[SFDXA] ARLP002 Propagation de K7RA

[William Marx]

> 
> SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP002
> ARLP002 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> ZCZC AP02
> QST de W1AW  
> Propagation Forecast Bulletin 2  ARLP002
> From Tad Cook, K7RA
> Seattle, WA  January 11, 2013
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB PROP ARL ARLP002
> ARLP002 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> After last week's somewhat downbeat look at sunspot cycles, current,
> past and future, we sure have some great activity to report this
> week.
> 
> The average daily sunspot number more than doubled in the past week,
> rising nearly 93 points to 163.3. Average daily solar flux was up
> more than 37 points to 147.7. On top of that, the geomagnetic
> conditions were very quiet, which is a wonderful combination, not
> often seen in more active solar cycles.
> 
> There is a bit of uncertainty regarding the mid-latitude A-index on
> January 5-6. Some sort of outage for 24 hours blocked the data (from
> Fredericksburg, Virginia) on 8 consecutive 3-hour readings from late
> January 5 (UTC) through early January 6. The mid-latitude K-index
> tracked closely with the planetary K-index from January 3-9, so if
> the data were not missing, the January 5 mid-latitude A-index would
> probably have been a little higher, and the January 6 mid-latitude
> A-index a little lower than reported. The daily A-index is based
> solely upon the eight K-index readings throughout the day.
> 
> Currently NOAA and USAF predict solar flux values of 175 on January
> 11-12, 170 on January 13-14, 165, 150 and 125 on January 15-17, 105
> on January 18-19, 110 and 120 on January 20-21, 125 on January
> 22-24, 130 on January 25-28, 135 on January 29, 140 on January 30
> through February 1, then 135, 140, 135 and 130 on February 2-5, and
> 125 on February 6-7.
> 
> A predicted planetary A index is 5 on January 11, 8 on January
> 12-13, 5 on January 14-19, 8 on January 20-21, 5 in January 22-25,
> 10 on January 26, 5 on January 27 through February 2, 8 on February
> 3-5, 5 on February 6-8, and 10 on February 9.
> 
> The forecast is from January 10, and the solar flux portion is
> identical to the same report on January 9. The A index portion is
> only slightly different on a couple of days, otherwise the same as
> Wednesday's forecast.
> 
> OK1HH has an updated geomagnetic activity forecast. He says to watch
> for quiet to unsettled conditions January 11-12, active to disturbed
> January 13, quiet to unsettled January 14, mostly quiet January 15,
> quiet to active January 16, quiet on January 17-19, mostly quiet
> January 20-21, quiet on January 22-25, mostly quiet January 26,
> quiet to active January 27, quiet January 28-29, mostly quiet
> January 30-31, and quiet again on February 1-2.
> 
> Howard Lester, N7SO of Schuylerville, New York recently saw his wire
> antennas go down in a big wind. The former inverted vee is now
> suspended two feet above ground at the feedpoint, and 12 feet above
> ground at each end. So it is now an actual upright V instead of an
> inverted vee. Howard was excited to see what he could work this week
> with the fast rising solar flux and sunspot numbers.
> 
> He wrote, "Mysteriously, the antenna system still loads with
> identical settings on my transmatch. So I decided to try
> transmitting, called a guy on SSB in Germany, and he came back to me
> with a nice signal report. Then a guy in Greece. And on 17 CW I
> broke through a little pileup to Iceland."
> 
> This was from January 9-10. On January 10 he wrote, "I made a couple
> of contacts on 15 SSB to Poland and to eastern Ukraine, both less
> than 1 hour after sunrise. They're all using giant antennas, so no
> wonder they hear me. It seems awfully early in the morning this time
> of year for 15, let alone 12, to be open, except that the flux is so
> high right now.
> 
> "I just worked OZ1ADL, Jan, in Galten, Denmark on 12 meter SSB. He
> gave me a 59 report, and was especially surprised after I described
> my antenna situation. But, HIS antenna is a 13-element log periodic
> at 100 feet."
> 
> With the fast-rising solar flux this week, it has been fun to
> examine the thrice daily readings from the observatory at Penticton,
> British Columbia.
> 
> Check
> ftp://ftp.geolab.nrcan.gc.ca/data/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/fluxtable.txt
> and look at the first column on the left for date, second column for
> time and the fifth column for observed solar flux. Daily readings
> are at 1800, 2000 and 2200 UTC, but the 2000 UTC reading (local
> noon) is the official solar flux number for the day.
> 
> Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA of Indianapolis, Indiana has some
> observations on recent solar activity. Carl wrote, "The New Year
> welcomed us with a nice increase in solar activity. In the past
> several days I, along with many others, worked A45XR and A65BP (and
> others) in the late morning hours on 12m and 10m via long path to
> the southwest from here in the Midwest. I even worked VU2XO on 10m
> SSB via long path (to the south) at 1638z on Friday January 4 - he
> was extremely weak but workable.
> 
> "These QSOs are good examples of low probability openings, and they
> were aided by the increased aforementioned solar activity. VOACAP
> predicts these openings (even at low solar activity), along with
> many other low probability paths. You just have to be there when
> they happen.
> 
> "Both ends of the path are looking toward the equatorial ionosphere,
> with the highest MUFs in the world (even at low solar activity). Our
> end of the path is in daylight, which of course is good for these
> higher band QSOs. The other end is past sunset, but not far enough
> past sunset to have the MUF decrease significantly - thank goodness
> the ionosphere recombines much slower after sunset than it ionizes
> at sunrise. And more than likely this wasn't conventional multi-hop
> - I suspect chordal hops that kept the losses down."
> 
> Thank you, Carl.
> 
> Several readers had comments about past solar cycles. Lou De Chiaro,
> WB2IJT of Lindenwold, New Jersey wrote, "I was fairly active on HF
> during the late 1960s when Cycle 20 peaked. At the time, my rig was
> a Heath SB-300 receiver and SB-400 transmitter running around 100
> watts CW output. My largest HF antenna consisted of a rhombic that
> measured around 40 feet in the short dimension and about 300 feet in
> the long dimension. The best propagation results happened on 10
> meters during the 1969-1970 period, and I both observed 20 dB/S9
> signals and received equally glowing reports from several VK and ZL
> stations on both CW and SSB. My QTH at the time was in northern NJ.
> Since then, I have unfortunately not seen signals of comparable
> strength from 'down under,' though one always wants to remain
> hopeful."
> 
> Ken Bourke, N6UN of San Diego, California wrote, "I was born in 1940
> and fit the age group that you talk about and the expectations we
> had. I enjoyed the current article about this age group as it moved
> thru the 11 year sunspot cycles and it is very accurate and true. No
> cycle compares to the 1958 one.
> 
> "We old QCWA hams always hope and think we will have another cycle
> like that 1958 one, but it never has happened. In 1958 I was 18
> years old, in Illinois (W9ZVG, Extra Class), with 1 KW and a quad at
> 60 feet. But I even got bored working so many DX countries. I did
> not know I was experiencing a once in a lifetime event. 15 meters
> was also hot. I made a tape recording of the crowded 10 meter band
> on old tape at 7.5 ips.
> 
> "But I always thought the band would come back like that 1958 event
> every 11 years, but it never has come back like 1958. I still keep
> hoping and do think some cycle in the future will be even stronger,
> with a higher daily 23 cm solar flux than our 110 or 120 today, like
> over 150 or 200 daily, solar flux which might occur with a big long
> term solar eruption and massive solar wind. I keep waiting for a lot
> of long term continuous solar activity."
> 
> Fortunately, solar flux this week is actually over 150, rising to
> 174 on January 10 and predicted at 175 on January 11-12.
> 
> Tom Gallagher, N6RA of San Francisco, California wrote, "I was one
> of the lucky ones to be on the air and hunting DX in the 50s. I'm
> now 70. I was licensed in 1955 as KN4DRO in Miami at the age of 12.
> I quickly got into DXing (having been an SWL DXer at the age of 10
> and a BC band DXer at the age of 6 when my parents gave me my own
> little BC band radio). In 1958 I received DXCC #3698. I had about
> 210 countries when I went off to college in 1960 (I was actually the
> #9 DXer in the state of Florida with my puny station when I went off
> to college). I had a very modest station--50 watts on CW and AM (I
> had 140 countries on AM phone) with a 2 element quad at 30 feet. My
> experience during the various sunspot cycles was very much like you
> outlined. I had them all for a while, but missed South Sudan
> (haven't sent in the new PJ cards yet).
> 
> "6 meters has taken my interest in the last 13 years or so. There
> seem to be a lot of geezer HF DXers on 6!  I had hopes of making
> DXCC on 6, but it's harder than I ever envisioned from the West
> Coast and the sunspots don't seem to be cooperating. I do have some
> juicy DX on 6 from 2001, such as Z22JE, ZD7, 3W, DU, VR2, etc."
> 
> Before closing, check out a couple of interesting articles about
> solar activity at
> http://earthsky.org/space/nasas-three-minute-solar-cycle-primer and
> http://earthsky.org/space/frank-hill-sees-future-sunspot-drop-no-new-ice-age.
> 
> 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. Find more good
> information and tutorials on propagation at
> http://myplace.frontier.com/~k9la/.
> 
> 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 January 3 through 9 were 116, 167, 181, 186,
> 196, 144, and 153, with a mean of 163.3. 10.7 cm flux was 128.8,
> 143.1, 145.1, 142.2, 149.7, 155.6, and 169.3, with a mean of 147.7.
> Estimated planetary A indices were 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, and 3, with a
> mean of 2.7. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 2, 2, 1, 6, 3, 3,
> and 3, with a mean of 2.9.
> NNNN
> /EX