[SFDXA] ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA

[Bill]

> SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP051
> ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> ZCZC AP51
> QST de W1AW  
> Propagation Forecast Bulletin 51  ARLP051
> From Tad Cook, K7RA
> Seattle, WA  December 19, 2014
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB PROP ARL ARLP051
> ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> Solar activity made a strong comeback this week, with the average
> daily sunspot number on December 11-17 rising 57 points to 145.4
> from the previous seven days, while average daily solar flux was up
> 28.1 points to 167.7.
> 
> But then toward the end of the week, activity made a large jump,
> with solar flux at 213.2 on Thursday.
> 
> Predicted solar flux is 220, 225, 220 and 210 on December 19-22,
> then 200, 195, 190 and 160 on December 23-26, then 140 on December
> 27-29, 135 on December 30 through January 1, 140 on January 2-4, 145
> on January 5, 155 on January 6-7, 160 on January 8, and 165 on
> January 9-12. Flux values then peak at 175 on January 14-15.
> 
> Predicted planetary A index is 10, 15, 10 and 8 on December 19-22, 5
> on December 23-27, 8 on December 28-30, 10 on December 31 and
> January 1, then 12, 25, 15 and 10 on January 2-5, 8 on January 6-7,
> 10 on January 8-9, and 8 on January 10-12.
> 
> OK1MGW graces us with another of his geomagnetic forecasts. He
> expects (although is uncertain about) quiet to active conditions on
> December 19, mostly quiet December 20-21, quiet on December 22,
> mostly quiet December 23-24, quiet on December 25-26, quiet to
> unsettled December 27-28, mostly quiet December 29-31, quiet to
> unsettled January 1-2, active to disturbed on January 3, quiet to
> active January 4-5, quiet to unsettled January 6-7, quiet to active
> January 8, quiet to unsettled January 9-10, quiet to active January
> 11, and mostly quiet January 12-14.
> 
> He expects increased solar wind on January 2-5 and 8-11.
> 
> Peter Kolman, OK1MGW of the Czech Propagation Interest Group, has
> been producing weekly forecasts with OK1HH since 1978.
> 
> On December 17 the 10.7 cm receivers at Penticton must have become
> overloaded, because NOAA/USAF adjusted the noon reading down from
> 198.5 to 192, which correlates to the earlier 10:00 AM reading of
> 191.5, rounded off.
> 
> We saw something similar on November 24, but in the opposite
> direction. The three flux readings for the day were 170.1, 144.4,
> and 168.4 at 10:00 AM, noon and 2:00 PM. It is always a rounded off
> noon reading that NOAA reports, but this time it was bumped up from
> 144.4 to 172, I suppose to be more consistent with the other
> readings. I've never noticed this before.
> 
> We saw another lowering of the reported flux number on November 5
> when the three readings were 135.7, 145.2 and 136.3, but NOAA
> reported 135 for the day.
> 
> At 0105 UTC on December 18 the Australian Space Forecast Centre
> issued a geomagnetic warning. They said to expect a CME impact on
> December 19-20, resulting in increased geomagnetic activity. The
> warning says to expect unsettled to active geomagnetic conditions on
> December 19 and active conditions on December 20.
> 
> We received some great reports this week. First Jimmy Mahuron, K9JWJ
> of Salem, Indiana wrote "10 meters still going strong" on December
> 13, and said running 25 watts into an inverted-V he worked about two
> dozen stations in Colorado, California, Oregon, Utah, Iowa, Canada
> and England.
> 
> Dennis Condron, K0LGI of Marion, Iowa sent some information on using
> distant broadcast television signals to detect meteor trails. He
> says Stan Nelson, KB5VL in Roswell, New Mexico also does this, and
> has a web site at http://www.roswellmeteor.com/ which displays their
> results.
> 
> One display at
> http://www.roswellmeteor.com/geminid_activity_by_k0lgi.html shows
> Dennis's results during the recent Geminid meteor shower. I think we
> can assume that all these displays are quiet most of the time, and
> that there are no local broadcasters using the same channels.
> 
> Also check http://www.spaceweatherradio.com/ .
> 
> A couple of reports came in over the past day from people who worked
> ZL1RS on 6 meters.
> 
> Craig Hill, K3PLV of Erie, Pennsylvania reports, "At 0011Z on
> December 15 I worked ZL1RS on 6 meters.  He was a true 559 when I
> worked him.  I did not listen after I worked him so he may have even
> gotten stronger later.  This is a new one for me on 6.  Usually
> propagation to New Zealand just does not get this far north and east
> on 6.  I live in Erie PA and envy the 6 meter propagation the
> stations have in the southern part of the US.  The solar flux index
> was 166.  I don't think that's high enough for F2 on 6 and it
> wouldn't be transequatorial propagation.  So I'm confused how this
> happened.  I saw no other stations spotted in the Pacific except a
> few VKs just to Central and South America.  I run 1000 Watts to a 10
> element yagi on 6, and ZL1RS uses a homebrew 7 element yagi on a 9.6
> meter boom and an amplifier."
> 
> I suspect it was a lucky coincidence of two E-skip paths linking up.
> And currently we are in the second (and smaller) annual E-skip
> season. From the signal report it looks like he was using CW.
> 
> We received another report from Bruce Smith, AC4G of Taft, Tennessee
> which is just about two miles north of the border with Alabama, and
> about 80 miles directly south of Nashville.
> 
> "Very excited about my 6 meter CW QSO made on December 14 at 0020Z
> on 50.103Mhz with ZL1RS. Signal reports both ways 559.  ZL1RS peaked
> to S7 just before fading into the noise and gone in about 2 minutes,
> never to be heard again.  This is the first ZL I have ever heard on
> 6 meters in EM65 southern Tennessee the blackhole of the US.  Just
> thought I'd pass this along.
> 
> "Worked the ARRL 10 meter contest last weekend running 4.5 watts and
> was able to make QSOs to South America, Alaska, Hawaii, and as far
> away as Japan Sunday afternoon during 2 hours of operating."
> 
> Sounds so great!  Thanks, Bruce.
> 
> Since the two contacts with the same New Zealand station were about
> 24 hours apart, I am wondering if instead of occurring on subsequent
> days, they were actually just a few minutes apart? Just from my
> experience with these sorts of things, I suspect they both occurred
> on December 14 in North America time, but K3PLV used the actual UTC
> date (the next day) but maybe AC4G reported his local date, while
> reading the UTC time off his clock? It happens! I've made the same
> mistake in the past. The same confusion often arises when trying to
> figure out when the contest begins.  If it is 0001 UTC Saturday,
> then here on the Left Coast it is 4:01 PM PST Friday.
> 
> Don't forget the ARRL CW Rookie Roundup this weekend. If you
> received your license in 2012, 2013 or 2014, you are a Rookie and
> eligible to compete.  The rest of us are encouraged to participate,
> work the newcomers, and submit check logs.
> 
> http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-cw-rookie-roundup-returns-on-december-21 
> has all the details.
> 
> Also, remember that SKN is less than two weeks away! Dust off that
> old straight key and spend a mellow night operating and welcoming
> the New Year. See http://www.arrl.org/straight-key-night for
> details. This is another test of your UTC savvy, mentioned above. It
> begins on January 1, in the New Year, at 0000 UTC. That is 7:00 PM
> EST on New Years Eve, December 31, 2014.
> 
> John Parnell, K7HV sent this in from Seattle, after responding to my
> query about 10 meters last weekend:
> 
> "I did not do the contest seriously.  I did note that the fallout
> from the CME and resultant high A index knocked out most of the path
> to Europe, I only worked Spain and Canary Isle, in a short AM EU
> opening from the Pacific NW.  The band was open elsewhere but a bit
> noisy, more so on Sunday. Decent N-S path to Oceania and S Atlantic,
> VP8RAF was very loud, decent openings to E/SE Asia in the
> afternoons.
> 
> "BTW, I finally figured out a way to load my G5RV on 160 (by
> shorting the ant and using an external tuner vs my rig's autotuner -
> duh!).  I was therefore able to get on the ARRL 160 contest - my
> first time on the band in years. With only a few hours of operating
> I worked 28 states and 5 VE provinces, ALL over N America...THAT was
> fun!
> 
> "As is traditional for this time of year, I am working VUs on 20.
> Looking at my log, I see that I have only worked VU between late Oct
> and early January...all long-path."
> 
> And another Northwest ham, who wishes to remain anonymous, sent
> this:
> 
> "Are you kidding? It was GREAT!
> 
> "Limited EU of course, with the limited sunlit area on N Hemisphere
> in mid December. And I understand there was an unusual opening over
> the N pole at our midnight, into EU which almost everyone out here
> missed.
> 
> "ZF2DX in Caymans did great. Kevin N5DX is his call. He is living
> there now. Many did very well."
> 
> Check out this interesting Scientific American blog post about
> applying AI to solar prediction:
> 
> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/12/12/forecasting-the-suns-fury-how-artificial-intelligence-can-predict-solar-flares/
> .
> 
> Also, this sounds like an interesting book combining art with
> science:
> 
> http://publicradioeast.org/post/seeing-heaven-beauty-cosmigraphics
> 
> I have it on order from my local library.
> 
> And further, I am reluctant to pass this on, except that it reflects
> the fears and concerns of some people who send me email with
> questions, perhaps after doing a web search for "sunspot" or "solar
> flare" or "end of the world as we know it."
> 
> It's funny:
> 
> http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/12/the-musical-connection-between-sunspot-cycles-the-human-heart/
> .
> 
> 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 11 through 17 were 115, 132, 121, 175,
> 152, 169, and 154, with a mean of 145.4. 10.7 cm flux was 147.5,
> 154.2, 159.8, 166.4, 169.3, 184.6, and 192, with a mean of 167.7.
> Estimated planetary A indices were 6, 21, 9, 11, 15, 8, and 8, with
> a mean of 11.1. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 4, 15, 7, 9,
> 11, 7, and 6, with a mean of 8.4.
> NNNN
> /EX