[SFDXA] ARLP052 Propagation de K7RA

[Bill]

> SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP052
> ARLP052 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> ZCZC AP52
> QST de W1AW  
> Propagation Forecast Bulletin 52  ARLP052
> From Tad Cook, K7RA
> Seattle, WA  December 20, 2013
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB PROP ARL ARLP052
> ARLP052 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> Geomagnetic conditions were more stable than expected last weekend,
> good news for participants in the ARRL 10 Meter Contest.  The
> planetary A index on Friday through Sunday was 3, 16 and 7 and
> mid-latitude A index was just 3, 10 and 5.
> 
> Still, there were some scary moments, such as Saturday night in
> North America (0035 UTC December 15) when the Australian Space
> Forecast Centre issued this alert: "INCREASED GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY
> EXPECTED DUE TO CORONAL HOLE HIGH SPEED WIND STREAM FOR 15 DECEMBER
> 2013."
> 
> For the reporting week, Thursday through Wednesday, average daily
> sunspot numbers rose from 122.1 to 134.4, and average solar flux
> went from 162.4 to 159.7, compared to the previous period, December
> 5-11.
> 
> The latest prediction from USAF and NOAA has solar flux at 155, 150
> and 145 on December 20-22, 140 on December 23-24, then 130 and 135
> on December 25-26, 160 on December 27-28, 165 on December 29-31, 170
> on January 1-2, 175 on January 3-6, 170 on January 7, then 165 on
> January 8-10, 160 on January 11 and 150 on January 12-13. Solar flux
> is expected to decline to a low of 135 on January 18-19, then rise
> to 175 at the end of January.
> 
> This solar flux prediction for the next seven days was revised
> downward significantly from yesterday's forecast in the ARRL Letter.
> Wednesday's forecast for December 20-26 was 160, 155, 150, 150, 155,
> 150 and 155. The latest forecast (Thursday's) shows predicted flux
> values of 155, 150, 145, 140, 140, 130 and 135 for those same seven
> days. The downward revision was 5 points on December 20-22, 10
> points on December 23, 15 points on December 24, and 20 points on
> December 25-26.
> 
> The predicted planetary A index is 5 on December 20-24, 8 on
> December 25-26, then  10 and 8 on December 27-28, 5 on December 29
> through January 2, then 10 and 20 on January 3-4, 5 on January 5-9,
> then 15 and 7 on January 10-11, then 5 after that until a more
> active period around the end of January.
> 
> At http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/45DF.html you can get
> a daily update of these forecasts, and lately the new one has been
> issued between 2119-2123 UTC. But the December 11 forecast came out
> at 0755 UTC on December 12, and the December 17 issue at 0051 UTC
> December 18. In the past (for years now) I don't recall it ever
> coming out as late as into the next UTC day.
> 
> F.K. Janda, OK1HH of the Czech Propagation Interest Group has a
> shorter than usual geomagnetic forecast this week, perhaps for 12
> days of Christmas. He sees quiet conditions December 20-24, mostly
> quiet December 25, quiet to unsettled December 26, quiet to active
> December 27, quiet on December 28, mostly quiet December 29, and
> quiet again on December 30-31. Not the same twelve days as
> Christmastide or Twelvetide, which actually extend into January, but
> I thought it had a nice familiar ring to it.
> 
> Operators in the ARRL 10 Meter contest last weekend probably saw the
> best conditions for this event in over a decade, and all the reports
> sound very happy.
> 
> Larry Godek, W0OGH of Gilbert, Arizona did not participate this
> year, but did tune around and listen. Larry reports, "It was
> wonderfully busy. Signals all over the place and I'd think there
> will be a lot of good scores reported. You could sure tell that the
> band was good because the activity on other bands and modes was
> waaayyyy down!  I'm really glad that the band was so good for this
> contest."
> 
> Jeff Hartley, N8II of Shepherdstown, West Virginia reported:
> "Conditions in this year's 10 meter contest were overall markedly
> improved from 2012 when the SFI hovered just under 100. Last year I
> made less than 10 total European QSOs, this year I worked 150 DLs,
> 61 Gs (not including the other British countries such as 14 GMs), 58
> Is, and 52 Fs.
> 
> "The contest started without me, but at 0140Z there were still some
> far western USA stations like AZ in and out and some fairly loud
> deep South Americans in PY, LU, and CX on TE. The SAs were fairly
> hard to work and one other local agreed. The Geminids provided some
> good meteor scatter with active periods exceeding one minute and
> some stations like K0TT in MN and W0AIH in WI audible almost all of
> the time. Meteor scatter was also worked into most of New England
> and a few 4s in KY, AL, and GA as well was 0s in MO and IA.
> 
> "The EU opening Saturday beat me out of bed with strong signals from
> all over EU already in at 1240Z. Russians were not as loud as in Oct
> and early November, but I managed to log quite a few in all areas of
> Russian EU including UA4 and even two very western UA9s in the log.
> Conditions were definitely above seasonal norms and the band stayed
> open to OK/OM/9A/S5 probably at least 90 minutes longer than normal
> probably due to some EU sporadic-E. Western EU also stayed in much
> later than normal, truly exceptional. Throughout the contest
> conditions to the south were very good allowing me to easily work
> those stations with a Force 12 yagi with 2 el on 10 meters.
> Conditions to CA were poor about 95-98 percent of the time when the
> band could have been open with best conditions as the band opened
> and again well past sunset when it closed. Skip was as short as
> ND/SD/KS/TX with CO and the Rocky mountain states being in the sweet
> spot for best propagation. AZ was the most active state from here
> with 73 QSOs, 2nd was TX with 61, most worked on Sunday. My CO
> contacts outnumbered CA 57 to 53, and UT equaled WA with 25.There
> must have been some destructive solar wind (OH2XX was loud around
> 20Z) with a lack of KL7s and a late JA opening Saturday, but once 10
> opened the JAs had fairly good signals and there was an amazingly
> late secondary opening from about 0110 until past 0130Z when some
> big guns could still be worked. I heard NH2T calling someone, but
> only worked JA, UA0, and KL7 to the northwest Saturday evening.
> Several eastern VKs had good signals and were easy to work thru
> small pile-ups.
> 
> "Sunday conditions were pretty typical of an average mid winter day
> with EU opening about 1235Z, but still some Russians were worked
> with good conditions in the 13Z hour. A VU2 also called on CW with a
> solid S7 signal. By 1615Z much of EU was gone completely and just
> after 1700Z only Iberian peninsula stations (EA/CT) were left.
> 
> "Both days the solar activity was high enough to allow many
> backscatter QSOs out to the edges of the skip zone, but the weak
> spot was in 5 land. I never worked MS, worked LA only once, and a
> couple of big gun AR stations were just readable. The best direction
> was somewhat dependent on where the target station was beaming, but
> south was the better choice until late in the day when SW and W took
> over following the Sun. The JAs came in at a normal time around
> 2230Z with good signals and were fading but workable at 2330Z.
> 
> "Other than almost no sporadic-E and the frustration of missing many
> west coast stations, conditions could not have been much better. The
> highest scoring multi-op stations in the USA made over 3000 QSOs and
> D4C had over 4600 with about 3 hours to go. Next year will probably
> be way down from this 2nd peak of the cycle, but this current
> upsurge was poorly predicted, so we will have to wait and see."
> 
> Dan Bates, N5TM of Katy, Texas reported, "Yes, 10 meters was insane.
> Friday night was strange with band open until late after dark and
> short hops into Colorado and Nebraska. EU was open early both
> mornings with strong stations. Good openings the rest of the day to
> SA and PNW.
> 
> "I could hardly find a clear spot to CQ. Settled in on 28.158 and
> had nice runs."
> 
> Dan Eskenazi, K7SS of Seattle, Washington reported: "It was really
> good! Super fun."
> 
> Howard Lester, N7SO of Schuylerville, New York commented, "I had a
> lot of fun in the 10 meter contest. With the solar flux as high as
> it was, in just maybe three hours over the course of the two days I
> worked 27 countries, trying for one of each. Most were in Europe and
> South America. My antenna is a 140 foot long inverted-V, so who
> knows what directions it favors. The highlight was working club
> station WY7SS in the little town of Sundance, Wyoming where, in 1969
> during a cross-country trip, I stayed overnight and, at the local
> gift shop, bought a leather belt with a longhorn buckle, and an
> agate ring. I wish I still had them."
> 
> With an identical call sign suffix, Fred Glenn, K9SO of Palatine,
> Illinois reported, "I only worked CW, but it was one of the best
> 'target rich' environments I've ever experienced on 10m. Reminded me
> of a busy Field Day on 40 meters with signals all across the band at
> maximum density. Both days saw great conditions into Europe and
> Northern Africa in the mid morning fading to primarily domestic NA
> and Caribbean by mid day and early afternoon. Later, we had big
> signals from some of the big guns in ZL and VK land, and also from
> Hawaii. Not much participation from those areas, at least on CW, so
> the QSO point counts contributed from there were low. Virtually
> nothing heard from Japan or South Africa on either day.
> 
> "I had put up a temporary dipole just for this event and was
> rewarded with 35 new band-countries and a 37 state count with about
> 7 hours of 'point and shoot' operating.
> 
> "Long live the twin peaks!"
> 
> If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
> email the author at, k7ra at arrl.net.
> 
> For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL
> Technical Information Service web page 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 December 12 through 18 were 156, 141, 163, 158,
> 114, 91, and 118, with a mean of 134.4. 10.7 cm flux was 164.8,
> 163.1, 164.2, 156.2, 154.3, 159, and 156, with a mean of 159.7.
> Estimated planetary A indices were 3, 3, 16, 7, 7, 3, and 4, with a
> mean of 6.1. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 2, 3, 10, 5, 5,
> 3, and 3, with a mean of 4.4.
> NNNN
> /EX