[DX-NEWS] ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP16 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA April 19, 2013 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA Solar activity weakened over the current reporting period (April 11-17), and geomagnetic conditions were stable as well. The predicted geomagnetic storm did not happen last weekend, with both the planetary and mid-latitude A index only rising to 10 on Sunday April 14 in response to a glancing blow from a CME. Average daily sunspot numbers declined nearly 25 points to 113.3, and average daily solar flux was down over 17 points to 121.7. Predicted flux values for the near term are 95 on April 19, 90 on April 20-23, 95 on April 24-25, 100 on April 26, 110 on April 27-28, 115 on April 29-30, 120 on May 1-2, 125 on May 3-6, 120 on May 7-8, and 115 on May 9-12. Predicted planetary A index is 5 on April 19-22, 12 on April 23-25, 15 on April 26, 5 on April 27 to May 4, 8 on May 5, 5 on May 6-11, and 8 on May 12. F.K. Janda, OK1HH of the Czech Propagation Interest Group predicts the geomagnetic field will be quiet to unsettled April 19, quiet April 20, mostly quiet April 21, quiet to unsettled April 22, quiet to active April 23, active to disturbed April 24, quiet to active April 25, active to disturbed April 26, quiet to unsettled April 27-28, mostly quiet April 29-30, quiet May 1-4, mostly quiet May 5, quiet May 6-7, mostly quiet May 8, quiet May 9, mostly quiet May 10, quiet to unsettled May 11-12, and mostly quiet May 13. Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA maintains a great website devoted to propagation information, but it moved recently to a new domain. Check http://k9la.us/. Paul Drahn, KD7HB of Crooked River Ranch in Central Oregon wrote: I must take exception to your comment about 'great news for HF propagation.' It's very difficult for local evening nets on 75 meters. I am active on the Oregon Emergency Net on 3980 from 6pm to 7pm. Just prior to our net, the Tennessee phone net operates on the same frequency. Afterward, several Tennessee hams use the frequency as a local rag chew net. At times, like the last two evenings, they are stronger in Oregon than many of the local check-in stations. Last night there were at least three conversations going on from Tennessee, all on 3980. They could not hear each other, and could not hear the OEN. We expect this interference in the Winter, but only is a problem at other times when the propagation allows it. Fortunately the folks in Tennessee go to bed early! As we move later in the Spring and toward Summer, the signals should be weaker around net time. It might help if the folks in Tennessee used NVIS type antennas for local coverage, as they don't have a low angle of radiation. There are several pages that describe the NVIS, or Near Vertical Incident Skywave antenna, such as http://www.hamuniverse.com/nvisbeam.html or http://www.w0ipl.net/ECom/NVIS/nvis.htm or https://www.txarmymars.org/downloads/NVIS-Antenna-Theory-and-Design.pdf. 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. More good information and tutorials on propagation are at http://k9la.us/. 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 April 11 through 17 were 121, 128, 148, 111, 99, 97, and 89, with a mean of 113.3. 10.7 cm flux was 137.1, 137.9, 125.1, 116.8, 113.3, 113.3, and 108.1, with a mean of 121.7. Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 5, 6, 10, 5, 3, and 3, with a mean of 5.3. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 4, 4, 6, 10, 6, 2, and 2, with a mean of 4.9. /EX --- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list. Please send a message to imail...@njdxa.org In the message body put either unsubscribe dx-news or subscribe dx-news This is the DX-NEWS reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org ---
[DX-NEWS] ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP16 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA April 20, 2012 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA As promised in the ARRL Letter, this week's bulletin features a report on recent solar activity and solar cycle progression from Carl Leuetzelschwab, K9LA. Solar flux and sunspot numbers reached a short term low on April 8-11, but now are rising again. For the past week, April 12-18, average daily sunspot numbers more than doubled compared to the previous seven days, rising more than 39 points to 71.7. Average daily solar flux increased from 95.9 to 105.1. On April 19, the day following this period, the daily sunspot number rose dramatically from 96 to 122, and so did solar flux values, from 121.5 to 137.8 Since April 10, eleven new sunspot groups emerged. One each on April 10-13, two on April 14, one on April 16 two on April 17 and one each on April 18-19. Predicted Solar Flux for April 20-25 is 135, followed by 130 on April 26-27, 105 on April 28, 100 on April 29-30, 95 on May 1-9, then rising to 100 on May 10-12 and 105 on May 13-18 and 110 on May 19-22. Predicted planetary A index is 8, 5, 5, 7, 12, and 12 on April 20-25, 5 on April 26-29, 8 on April 30, 5 on May 1-7, and 8, 12, 15 and 10 on May 8-11, and 5 on May 12-20. Alaska Dispatch ran an article with video on the solar flare mentioned in K9LA's report below. See it at http://www.alaskadispatch.com/video/video-massive-eruption-suns-surface. German ham Toni Umlandt, DD3EO mentioned another resource in response to our mention in last week's bulletin ARLP015 of a public remotely controlled SDR radio receiver in Walla Walla, Washington that anyone can use via the internet. He said to check http://www.websdr.org/. This lists 36 SDR receivers, and I think all of them can be used simultaneously by multiple users. K9LA's report: Monday, April 16 gave us moderate solar activity, which was due to an M1.7 X-ray flare from Region 1458 around 1745 UTC. But since then, solar activity has continued at low levels. The daily 10.7 cm solar flux is expected to slightly increase to around 120 during the next several days. There is an extremely small chance of X-Class flares (1%) and a somewhat greater chance of M-Class flares (around 15%). With solar activity continuing at low levels, the ascent of Cycle 24 noticeably slowed in the past couple months. For example, after a monthly mean 10.7 cm solar flux peak in November 2011 of 153, the next three months saw ever-decreasing monthly means -- 141, 133, and 107 for December, January, and February, respectively. March (last month) recovered a bit with a monthly mean of 115, but April so far appears to be headed for another low monthly mean (through April 18, the 10.7 cm solar flux monthly mean is hovering around 102). As a side note, these up-and-downs in the monthly mean solar flux are typical of a solar cycle. But these recent low monthly means have taken their toll on the smoothed 10.7 cm solar flux. Since early 2009, the smoothed 10.7 cm solar flux rose nicely. The recent low monthly means have resulted in the smoothed value pretty much leveling off in the past two months at around 118. This smoothed value is borderline for good worldwide 10-Meter openings (especially East-West), so 10-Meters will be at the mercy of the day-to-day variation of the F2 region. Does this mean we've reached Cycle 24's peak? Not necessarily -- other Cycles have had similar slow-downs, but then the solar activity picked up again in terms of the monthly means to continue the increase of the smoothed value. The monthly means during the next several months will be interesting to observe, and may give us an early clue as to how high Cycle 24 will ultimately go. Regardless of what happens with Cycle 24, the time is now to get on the higher bands (especially 12-Meters and 10-Meters) to take advantage of F2 region propagation. If Cycle 24 performs to the nominal prediction from the Marshall Space Flight Center (http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml), we're pretty much there -- and we're not likely to have much mid latitude 50 MHz F2 propagation during this solar cycle (but watch for sporadic E links to the equatorial ionosphere for Trans-Equatorial Propagation). If Cycle 24 performs more to the nominal prediction of the International Space Environment Service (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/), then we should have somewhat better propagation on the higher bands in the next year or so. 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 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
[DX-NEWS] ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP16 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA April 21, 2011 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA The bulletin is out a day early due to the Good Friday holiday observed tomorrow. Average daily sunspot numbers and solar flux for the week were both higher - sunspot numbers up over three points to 93.1 - and solar flux up by eight points to 117.2. Geomagnetic activity was a bit lower, with April 20 the most active day after a coronal hole on the Sun spewed a solar wind at high speed. The Australian government gave an alert one day prior. You can subscribe to those emailed warnings at http://www.ips.gov.au/mailman/listinfo/ips-geo-warning. If you are in Australia, the same service offers an HF radio propagation course. See http://www.ips.gov.au/Products_and_Services/2/2 for details. The same Australian service has predicted monthly smoothed sunspot numbers and solar flux at http://www.ips.gov.au/Solar/1/6 and it looks like they predict the peak of Cycle 24 exactly two years from now in April 2013. Currently there are four sunspot groups visible, and today could see a geo-magnetic disturbance from a slow-moving coronal mass ejection. The latest forecast from NOAA/USAF shows solar flux at 115 for April 21-24, 110 for April 25-29 and 115 again on April 30 through May 3. Predicted planetary A index is 10 and 8 for April 21-22 and 5 on April 23-27. On April 28-30 the predicted planetary A index is 7, 15 and 12. The May issue of WorldRadio Online is now available at http://worldradiomagazine.com. Check out the propagation column by K9LA on page 22, which this month concerns an unusual divergence during the recent solar cycle when correlation between solar flux and sunspot numbers seemed to decrease. Mark Lunday, WD4ELG of Greensboro, North Carolina is excited about all the recent solar activity and associated propagation. Mark says, I never thought it would happen, but the sunspots are back! Mark notes that 10 meters is open worldwide during the day and 20 meters is open all day and night to somewhere in the world. He sends lists of DX worked from all over, all with simple antennas. Check his blog at http://wd4elg.blogspot.com. Richard Kautz, KC2HZW of Pelham, New York is looking forward to a good sporadic-E and F-layer propagation season on 6 meters. He says, Really been enjoying the renewed sunspot activity the last two months. This week conditions on 15 meters have been excellent. Friday April 15 I worked HS0ZIN at 1523 with 59+ signals in both directions. Saturday I worked VU2PAI at 1920 again with 59 signals in both directions. Also worked JE1LET at 2330. Listened to KL7LF for a while working a pile-up with a great 59 signal. I modeled many of the contacts I made the last few days on W6ELPROP and while the program predicted many of the contacts were possible, in none of the cases did the predictions show signal strengths anywhere near what I experienced. I am not complaining -- it been about 8 years since I worked into South East Asia on the higher bands and it was a real thrill. Oleh Kernytskyy, KD7WPJ of Saint George, Utah has been operating QRP CW from mountain peaks out west. He writes, On April 16/17, 2011 I activated Grandeur Peak (SOTA -W7/NU-065) - 2530 m. I was able to make contacts with JE2RMH and 5N7M on 21 MHz with 10 w and simple dipole. I also heard a lot of stations from Brazil on 28 MHz, but they all worked in the contest. Jeff, N8II of West Virginia writes on April 16, The SFI is 129 and the K is 1 today and you could tell it. But first back to Monday the 11th when I was lucky enough to be off from work. On 15 meters CW, between 0018 and 0031Z BA1KW, HS0ZBS, and XV2W were logged, great DX for us on the East Coast. Then as early as 1249Z IS0GQX was 599 on 12 meters CW. P29NI running a big IOTA EU pile-up was easily worked on 17 meters at 1236Z and JJ0NCC answered a CQ at 1309. Then up on 15 meters YB0NFL was worked on SSB 59 at 1325 (quite early) along with UA0SR, UA9QM, and YB9/DJ7XJ on 15 CW. But the biggest surprise of the day was E21EJC at 1418, HS0ZBS, and 9M2TO on 12 meters CW! Then, I was treated to more over the pole DX on 15 meters, VU2PAI and V85TL. HS0AC was logged on 17 meters CW at 1525, and found Kob, E21EJC there 10 minutes later. It doesn't get much better than that here unless 10 meters opens polar which is rare. Today the 16th started with 14 Russians from all over Asia answering my CQ from 0033 thru 0115 along with HB9, EA5, BD0AH, and UN7PBW on 20M CW. At 1305Z XV2RZ was worked on 17 meters CW and P29VLR was running a large EU pile-up and was about S3-4 here. At 1325, 12 meters was open well to EU at 1325Z with OL2011VP 599 on 12 CW, but despite a good EU opening with lots of Germans logged, the band never opened to the Far East as on Monday. 10 meters started to open to EU at 1423Z with 4O3A logged 599+ 15dB, but
[DX-NEWS] ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP16 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA April 23, 2010 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA A Sun with no sunspots! The quiet Sun returned -- and through Thursday, April 22 there have been eight days straight with no sunspots. A new spot began to emerge on Wednesday, but it quickly faded. For the next ten days NOAA/USAF predict solar flux at 78, 78, 80, 80, 80, 78, 76, 80, 80 and 80. Solar flux values above 80 aren't predicted until May 20-23, with a value of 85, but that is too far into the future to predict accurately. They also predict the return of sunspot group 1061 on April 23-25. That sunspot group was previously visible on April 5-10. Planetary A index for April 23 through May 2 is predicted to be 8, 6, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 5, 5 and 5. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts quiet to unsettled conditions for April 23, then quiet April 24-26, quiet to unsettled April 27, and back to quiet for April 28-29. Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA has a new propagation column about sunspot Cycle 24 in the current issue of WorldRadio online at http://www.worldradiomagazine.com. Carl's columns are always worthwhile, and a new issue of WorldRadio appears on the twentieth day of each month. We've seen some reports of 10 meter activity over the past couple of weeks. Julio Medina, NP3CW of Puerto Rico reports that on April 9 he saw an opening to the Pacific on 10 meters. He writes, H44MS at 2122z SSB, KH6CE Henry, ZL4IV Rick at 2159z, HR1RJF, KC5JAR from TX, and LU5FCI at 2255z. Around the start of the month he had 6 meter openings to South America. Pat Dyer, WA5IYX sent in a report generated by DX Sherlock, which automatically collects propagation data from a network of WSPR stations. WSPR stands for Weak Signal Propagation Reporter. Pat said that on April 12, 10 meters opened up to the Pacific, which is normal after a geomagnetic storm. You can go to http://www.vhfdx.net/spots/index.php to generate your own propagation snapshots, including maps. Peter Sils, KD0AA of Nixa, Missouri wrote that there was a wonderful 10 Meter opening on Wednesday, April 14 at 8:30 PM CDT. I was alerted by Mark, K0ABC via Nixa ARC email that there was a Tahiti station on. I proceeded to work FO8RZ, ZL1BYZ and VK7ZE on a NB6ZEP antenna up 30' with 100 watts. What a wonderful opening it was! Bill Alsup, N6XMW of San Francisco wrote, I read years ago that there was a correlation between how closely the planets aligned and the sunspot cycle, the idea being that the more intense the gravitational pull on the Sun, the more sunspots would appear. Evidently, they more or less align every 11 yrs. I have never seen any other reference to that concept. That was by J.H. Nelson, a forecaster at RCA who wrote about it in the 1950s. The reason you never heard of it since the 1970s (although astrologers like it) is that it didn't work, and it proved to be no better than chance at predicting anything. What Nelson worked out was a system in which certain planetary alignments were thought to put some sort of tidal influence on the Sun, and that there were more solar flares at those times, causing HF radio disruption. He kept records for many years, and worked out a system that when these alignments occurred, there was a three-day period in which these events were likely to occur. So if the alignment is on Wednesday, the disruption could occur Tuesday through Thursday. In the early 1980s the Skeptical Inquirer published an article in which they went over his records, and counted the number of occurrences per year. Then they randomly distributed the same number of dates over each calendar year, and used the three-day rule. The correlation was no worse than Nelson's predictions. So it had zero prediction value, because you could just as easily toss dice. A stopped clock is correct twice per day. Check this article at http://www.rudolfhsmit.nl/d-arti2.htm which mentions Nelson's work. It also talks about false correlations. I dug up an interesting thread on Nelson at http://www.eham.net/articles/8828, and the best comments are by N3AIU, who also is a reader of our propagation bulletin. Several people wrote in to comment about volcano ash and propagation, and this is from Tom Segalstad, LA4LN of Oslo, Norway. Some countries have allowed radio amateurs to use the 70 MHz (4 m) band. A number of contacts are being made every day on this band between radio amateurs in some European countries via meteor scatter using the K1JT digital modes JT6M and FSK441. On 14 April this year the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull started an explosive eruption, which produced a high column of volcanic ash. With westerly winds, the ash cloud was blown towards Europe in the stratosphere. In the NRAU (Nordic Radio Amateur Union) Nordic Activity Contest on 70 MHz Thursday 15 April we experienced fairly poor
[DX-NEWS] ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA
SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP16 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA April 11, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB PROP ARL ARLP016 ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA No sunspots for seven days, as of Thursday, April 10. We may see sunspots return around April 21-28. This is based on recent activity rotating out of view around the Sun and (we hope) reappearing later this month. If you look at, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/forecasts/45DF/041045DF.txt, which was Thursday's forecast, you see predicted solar flux remaining at 70 until April 20, when it reaches 75, then 80 on April 21. The predicted higher solar flux should correlate with the return of sunspots. This prediction is updated daily after 2100z. After 2100z April 11 you can see the new prediction by changing 041045DF.txt at the end of the URL to 041145DF.txt. You can also go to, http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/45DF.html to select a daily forecast from the list, but frequently there is a delay before the latest forecast is listed, and you can see it much sooner by changing the date in the URL as shown above. From that same forecast you can see quiet geomagnetic conditions predicted until April 22-24. Geophysical Institute Prague predicts quiet to unsettled conditions April 11, quiet April 12-13, quiet to unsettled April 14, unsettled April 15, quiet to unsettled April 16, and back to quiet on April 17. Rob Steenburgh, KA8JBY sent some links useful for detecting sunspots on the Sun's far side, using helioseismography. See, http://gong.nso.edu/data/farside/ and, http://soi.stanford.edu/data/full_farside/ for images. Note that you can also animate these to see recent activity in motion. The technique is described at, http://soi.stanford.edu/press/farside_Feb2006/web/index.html. In Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP007 (see http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/2008-arlp007.html) in mid-February, we mentioned an article in a daily business publication which spoke of an upcoming Maunder Minimum. In the article were fabricated quotes from Dr. Kenneth Tapping, who works at the observatory in British Columbia where we get our daily solar flux data. I was surprised to see this same article in the monthly VHF column in CQ Magazine recently. But I saw it on March 31, and it was the April issue. I understand that this was really supposed to be some sort of April Fools' jest, but it went awry, probably due to miscommunication with the editor, who was already running a traditional whimsical April item. Once edited, it lost the April 1 flavor. Of course there is a long tradition in amateur radio publishing regarding strange and fantastic articles in the April issue. Sometimes it is difficult to tell. For instance, as a 12-year old Novice I was unaware of this tradition, and was very interested to read in an April QST about some new paint that could be applied to towers. It was supposed to shift reflected light outside the visible spectrum, and therefore render the structure invisible. Well, nearly so. It should still block light from passing through it, but the article claimed the effect was some kind of fuzzy non-image, a sort of visual void of uncertain nature. I didn't realize that this was a joke until reading the Letters section in the May issue. Imaginative readers had a lot of fun with this, and one woman wrote that her ham husband was trying out the paint on a recent Saturday, and she hadn't seen him since. Mike Schatzberg, W2AJI of Tryon, North Carolina wrote to report conditions during the recent period when we actually had daily sunspot activity. He was mentioned previously in this bulletin, in 2006 in Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP047 (see http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/2006-arlp047.html). He wrote again about excellent conditions on 20 meters. On April 4 Mike wrote, I had to let you know about the unusual and steady strong signals I have been working on 20 meters the past 3 days. East coast propagation to the Far East and Indonesia have been extraordinary. Low power stations, less than 100 watts, and with wire antennas abound, and I am able to read them with S5 to S9 signal strengths on my Orion II transceiver. He continues, Two Americans, HS0ZCX, Chuck, with only 100 watts, and a wire beam antenna, and XU7ACY (NO2R), Peter, have been booming into the East Coast with S9 signals. They are heard during the morning hours at about 13:00 Zulu, along with Ralph, HS0ZSC who is also very strong. YB0BCU, Yan, is always S9 from Jakarta during the same time period. Mike goes on to say, The evening hours have also been a delight into the Orient. Propagation remains good into Japan for much of the night. But many lower power stations can also be worked on SSB, from both China and Taiwan. Last night, between 01:00 and 03:00 Zulu, once you steer around the many calling Asian Siberian stations, Japan, China, and Taiwan were extremely active. BD2QAF,