[SFDXA] Fwd: 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 18, 2015
> To all radio amateurs 
> 
> SB PROP ARL ARLP051
> ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA
> 
> Australia's Space Weather Services issued a geomagnetic disturbance
> warning at 2224 UTC on December 17. It read in part, "Two coronal
> mass ejections observed Dec 16 are expected to impact the Earth in
> sequence late Dec 18 to early Dec 19. Brief minor to major
> geomagnetic storm conditions may result."
> 
> For December 18 they predicted quiet to active conditions, and on
> December 19 active to minor storm.
> 
> Solar activity increased over the past week, compared to the
> previous seven days. Average daily sunspot number on December 10-16
> was 74.3, up from 48 over the previous seven days, December 3-9.
> 
> Average daily solar flux increased from 102.2 to 118.6.
> 
> Geomagnetic indices were also higher, with planetary A index going
> from 9.9 to 15.6, and mid-latitude A index from 6.6 to 11.3.
> 
> The latest prediction from USAF/NOAA forecasters shows predicted
> daily solar flux at 120 on December 18, 125 on December 19-21, 120
> on December 22-23, then 115, 110, 105 and 98 on December 24-27, 95
> on December 28-29, 98 on December 30-31, 100 on January 1-2, 105 on
> January 3, 110 on January 4-6, 115 on January 7-9, and then peaking
> at 130 on January 11-13 before dropping back below 100 after January
> 22.
> 
> Predicted planetary A index is 16, 42, 18, 10 and 8 on December
> 18-22, 5 on December 23-26, then 18, 15 and 10 on December 27-29, 5
> on December 30-31, then 15, 20, 18 and 10 on January 1-4, 8, 20, 18
> and 12 on January 5-8, and 10, 8, 18 and 25 on January 9-12.
> Planetary A index then quiets down to 5 on January 16-22.
> 
> The OK1HH Geomagnetic Activity Forecast says to watch for quiet to
> active conditions December 18, active to disturbed conditions
> December 19, quiet to unsettled December 20, quiet December 21-22,
> mostly quiet December 23, quiet December 24, quiet to active
> December 25-27, active to disturbed December 28, quiet to unsettled
> December 29, mostly quiet December 30, quiet to active December 31,
> active to disturbed January 1-2, quiet to unsettled January 3,
> mostly quiet January 4, quiet to active January 5-6, quiet to
> unsettled January 7, mostly quiet January 8, quiet January 9, active
> to disturbed January 10, and quiet to unsettled January 11.
> 
> OK1HH expects an increase in solar wind on December 16-19, 26-29,
> January 2-4 and 7-8. The prediction is less certain on December
> 16-17, 19, and 28-29.
> 
> The Geminid meteor shower has the possibility each year of enhancing
> conditions for the ARRL 10 Meter Contest (due to ionized meteor
> trails) but this year the peak occurred after the contest, on
> December 14. But still, the shower was predicted to last from
> December 7-16.
> 
> Mark Schreiner, NK8Q of State College, Pennsylvania sent in this
> report on the 160 Meter contest from two weeks ago.
> 
> "I was also operating in the 160m contest last weekend. While I had
> some distractions so wasn't able to put in the full amount of time I
> would have liked, I did have a blast running QRP on 160m, especially
> on Friday night from 0100Z to 0200Z when I was camped out on 1800.35
> kHz calling CQ. I had run rates like I've never seen while running
> QRP before (on any band!). The peak was 153 QSOs per hour in a 10
> minute window, but that wasn't just a quick flurry of activity and
> then it was done, it kept going for about 1-1/2 hours.
> 
> "I had a 60 minute run rate of 53 Qs/Hr which is about double my
> normal rate. Unfortunately, I was at a birthday party on Saturday
> evening so wasn't able to operate during that obviously prime
> timeframe, but did get back on around 0400Z and stayed on through
> until about an hour after sunrise at 1300Z on Sunday morning when I
> shut down.
> 
> "I finished with over 400 QSOs and 60 multipliers with 17 hours of
> my QRP efforts (and thanks to all who spent time working to pull my
> signal out!). I was especially pleased when a station from the
> Virgin Islands answered my CQ! Best DX from central PA to the east
> was GW, to the south was SFL (South Florida) and C6 (Bahamas), to
> the west was AZ and OR and to the north was VY2. I've heard better
> conditions but it wasn't too bad."
> 
> Mark operated the club station at the Nittany Amateur Radio Club,
> with 5 watts and a 160 meter half-wave inverted-Vee antenna.
> 
> http://www.nittany-arc.net/station.html
> 
> Jeff, N8II reported on December 12:
> 
> "I am in the 10 meter contest right now, conditions surprisingly
> good especially to the states, but openings shorter than last year
> although good to 7 land from 1630Z until local sunset (2200Z). I
> will send a report later. On a usual day there is almost no USA
> activity in mid-day (making you think the band is not open); wow was
> there plenty today!"
> 
> On December 17 Jeff wrote:
> 
> "I just sent a report on the 10 meter contest, it was not a total
> collapse (in reference to N0JK comments - Tad), but conditions were
> noticeably down all day Sunday compared to Saturday and the skip
> zone was much longer, especially to the south in the afternoon.
> 
> "Conditions and activity were a bit better than expected in the ARRL
> 10 meter contest last weekend. The K index was running mostly at 3
> the first day and 1-2 Sunday with SFI up to 123 Sunday, but
> continuing the pattern I have observed recently, Saturday was
> actually a significantly better day.
> 
> "Friday evening, conditions were worse than I can ever remember. The
> band was almost totally dead as it was after 24Z Saturday evening as
> well. I worked only ME and two FL stations on meteor scatter Friday,
> the rest were all within local working range which extends out to OH
> (barely), CT, NY, and NJ.
> 
> "Saturday, my first QSO at 1224Z when I fired up was on CW with a
> French station peaking around 120 degrees vs. normal heading of 55
> via F2 scatter. Sunrise was about 1220Z. I continued to work the
> East Coast on backscatter, Canary Is., Czech Republic, Netherlands,
> and Germany all on F2 scatter except for African stations.
> 
> "At 1250Z, the first loud direct path Caribbean station was in the
> Virgin Is. Around 1320 a couple of loud Quebec stations called via
> Es on CW. Still on scatter beaming 90-120 degrees, numerous DLs in
> Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, and Italy were logged until finally
> at 1353Z a loud direct path CR7 in Portugal was found on SSB and
> many EU QSOs followed until 1600Z when the band rapidly closed in
> that direction.
> 
> "The northernmost extent of the opening was Scotland, Germany, and
> Poland with a good number of Mediterranean area stations including
> Macedonia and Israel.
> 
> "Dutch stations were loud and numerous as well as England for a
> shorter time.
> 
> "Surprisingly, at 1432Z a fairly loud US5 in the Ukraine called
> (never heard one in the CQWW on CW). Last year into EU lasted much
> longer and farther north into all of northern EU at times. BY 1600Z,
> stations to the west were loud and numerous which lasted all day
> until 2100Z when the band started to fade.
> 
> "The skip zone was the shortest around 1700-1800Z right around local
> noon here and just west of here.
> 
> "The skip zone with loud stations was as short as MS, LA, and MN
> aided by some Es which probably also added some loud Texans. But,
> the band never opened well to KS, MO, NE (one loud station only),
> IA, and SD.
> 
> "CA was weak at times, but never almost gone like last year and the
> Rocky Mountain states plus WA, OR, and AZ were easy to work as well
> as VE4-VE7 (Manitoba thru British Columbia).
> 
> "Signals were good to the south as well down to Brazil and
> Argentina, but the northern Caribbean faded out by around
> 1900-2000Z. I was called by Hawaii, New Zealand, and a weak QRP
> station in Australia, but nothing else from the Pacific was heard
> and I had to QRT at 2120Z before any hope of Asia might appear.
> 
> "Sunday was slow for new QSOs and propagation was worse despite
> better solar indices. The first sweep of SSB band was devoid of any
> signals. My first QSO was a OQ4 in Belgium at 1222Z on CW aided by
> Es to the Canadian Maritimes which lasted until past 1345Z, but
> activity in Canada was low (was called by PEI).
> 
> "I found few new stations in EU and had few answers to CQs. Most
> signals were not strong that were worked all morning. Around 1400Z
> was the peak of EU with Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Czech and Slovak
> Republics calling in on CW.
> 
> "Backscatter to the Eastern USA/VE beaming south around 1430-1530Z
> was strong, but I had few callers on SSB despite some signals near
> S9. The northern Caribbean was also loud that time, but faded out
> for good by 1800Z.
> 
> "After 1520Z, EU was nearly gone working last one EI2 in Ireland at
> 1539Z. BY 1530Z stations in the far western USA were loud, so I
> turned my attention that direction with excellent signals also from
> Mexico where several new XE states called in on CW. By 18Z
> backscatter had gotten weaker and continued to worsen and only
> mostly deep SA stations were workable to the south. I did have
> decent conditions to CO/NM and farther west and worked quite a few
> CA stations, but OR/WA was much weaker than Saturday. The west coast
> was gone by 2200Z only 10 minutes past sunset and my last SA QSO was
> with Peru at 2225Z which ended any ionospheric propagation for the
> day. Of note was a QSO with VE8NSD in the NW Territories at 2049Z on
> SSB, my only Arctic QSO (no AK). I worked all of the provinces
> except for Nunavut and Yukon between both modes.
> 
> "I ended up with 140 California QSOs, 82 from Arizona, and 73 from
> Washington, 60 from Maryland (locals) totaling 1317 with 204
> multipliers.
> 
> "Both QSOs and multipliers were way down from 2014, but there was
> plenty of activity except a bit sparse Sunday afternoon."
> 
> David Moore sent this link to a time-lapse video from way back in
> 2003 of a huge solar flare. Just click on the big black space
> between the two blue arrows to watch at, https://shar.es/1Gg1US .
> 
> The snow-like artifacts were caused by radiation from the flare
> overloading the camera in the observatory (SOHO). Check this for
> more info on SOHO at, http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ .
> 
> David also sent a link about the NRAO Very Large Array studying
> solar flares:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151203150131.htm
> 
> More info on the VLA:
> 
> http://public.nrao.edu/explorer/vla/TheVLAExplorer.php
> 
> I like this image:
> 
> http://public.nrao.edu/explorer/vla/TheVLAExplorer.php?map=ArraySite
> 
> We have a couple of reports from Jon Jones, N0JK, first regarding
> the recent 10 meter contest:
> 
> "The 10 meter band 'collapsed' Sunday afternoon (December 13) for
> many stations in Central and northern South America to North America
> in the ARRL 10 meter contest. Steve, PJ4DX posted in his '3830'
> contest report that he was frustrated hearing loud PY and LU
> stations still running mainland USA stations Sunday afternoon and
> these NA stations were completely inaudible for him."
> 
> PJ4DX is on the island of Bonaire, which lies off the coast of
> Venezuela in the Southern Caribbean.
> 
> Two days later, on December 16, Jon wrote:
> 
> "A long lasting 6 meter Es morning opening December 16.
> 
> "Here in Eastern Kansas, Michigan and Ohio stations were loud
> including the NF8M/b 50.076 MHz in EN82 which was 599 at 1710z. It
> runs just 5 watts to a ground plane antenna!
> 
> "Later the Es moved west and as I write stations in western Colorado
> and Utah are working the Pacific Northwest at 1935z."
> 
> The beacon station that Jon mentioned in his report:
> 
> http://www.nf8m.com/
> 
> For the next two weeks, even with the holidays, this bulletin will
> still come out on Friday, December 25 and Friday, January 1. There
> will be no ARRL Letter during those weeks.
> 
> 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/.
> 
> My own archives of the NOAA/USAF daily 45 day forecast for solar
> flux and planetary A index are in downloadable spreadsheet format at
> http://bit.ly/1VOqf9B and http://bit.ly/1DcpaC5 .
> 
> Click on "Download this file" to download the archive, and ignore
> the security warning about file format. Pop-up blockers may suppress
> the download.
> 
> 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 10 through 16 were 86, 77, 89, 74, 81,
> 64, and 49, with a mean of 48. 10.7 cm flux was 108.5, 113.7, 116.7,
> 122.5, 124, 118.9, and 126.2, with a mean of 102.2. Estimated
> planetary A indices were 23, 20, 12, 8, 22, 17, and 7, with a mean
> of 9.9. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 18, 14, 8, 6, 15, 13,
> and 5, with a mean of 6.6.
> NNNN
> /EX