[Lowfer] lowfer's 12-7-20 in TN

[J D]

Interesting results, Andy! They were mirrored here as well yesterday 
afternoon.

For instance: I should not have been able to see 7P at all during the 
afternoon, let alone as well as I did, but it continued until a sudden 
decline around 4 PM CST, an hour before sunset, and did not return to 
identifiable visibility until well after dark. For comparison, WM took 
its usual half-hour or so dip right at sunset, then bounded back in 
skywave mode.

Alas, living so much farther from the Northeastern and Canadian LowFERs, 
I cannot afford to compromise my receiver's dynamic range by "going 
broadband" with the I.F., but have to confine myself to the watering 
hole _or_ EAR or TAG or JH at a given time...but I sure wish I could've 
tuned to EAR at the same time 7P was so strong, just to see if that 
rarest of hens' teeth (daytime copy of EAR here) was present too.

I'm not sure if yesterday's C7 solar flare can account for it. The UV 
from that eruption densified the D-layer as it normally should, 
increasing attenuation of signals from 30 kHz up to at least 10 MHz. I 
haven't found anything in the literature about the D-layer collapsing on 
rebound from such an event. However, something out of the ordinary 
certainly took place "upstairs," and it seems to be related to whatever 
causes early-December to mid-January anomalies that make this such an 
interesting time of year at LF.  (A G1 storm is expected in the next 24 
hours from that flare, BTW.)

As of bedtime last night, I had only gotten one decode of SIW WSPR at 
185.185 since noon, and that came at 10 PM CST/0400 UTC. There were a 
few more overnight, but after daybreak the PLC that usually sits just 
above .185 drifted down right on top of it and grew mighty strong! Now 
I'm not able to even discern SIW's presence, let alone decode it.  WM 
has continued fairly well into the daylight in SE Kansas, although 
random PLCs and SMPS wander through it.

As for 7P overnight, it was nice and clear most of the time except for 
the usual 1750 meter fading, which is often around the same times you 
have observed. Last night I was able to see the WSPR2 signal 7P 
transmits between the QRSS IDs.  It should have been strong enough to 
decode at least once, if I had been able to run another WSPR decoder.
However, I was already straining the notebook computer's resources with 
four Argo windows and the WSPR15 decoder all running at the same time. 
The four Argos were one each for QRSS 30, 60, and 10 centered on 185.300 
and one QRSS30 centered on 185.185. I ran the extra 10-second instance 
to help "diagnose" and new mystery signals that might have appeared near 
the watering hole. ;)

John