA Both average daily sunspot numbers and solar flux were up just a few points this week over last. The average daily planetary A index, a measure of geomagnetic stability, dropped from 23.4 to 15.9. HF radio operators prefer conditions when the A index is low and the solar flux and sunspot numbers are high. Solar flux has been around 118-120, but is expected to rise over the next few days. Solar flux for Friday through Sunday, January 16-18 is predicted at 125, 130 and 135. Solar flux values should peak around 140 from January 19-21 before dropping back. As expected during the solar cycle decline, sunspot counts have been low. When this bulletin was written, there were only two sunspot groups visible, and helioseismic imaging showed only a small sunspot group on the sun's far side. When the daily sunspot number reached 118 on January 8, it was the first time the number rose above 100 since December 23, and it hasn't been above 100 since. Earth is moving into a solar wind stream from a coronal hole, and geomagnetic conditions could become active. The predicted planetary A index for January 16-19 is 18, 25, 18 and 15. Conditions on Saturday may be similar to January 10, except the day will be slightly longer (7 minutes longer in Dallas, for instance, and 13 minutes longer in Seattle) and the solar flux and sunspot count should be slightly higher. Here is a link we haven't referenced in some time. Look at the Solar Terrestrial Dispatch at http://www.spacew.com/ . Note the Ham Radio link on the left and the various resources there, such as MUF maps. Another interesting link is to Michigan Tech's site devoted to auroras at http://www.geo.mtu.edu/weather/aurora/ . A new service used by the author is Spaceweather Phone. Unlike all other resources referenced in this bulletin, this one is not free. Subscribers can set thresholds for various events such as geomagnetic planetary K index above a certain value, or X class solar flares, just to name two. Once the customized threshold is passed, Spaceweather Phone automatically calls you and delivers a message about the event in progress. See it at http://spaceweatherphone.com/ . 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 January 8 through 14 were 118, 88, 66, 53, 77, 53 and 58 with a mean of 73.3. 10.7 cm flux was 120.1, 118.4, 119.2, 118.5, 118.3, 117.9 and 121.1, with a mean of 119.1. Estimated planetary A indices were 9, 21, 24, 17, 10, 18 and 12, with a mean of 15.9. /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 --
