[Lowfer] Aurora tonight

[w1tag at charter.net]

Garry,

Thanks for the TAG report! Winter's good for something, I guess.

I don't know what the aurora reports were based on, but there is little possibility that there was any actual aurora last night at "lower 48"  latitudes. Kp, Dst, solar wind speed, etc., were all in the quiet range last night. Long-term research, however, points out a significant incidence of aurora sightings from the parking lots of bars.

As to the effect of aurora on LF propagation, it has always been negative for long-haul listening that I've tried. It really used to kill the path from the northeast to LEK in MN. If memory serves, the more north-south paths from here were less affected.

John, W1TAG 

---- Garry Hess <k3siw at sbcglobal.net> wrote: 
> Paul,
> 
> Not sure if it was Aurora, the snow we got over night, or something else 
> but despite griping about poor LF conditions by many NDB listeners 
> conditions were good in NE IL over night. Signals from Central America 
> and the Carribean were copied as were old reliables WEB, MP, and EAR, 
> but more importantly LNT, 344 kHz in Maine was coming in nicely. That 
> prompted a look for TAG on 185.8 kHz Wolf10 and it decoded for the first 
> time since last Spring:
> 
> 2009-12-04 05:05:03 >WOLF10  -r 10800.656 -f 400 -t 1.0 -w 0.0000 -ut
> 05:05:27 f:-0.002 a: 0.4 dp: 84.6 ci:10 cj:157 .RH3*CS5TIDR31B ?
> 05:05:51 f:-0.001 a: 0.3 dp: 82.6 ci:10 cj:157 D 8RI2TKK7 .MNX ?
> 05:06:39 f: 0.001 a: 0.1 dp: 84.5 ci: 6 cj: 40  6H5K QBGN X58K ?
> 05:08:15 f:-0.928 pm:10.40 jm:767 q:-15.4 -6.8 BQ9I8ZG0Q*E8IJ5 ?
> .
> .
> .
> 05:24:15 f:-0.010 pm:37.97 jm:206 q: -4.4 -7.7 CNYF51A0MW*.VWE ?
> .
> .
> .
> 05:40:15 f:-0.010 pm:87.91 jm:206 q: -1.5 -8.3 6YDE67???JNE6FY ?
> 05:41:51 f:-0.010 pm:90.39 jm:206 q: -1.4 -7.8 VXI???5XF6TTHG4 ?
> 05:43:27 f:-0.010 pm:94.92 jm:206 q: -1.3 -6.0 TAG RAYMOND ME  -
> 05:45:03 f:-0.010 pm:96.37 jm:206 q: -1.1 -5.9 TAG RAYMOND ME  -
> 
> A visit next to the watering hole found MP, XR, and CV coming in well 
> (as did the W5JGV grabber). Unfortunately, brief looks for WMS and RM 
> didn't succeed.
> 
> I'm testing a beacon on 185.185 kHz, QRSS30. The antenna capacitance is 
> short of what was expected so it's currently off resonance and meager 
> copy 20 miles away at my QTH. I've wound an additional coil to resonate 
> it and as weather permits I'll try that and other things Jay, W1VD 
> suggested. Will announce it here when it's ready for prime time.
> 
> 73, Garry, K3SIW, EN52ta, Elgin, IL
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