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below the average of 12 for the previous seven days) is 17 and 9 on
June 28 and 29, 5 on June 30 and July 1, then 7, 10 and 7 on July
2-4, 10 on July 5 and 6, 5 on July 7-16, 10 on July 17, 15 on July
18-20, then 18, 10 and 8 on July 21-23, and 15 on July 24 and 25. It
looks like some unsettled geomagnetic conditions are in the forecast
for July.
 
You can check for daily updates on this forecast out to 45 days
ahead at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/45DF.html. A new
daily forecast generally appears some time after 2100 UTC daily.
 
Just received before release on early Friday morning,
spaceweather.com reports earth-directed solar flares from sunspot
groups 1777 and 1778. The two flares were C-class, and the CME could
deliver a glancing blow to our Earth.
 
F.K. Janda, OK1HH believes that the geomagnetic field will be active
to disturbed on June 28, quiet to unsettled June 29 through July 1,
quiet on July 2, quiet to active July 3, active to disturbed July 4,
mostly quiet July 5 and 6, quiet to unsettled July 7, mostly quiet
July 8 and 9, quiet July 10-15, mostly quiet July 16 and 17, quiet
to active July 18, mostly quiet July 19, active to disturbed July
20, and quiet to active July 21 and 22.
 
NOAA has a projection for the rest of the solar cycle, updated
monthly, showing predicted smoothed sunspot numbers resolved to
one-tenth, instead of whole numbers. The smoothing is a 13-month
moving average, centered on any month of interest. Sunspot numbers
are always whole numbers, so the resolution to one-tenth is an
artifact of the averaging or smoothing process.
 
For any current month, the number represents an average of the
previous 6 months plus the current month plus the predicted values
for each of the next 6 months.  The first and last months in the
calculation are factored in at 0.5.
 
Before the last day of June 2013, the smoothed sunspot number for
February 2013 represents 10 months of known values and 3 months of
predicted values, June through August 2013. These are based on the
reported numbers from the Sunspot Index Data Center in Belgium.
These numbers are always lower then the Boulder sunspot numbers,
which are recorded at the bottom of each bulletin and in our own
3-month moving average, reported here monthly.
 
The predicted average sunspot numbers for March, 2013 through July
2014 are 67.5, 70.1, 72.7, 75.7, 78.6, 81.6, 84.7, 86.3, 86.9, 86.7,
86.4, 85.6, 84.7, 83.7, 82.6, 81.4 and 80.2. Note that the peak is
centered on November 2013, or perhaps October 2013 through January
2014 to broaden the scope and hedge our bets. A similar prediction
for monthly smoothed solar flux tracks this very closely, also
peaking in November 2013. Let's see how this looks after the
beginning of the new month.
 
Jeff Hartley, N8II of Shepherdstown, West Virginia is in grid square
FM19cj, about three miles southwest and across the Potomac River
from the Antietam National Battlefield, which is actually in
Maryland.
 
On June 26 Jeff wrote: "This summer on HF at least below 12 meters
has been one of the most interesting and exciting periods I can
remember, despite the lackluster solar activity. Many nights 17
meters is open until midnight local time to southeast and northern
Europe and, 15 is often open to Asia and Europe around 0200-0400
UTC.

After years of disappointment, the All Asia DX contest June 15-16
had above average conditions on 15 meters for most of the weekend.
Just on 15 meters, I worked just short of 200 Asian stations with
106 prefixes in a part-time effort.
 
Saturday morning around 1200 UTC was a losing battle against the
European stations into all parts of Asia. Saturday afternoon I
returned after a long break at 2045 UTC to find very loud JA's who
stayed loud until 2230 UTC, then gradually faded down until not many
were audible by 0130 UTC. Sunday around 1200 UTC only JO3JIS had a
good signal here from Japan; he was the most consistently loud JA
here. A few signals from Central Asia were loud, such as UN/UP's.
 
Around 1350 UTC I returned to loud signals from all of Asia
including Japan, which is fairly rare for this QTH, but had occurred
several times the week before. Activity between Europe calling CQ
and Asians extended from 21.0 to 21.07 MHz! I don't think JA ever
faded out completely all afternoon, but signals weakened about 1545
UTC. Our toughest area, Southeast Asia around 1500 UTC was quite
loud, working three 9V1's with 9V1YC over S9! XW0YJY was heard, but
I could not break thru the European pile-up. All total, I worked 58
Japanese prefixes and 19 from Asiatic Russia where activity was
somewhat less than expected.
 
Almost every night, there is a good 20 meter opening to western Asia
and Europe/Russia/Ukraine and Scandinavia from 0200-0400 UTC. Some
of the DX worked late in the evening here include on June 11
FK8DD/M, ES5, ER3, UY5, OM3, then on 15 meters RA3TO/P and IZ7. On
June 13, RV9CPB/9 on 17. June 14 featured ES3, EU7, and SM0 on 17
meter phone followed by on 15 meters, SM6, YL2, R4, RX4, RV9, RM5,
HA8, UA6, UA4,  UR4, R8, RZ6, UT9, UR0, and UA3T ending at 0312 UTC.

The sporadic E season on 6 meters has been disappointing. I missed
European openings on June 13. On the June 19, W6XK in CM97 and N6JK
in CM98 were logged on 6 meter CW around 0230 UTC. Finally, on June
23 and 24 we had a good opening to South America and Mexico, all
multi-hop Es. At 2102 UTC, I worked PV8ADI with a S7 signal, the
first ever Brazilian for me on Es; he stayed in for an amazing 2
hours plus longer! Then, 9Y4VU was found on SSB at 2107. YV1 was
also heard along with VP2V. CO2WF was logged at 2304. Between 2331
UTC and 0039 UTC, five XEs over a wide area were worked mostly in
XE2, good for some new grids. On June 24, PV8 was heard again with
FM5WD being logged at 2224 UTC."
 
Thanks, Jeff! He mentions years of disappointment regarding working
Asia, but here where I am on the West Coast, this is not a problem.
This is just like Europe being easy to work from the East Coast.
 
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 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 June 20 through 26 were 128, 135, 137, 118, 82,
91, and 77, with a mean of 109.7. 10.7 cm flux was 126.3, 133.2,
130, 128.2, 120.6, 109.2, and 106.5, with a mean of 122.  Estimated
planetary A indices were 11, 17, 14, 15, 15, 8, and 4, with a mean
of 12. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 12, 17, 13, 16, 14, 9,
and 2, with a mean of 11.9.
NNNN
/EX