[South Florida DX Association] ARLP044 Propagation de K7RA

[Bill Marx]

 ZCZC AP44
> QST de W1AW  
> Propagation Forecast Bulletin 44  ARLP044
> From Tad Cook, K7RA
> Seattle, WA  October 29, 2004
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB PROP ARL ARLP044
> ARLP044 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> This week has been fantastic for HF propagation, with a sun peppered
> with spots, and best of all, no geomagnetic upsets. This is an
> unusual combination, to have geomagnetic indices so low while
> sunspot numbers are up. What could be better, just ahead of the CQ
> World Wide DX SSB Contest this weekend?
> 
> From last week to this week, the average daily sunspot number more
> than doubled, rising over 75 points to 140.7. The sunspot number was
> highest on Sunday, October 24 when it was 178. The daily sunspot
> number hasn't been this high since late 2003, when it was also 178
> on November 30.
> 
> I know that last week we were looking forward to the decline toward
> solar minimum in a couple of years. But the minimum and maximum are
> never determined until long after, when we get a chance to look at
> charts of long running moving averages. In between is a great deal
> of variation, such as what we are seeing now.
> 
> For this weekend, expect great conditions for the DX contest, and
> you can expect the higher HF bands to yield plenty. Average solar
> flux for this week was about 131, and you can expect continuing
> solar flux between 130-135 through the weekend. Saturday, October 30
> may have some mildly unsettled geomagnetic conditions, with a
> planetary A index of 12. Currently as this bulletin is being
> composed late Thursday night U.S. West Coast time, WWV is reporting
> a mid-latitude K index of 0.
> 
> Several readers sent in articles concerning a new report claiming
> there has been more solar activity over the past seven decades than
> any time in the previous 8,000 years. You can read about it on the
> web at, http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15385 and
> http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sunspot_record_041027.html.
> 
> Carl Zelich, AA4MI wrote to tell us about
> http://www.dx-central.com/. On the home page they post the latest
> geophysical alerts and solar flux from WWV, and they have many other
> resources. I noticed a link to http://www.dxtuners.com, where you
> can remotely tune and listen to radios all over the world via the
> internet.
> 
> If you would like to comment or have a tip, email the author at,
> k7ra at arrl.net.
> 
> For more information concerning propagation and an explanation of
> the numbers used in this bulletin see the ARRL Technical Information
> Service propagation page at,
> http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html.
> 
> A word about the solar flux numbers for this week. On Monday,
> October 25 the observatory in Penticton, British Columbia did not
> report a 10.7 cm noon solar flux. Although the local noon (2000z)
> measurement is the official daily solar flux, there are also daily
> measurements at 1700 and 2300z. We report 141.4 for that day by
> averaging the 1700 and 2300z numbers of 139.6 and 143.2.
> 
> Sunspot numbers for October 21 through 27 were 112, 134, 141, 178,
> 146, 124 and 150 with a mean of 140.7. 10.7 cm flux was 112.1,
> 122.5, 131.6, 140.2, 141.4, 136.7 and 129.5, with a mean of 130.6.
> Estimated planetary A indices were 8, 6, 4, 9, 13, 3 and 3, with a
> mean of 6.6. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 5, 5, 1, 6, 9, 0
> and 2, with a mean of 4.
> NNNN
> /EX
> 
> 
>