[Lowfer] Inactivity

[JD]

My session in the wee hours of Friday morning produced the same result on 
MP's frequency that Garry saw, except a bit weaker (though still evident to 
the ear) and more broken up by noise, until the pre-sunrise fade took both 
signal and static away from me.  I wonder from both what I saw and Garry's 
clearer version whether Mitch was sending some more esoteric mode than QRSS, 
as there are fluctuations in carrier level that may or may not correspond to 
the effects of noise.  Also, of course, a 30-sec Argo screen centered near 
the carrier of interest wouldn't show us any modulation sidebands for baud 
rates faster than about 1.5/second.

The attached capture exhibits some of the long-term fading that occurred 
several times during my five hour nap in the car--I mean, monitoring 
session.  It spans just under one hour, ending at 1:37 AM CDT/0637 UTC, with 
relatively strong signal for up to 20 minutes at a time, and weaker for 
about 20 minutes between.  A similar pattern is evident douring the rest of 
the night's captures.  This was with Argo's visual gain set for "Lo" 
incidentally, as the carrier was harder to distinguish from the background 
during noisier spells when it was in AGC mode.

>>> When are the sunspots going to make DX on 10 meters trivial like in 
>>> 1958?

Good question.  Solar flux had been sagging to around 80 for a while, and 
HiFER signals were largely non-existent here in SE Kansas.  I see it has 
crept up to 90 today, but with recent geomagnetic disturbances to G2 level, 
and more at G1 forecast for today.
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