Cycle 24 - Still Kicking

This week's Sun

Well, just when the sun was showing some nice signs of growing quiet for the upcoming winter, Cycle 24 has once again demonstrated that it's not going down without a fight.



For the past few weeks of quiet solar conditions, low band propagation, in spite of the time of year, had been performing well, with both 40 and 80m having a nice level of evening CW activity stretching out to the central states and to the east coast.

That all changed this week when the Sun let loose with a series of powerful flares, one of which was the strongest in a decade ... all very surprising for a Sun that has already shown us many days of spotless conditions as it winds its way to the bottom of the cycle.

With Solar Cycle 24 being one of the weakest on record, it has shown levels of activity on the way down that could rival the past few much stronger cycles in their waning years. Another oddity for this cycle was its 'double-peak', not unusual per se except that 24's second peak was the stronger of the two.

courtesy: http://www.solen.info/solar/

With the recent flaring and accompanying radio blackouts, HF propagation has been poor and with auroral conditions forecast for the arriving CMEs, it may take some time to recover, especially on LF and MF. But it may not be all bad.

Disturbances like this will normally affect E-W, polar and Trans-Atlantic paths more than N-S paths. Oftentimes, paths to South America on MF and HF will be enhanced as will the Trans-Pacific path, so all is not lost.

There are many websites devoted to providing a 'heads-up' to what might be coming geomagnetically-speaking. Two of my favorites are here and here.

The more northerly you are, the more disruption you will notice and for some reason, VE7 land seems particularly in-tune with solar perturbations as the slightest hiccup on the Sun seems to immediately wreak havoc here. Even amateurs a hundred miles to the south or southeast, enjoy markedly less disruption than us out here on Canada's western edge ... for some reason, we seem more tied-in to the auroral zone activity than we should, given our westerly location. Perhaps the zone dips lower in this region than it does further east but it is something I have observed on LF and MF for decades now.

It seems as though the first hit has just arrived so hold on to your hats:

Space Weather News for Sept. 7, 2017
http://spaceweather.com
https://www.facebook.com/spaceweatherdotcom

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WARNING: A CME has just hit Earth's magnetic field
(Sept. 7th at ~2300 UT). This is the debris from Wednesday's
decade-class X9 solar flare. It arrived earlier than expected,
confirming that the solar storm cloud is both fast and potent. The
CME appears to contain strong south-pointing magnetic fields that
typically do a good job of igniting geomagnetic storms. High-latitude
sky watchers should be alert for auroras in bright moonlight. Visit
Spaceweather.com for updates and more information about this developing event.

Hopefully the sun will outgrow its latest temper tantrum and get back to normal quickly so that this fall and winter will be one of the best for low band and MF work in the past decade ... with a quiet Sun, these frequencies can perform amazing magic at times.

Another Blast Coming

courtesy: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Speaking of 'everlasting', wimpy Solar Cycle 24 has been showing more energy in its death throws than it ever seemed to show during its peak.








It continues to blast earth with a never-ending series of coronal hole streams leading to periods of high signal absorption (particularly on the lower frequencies) and widespread auroras.

The present rip in the Sun's surface is the same one that caused major disruptions during the last solar rotation. Geomagnetic storming and propagation disruptions are forecast to begin around the 28th, with a proviso ... these ones could be even worse than last time as the wind's polarity at present is favorable to greater coupling with the Earth's magnetosphere, sending the Earth's Bz southward (negative) into auroral producing, prop-killing conditions.

Sometimes, though not normally, these events can produce periods of enhanced low frequency propagation, especially during the hours just before the event's commencement ... the best thing to do is just continue to operate normally and not assume the worst. I've been guilty of this in the past and being caught off guard, have missed some better than usual LF propagation.

 I'll keep my fingers crossed over the next few days and think positive ... Bz-wise!

Bureau QSL Batch

The batch of bureau cards last week included several cards from Europe and were probably the last I'll get for my Cycle 24 10m fun, using the homebrew Tri-Tet-Ten.


As mentioned previously, this rig was the culmination of wondering, for many many years, if I could get a single 6L6 to work well enough on 10m CW, using a 40m crystal ... quadrupling to 10m ... and still have enough useful output to work Europe! As well, the note would have to be 'acceptable' as I realized that any crystal chirping would be multiplied four times, during the quadrupling process.

The evolution of my eventual transmitter, is described in more detail here, where you can also hear what the tone sounds like. Suffice to say, the results were much more than I had ever hoped for and during the peak years of this past cycle, many enjoyable hours were spent on 10m CW with my one tube tri-tet crystal oscillator.

I guess I could always move down to 20m CW but, for me, this just doesn't have the same appeal or sense of satisfaction as using it on 10m or what I like to call, "the other magic band". Who knows what Cycle 25 will bring to 10m? I may get another chance yet, if the solar prognosticators are all wrong!

Challenging Topband

The 'Half-Sloper'

My recent 'topband' blog prompted me to think about some of the more interesting 160m contacts that I've made over the years. Although my first contacts were made just after getting my ticket in the early 60's, I really didn't have more than a couple of watts out of my modified Heathkit DX-20 ... coupled to a short 'longwire', each contact from my mid-Vancouver location was more of a miracle than anything else.


When I purchased my first house in the suburbs in '74, I was finally able to put up a real antenna ... a 'half-sloper', fed from the top of my new 48' tower, along with an extensive set of radials running along the perimeters of my yard. I also hung both 80 and 40m half-slopers from the same feedpoint, giving me coverage on all three of the low bands.

Once the Japanese manufacturers started adding 160m coverage to the various lines of transceivers, the band really started to get popular, as up until that time, very few commercial transmitters covered 160m. Most of the E.F. Johnsons, the DX-100, and some of the late Drake radios were doing the heavy-lifting unless one was enterprising enough to homebrew or modify a rig for 160.

I immediately set out to work all 50 states from my suburban location, running a pair of 6146's at around 150 watts input. It took me a few winters to get them all, with Rhode Island being the most difficult, at #50.
My 160m W.A.S. certificate was #264.

Conditions always varied with the solar cycle but a surprising amount of DX was worked at my low power level. A couple of the more memorable contacts from those days were with H44IA in the Solomons and with VK9NS, on Norfolk Island.

H44IA was worked at 0426 local time in February. I recall calling several JA stations that morning with no response (I always found difficulty working JA on 160) and was more than surprised when the H44 came right back to my response to his CQ.

Jim Smith, VK9NS (SK), seemingly spent more time at various exotic locations than at home. Over the years I was able to work him on a number of his Pacific-island expeditions, but it was gratifying to finally catch him from another rare spot ... his home! This contact was in mid-July, right at sunrise.

I've worked a number of island expeditions over the years on topband, but one of the rarest was in the mid-Indian Ocean, FT5ZM, on Amsterdam Island ... also right at sunrise.

Another 'closer' island has always been a bit rare on 160, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba ... worked in mid- February, just after midnight.

In all of my years in the suburbs, I was never able to hear Europe on topband. It seemed that the noise-curtain surrounding my reasonably quiet location was still just too high for such 'over the pole' west coast treats. It wasn't until I moved to Mayne Island, off the SW coast of B.C., and re-installed my half-sloper, that the Europeans finally began to fill my log. Some nights, during solar-low years, the Europeans were workable before sunset ... on other nights, there were no signals other than Europeans, filling the band from 1800-1830, at times making the topband sound like 20m CW ... definitely not like the city.

4Z1UF was worked in February, just after 8PM local time while R1FJT in Franz Josef Land was worked right at sunset in late October.

Africa is always tough on the low bands but the solar-low years of Cycle 23 brought some amazingly good conditions to the west coast. The two new ones, below, were both worked in November of '08 at around 10PM local time, right at sunrise in Africa.

Learning the quirks of topband propagation is still an ongoing project but over the years, 160m has been my favorite wintertime hangout. With T2GC on Tuvalu Island, worked last week, my present 160m DXCC total stands at 156 worked and 155 confirmed.

If you're looking for something different, some new fun... a bit of an operating challenge ... I know you'll find it on topband!

The Best Laid Plans ...

courtesy: www.kcj-cw.com/

I am often brutally reminded of how much influence our Sun has on propagation, both good and bad!

Hoping to enjoy some further contest work and improve my ear-brain-keyboarding skills, I had prepared everything for this Saturday's 24-hour 'KCJ' Contest. The 'Keymen's Club of Japan' is an annual affair that seems to attract a lot of domestic JA activity, with bonus points when they work any DX stations. I checked my N1MM Logger software but it didn't seem to have the contest. I did find it in the program's UDC (User Defined Contests) section but had to download and install a unique 'Sections' file from a Japanese website, as the contest requires the Japanese to exchange their Prefecture abbreviations. I eventually had N1MM working perfectly for the KCJ contest and with the contest starting at 0500 locally, I tuned up everything for the normally excellent 40m path to Japan in the morning and went to bed.

courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

Rising just a few minutes before the contest start, a quick check of 40m indicated that something was not right ... not a JA to be heard, in fact almost no signals to be heard! Checking the web for more info, I quickly discovered a 'K' index of '7', indicative of very disturbed conditions. Along with a strong southerly pointed Bz, it seemed that we were in the middle of some strong auroral conditions ... back to bed with hopes of the afternoon 15 or 20m path to Japan being better.

The afternoon path never really materialized either. Normally, propagation between the west coast and Japan is very good, with lots of strong signals being the norm ... but not today. Over the course of several hours, only four JA stations found their way into my log, and they were all a struggle.

courtesy: http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dstdir/index.html

The earth had been hit, rather unexpectedly, by another whopping 'coronal hole stream' and propagation was truly dismal. With only a smidgen of keyboarding practice, I had to admit defeat ... the Sun had messed things up once again, as it has been doing for the past year as Cycle 24 slowly slides downhill. Unfortunately there is always a lot more flaring and streaming on the way down than on the way up. Hopefully the Sun will soon get this out of its system and radio conditions will quiet down and stabilize for the upcoming fall and winter DX season.

There is one more chance left, this evening, to get in some more keyboarding practice. The 'Flying Pigs QRP Group' holds their monthly 'Run For The Bacon' CW QSO party, starting at 0100Z tonight. Non-members may also join in the fun by sending their 'power' level instead of a membership number ... so maybe I'll run into you tonight.

Now it's back to N1MM to reconfigure for the QRP Party and hope that old Sol will co-operate for the Sunday night crowd, but you know what they say about the 'best laid plans...'

Solar Cycle 25 and Beyond

courtesy: SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Britains' Royal Astronomical Society has just announced yet another new model of the Sun’s solar cycle ... one that is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun’s 11-year heartbeat.
If the model is correct,  the outlook for the next several cycles does not look good. The modelling describes the interaction of two levels of the sun ... one near the surface and one much deeper.

Prof Valentina Zharkova and her colleagues, of  Northumbria University, have:

"... found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun's interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%." 

Zharkova's team analyzed data from California's Wilcox Solar Observatory, covering three solar cycles worth of activity from 1976-2008. All of their modelling predictions and observations were closely matched.

"Looking ahead to the next solar cycles, the model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022. During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity."

This is not great news for HF DXers and 6 meter diehards as it sounds like the present wimpy cycle (Cycle 24) may have been a monster in comparison to what lies ahead. The one bright light is the likelihood of amazingly good low band (160, 80, 40m) conditions for many, many winters.

I recall just how good conditions became on 160m during the solar-quiet winters between Cycle 23 and the eventual late start of Cycle 24. Night after night, the band opened to Europe like clockwork. Many nights the skip was so long that no signals from the U.S. could be heard at all ... just Europeans, often reaching 599 on my FT-1000's S-meter. At times I had to shake my head and double check that it was really 160m that I was listening to.

LF and MF conditions were equally enhanced as the lack of D-layer absorption from a very quiet sun made tuning through the NDB band sound like 20m CW during the Sweepstakes Contest ... truly once-in-a-lifetime conditions ... but maybe not if Zharkova's model is as accurate as she claims.

I guess we'll just have to wait a few more years to find out.

New Life For The Tri-Tet-Ten

Sadly, I fear that my Tri-Tet-Ten has likely seen the last of its glory days of European 10m DX. It has been sitting, forlornly, on it's operating shelf beside my main station, for a few years now and has always been ready to spring into action whenever the winter F2 on 10m rolled-in. Although I anticipate more 10m F2 this coming fall, I don't think we'll get any barn-burner European openings as I have seen in the past. Conditions really need to be very good for the 6L6's 4 1/2 watts of 10m output to make it over the pole but over the past four winters, the one-lunger has worked over 100 Europeans on 10m F2.

Not being quite ready to throw in the towel on one of my favorite ever projects, over the past two nights I have sparked-up the tritet on 20m, which has been like the good old days in the evening ... strong signals over the pole peaking around 2130 local time.

As it did on 10m, the tritet did not disappoint! My first CQ (crystal controlled on 14031 kHz) was a pounced upon by two Europeans, eager to work a VE7. Over the two evenings, contacts were enjoyed with the following stations:

OE5FBL  Haid, Austria
RV3LK   Smolensk, Russia
UA2FT   Polessk, Russia
RA2FAC   Kaliningrad, Russia
RA1OD   Kotlas, Russia
R3RR   Tambov, Russia
DL1SXB   Schwerin, Germany
UR5LCZ   Pivdenne, Ukraine
MD0CCE   Ramsey, Isle of Man
OK1KTI   Huntirov, Czech Republic
IK1XPP   Crescentino, Italy

All of the stations were worked on my crystal frequency (a very old 40m xtal doubling to 20m) of 14031 kHz and answered my CQ. At just under 10 watts output, the average signal report received was 579.

Interestingly, two stations gave me 'T' reports of less than 9 to (incorrectly) describe the slight chirp on the oscillator. In the RST system, anything less than a 'T9' should actually describe the degree of undesired modulation (usually A.C. ripple) and not chirp. The proper way of indicating chirp is to append the report with a 'C'. Since chirp is rarely heard on the airwaves anymore, it's understandable that some might not properly understand the 'T' part of 'RST'.

So it looks as though the Tri-Tet-Ten has earned the right to stay on the side operating shelf a bit longer ... but I'm not renaming it the 'Tri-Tet-Twenty' just yet!

More Magic

LU6QI

For the third day in a row, someone has sprinkled 6m magic-dust over the Pacific Northwest with more long-haul propagation into southern South America. The openings have been characterized by their very small footprints and today, unlike the previous two days, the footprint locked-in on my own QTH for over an hour.


For the most part, signals were in the 559 range but at times would build up to true 599 levels, reminiscent of the previous cycle's F2 north-south openings in the afternoon.

During the entire opening, strong sporadic -e signals from California, Arizona and Nevada were present so I suspect that the propagation mode was Es to TEP and from there to southern SA who knows! I doubt there was any F2 involved (unless it was ver SA) as the solar flux just doesn't seem to be high enough to support that mode. In all likelihood, the present coronal hole stream that is impacting the ionosphere has been the trigger for these unheralded openings.

courtesy: https://maps.google.ca/

During the opening, the following stations were worked, mostly on CW but some on SSB as their signals were very loud at times:

CX90IARU, LW6DG, LU6QI, CE2AWW, CX3AL, LU5FF, CX1DDO, LU4FPZ, CX6DRA and CE3SX.

As mentioned in my last blog ... who knows what this cycle will do next as the surprises just keep coming!

Is there enough dust left for a fourth day in a row?

Persistent Cycle 24

If you've wondered why the bands have been so volatile of late, it's because Cycle 24 just won't go away quietly. It seems that for the past several months, our planet has been besieged by one solar bombardment after another. Most of it seems to be coming via Coronal Hole Streams.

courtesy: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

This UV image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite clearly shows the large coronal hole presently facing earth. The arrowed vectors represent material spewing from the hole, with much of it earth-bound. The material from this hole is expected to arrive between April 21-22, possibly causing more auroral activity.

Our Sun's latest rotation is showing several new large sunspot groupings, all very capable of unleashing a new round of solar flares and associated disruption ... if nothing else, Cycle 24 is persistent!

courtesy: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

Peeks at the geomagnetic activity for April 16th illustrate just how active things have been of late ... making the high HF bands sound like the middle of the night as well as making LF and MW propagation depressing.

courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

The software gurus at NOAA have been busy once again, this time revamping several of their visual models to an 'animated' mode. The Ovation Auroral map is particularly interesting when run in this mode as it shows the auroral field's activity visually over the past 24 hours. The display gives one a new appreciation for the dynamics of such large scale events:

courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/radio-communications

An auroral event on Thursday evening gave 6m conditions a bit of a kick in the backside on Friday afternoon with signals from southern South America making it into various regions of the U.S. including the PNW, usually left out of such affairs. At one point, CE2AWW was hearing / working both the west coast (W7's) and the east coast (VO1's). Sporadic-e was definitely involved on the west coast end as the band was open to California / Nevada for most of the day.

courtesy: http://www.dxmaps.com/

No one can be certain of what lies ahead for Cycle 24 but it's certainly not going away with a whimper!

Follow The Sun!

Courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

I like to follow the sun, but ... that doesn't mean that I pack-up and head to Hawaii every winter. I like to follow what is happening on the sun as it so profoundly affects every aspect of skywave propagation.

Where do you get your propagation information?

If you're anything like the rest of us, you probably have two or three favorite sites that you visit to collect the latest data. The news of NOAA's new solar page has been making the e-mail rounds of late and just in case you've missed it....the "Space Weather Enthusiasts Dashboard" (and what ham isn't a 'space weather enthusiast'?) can be found here.

The new site provides an all-in-one viewing experience, with up-to-the-minute reports on such things as the 'K' index, dynamic solar images from various satellites and at various wavelengths, auroral conditions, CME impact predictions (dynamic), a TEC (Total Electron Count) map, sunspot and Solar Cycle activity graphs and more. I didn't see anything showing the daily solar flux numbers (SFI) but it may be there. There is now a growing belief that the SFI value is not that great an indicator of what will or won't be happening, radio-wise, especially when it comes to 50MHz.

Another feature that would be nice, is a display of the latest DST index. This number, based upon equatorial ring currents, is a valuable indicator for the trend in LF propagation. I use the Kyoto site, which provides a real time look at the numbers. Anything positive, or a positive-going trend, is always a good thing to see.

Courtesy: http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

My favorite site is still SolarHam, manned by Kevin (VE3EN). It also provides a smorgasbord of solar information, even more than the new NOAA site!

If you haven't checked these three sites out, have a look...they're well worth a bookmark and a daily visit ... and, you won't have to go to Hawaii to follow the sun.

The Magic Lives

With the Bz component of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field turning southwards yesterday, an unexpected incoming stream from the sun was able to interact more intensely with the earth's magentic field , producing some fairly active auroral conditions overnight. The 'K' index numbers rose as high as '7'...a rare event, indicating a major disturbance. By dawn, much of the activity was winding down and the ensuing F2 MUF spike was not far behind.

I hope that you were one of the alert 6m operators (not me sadly) able to take advantage of the quick F2 lift. Several stations on the east coast were worked or heard in Europe (EA8, EA7, EA3, IK5, CT1, G3, EI4) while in the afternoon, lucky band-watchers found several loud KH6's to work.



Courtesy: http://www.on4kst.com/index.php

The 6m prop map reveals the unexpected level of mid-winter activity....as of Wednesday evening, the Bz is still pointing south and the K has risen to level 4.

What might Thursday bring?



New Year's Eve Magic

9el LFA at VE7DAY

When the winter solar flux numbers drop to dismal levels, many 6m guys just stop watching the band...myself included.
During the last solar rotation, flux values rose to near-Cycle highs and quickly plummeted, along with any hope of finding that six-meter Holy Grail...long-haul F2 propagation. Many six meter ops quickly found other things to do.

One person that didn't stop watching, and never does, was John - VE7DAY, in Campbell River, B.C., on Vancouver Island. John is VE7's iron man of 6m and spends almost 100% of his radio time seeking the magic.

For the past few winters, John has pointed his beam towards the south Pacific at around sunset, and called CQ from the VE7 black hole....on Tuesday evening he was justly rewarded.

At 00:50 UTC on the 31st, John's CQ was answered by Roger, ZL3RC in Christchurch, on New Zealand's South Island...12,021km from Campbell River.

6el Yagi at ZL3RC

One minute later, John worked Chris, ZL2DX, in Martinborough, on the North Island.

8el Yagi at ZL2DX

At 0111 UTC, John completed the hat-trick by working Paul, ZL4PW, in Oamaru, back on the South Island.

Paul, ZL4PW / 7el at 7m

The last contact was a new CW distance record for John, at 12,233 km! He also broke some records on the PNWVHF Society's Distance Scoreboard as announced in a congratulatory e-mail by K7CW, keeper of the books, and one of many dedicated 6m operators from Seattle:

"Decades ago, many DXers believed that Argentina was the world DX hot spot. DXers and contesters seemed to do the best down there. When I was in Brazil, one of the places I lived in was the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, PT9-land. It was only about an hour-and-a-half's drive to the Paraguay border, so conditions there were pretty near like those in Argentina, which was also nearby. I ran 100 watts to a vertical wire taped to a bamboo rod... and thought my QTH must have been included in the hot spot area.

I think now we are becoming aware of another hot spot, this one being in North America on Vancouver Island. I'm speaking, of course, of the your QTH, John! You seem to be doing quite well from that location. Keep it up!!

I see you worked clear down to ZL4. I'm envious. I've been looking for a ZL4 contact for a long time. Today when the band was open to ZL, I was on the road returning from Tacoma. Well, I'm glad you were able to work that great DX.

I will change the Distance Scoreboard to indicate the new records you established today. Congrats!

73, Paul K7CW"


With the present dismal solar flux and low solar activity, it is not likely that these contacts were via the F2 mode, but you wouldn't know it from the size of John's signal, recorded by ZL3RC. Being in the middle of our secondary sporadic-E season, north of the equator and at the peak of the major Es season down-under, I think a better candidate is an Es-link from both sides into the Trans Equatorial afternoon 'bubble'....certainly Es from both ends into whatever is happening in the ionospheric cauldron at the equator!

All four stations were running high power and big antennas, and with a little help from the seasonal E, it all seems to have come together nicely.



 Congrats to all involved, and especially John, as all of the other 6m ops in this part of the country, including myself, were asleep at the switch it seems!

Waiting For The Magic

Courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

Somewhat disheartening Cycle 24 never fails to surprise us with its unexpected behaviour and this week is no exception. A week ago, the solar flux was sitting at an uninspiring 138 but has gradually been rising because of the recent growth in new sunspots. At noon today, the flux had reached a level of 219...one of the highest levels of this cycle! With such high numbers, 6m junkies are understandably growing fidgety and watching the rising MUF with hopes that it may reach that magic number of 50MHz.

The last time the sun did this, at the end of November, I was able to work two stations in Florida on F2 during a short surge in the MUF that had been hovering in the 46-47MHz range. Maybe we'll all get lucky again soon if solar activity continues to climb.



Courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

Once the geomagnetic field can stabilize for a few days, with high flux, we should see the MUF begin to rise again....tomorrow hopefully. The constant flaring (over a dozen flares in the past two days) and the impending arrival of an earlier CME, may be all that we need. Any auroral event will likely cause a very good spike in the F2 MUF the following day. An excellent short article on Understanding Solar Indices by G3YWX may be found here.

Today's rise in the MUF was a disappointment as the highest I saw was about 43MHz, for a brief few moments. The MUF then dropped back below 37MHz but continued to surge into the high 39's.

This short video, made today at around noon, shows the MUF surging....the band full of signals one moment and then empty the next. The region between 10m and 6m is chalk-full of commercial FM activity (police, fire, utility, etc) and makes and excellent way of monitoring the trend in MUF growth...at times it seems that the F layer is alive and breathing as it tries, usually without success, to climb higher and higher. One of stations in the video appears to be from Maryland, on the typical E-W propagation path seen at this time of the year. My receiving antenna is my normal 4-el 6m Yagi, which must be horribly inefficient at this frequency yet...notice how strong signals can be when they are propagating right at the edge of the MUF:


  So... hang onto your hats boys....it could be an exciting week yet!

Cycle 24....Still Teasing

Courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

With the solar flux index remaining relatively high over the past week, the F2 MUF has been spending most of the day in the mid 40MHz region. For 6m operators, it's always a good sign to see the MUF climb this high as it only takes a nudge to keep it climbing, hopefully to reach that magical 50MHz level.



The region between 10m and 6m is chalk-full of commercial two-way FM activity, particularly from 39MHz on up. With the skip zone running east-west, oftentimes the distinctive Boston accent or the unmistakable Bronx chatter can be heard...police, taxis, fire departments...sometimes even with sirens blazing away in the background. Other times, things will be further south, with accents favoring easily-recognized southern drawls.

Early this morning at 0641Z, a small M1.8 flare added some extra fuel to the F2 fire, resulting in an unusually early-morning rise in the MUF.

Courtesy: http://www.solarham.net/xray2.htm

By 0900 local time, it was hovering around 46-47MHz when I started to hear the 22-watt W4CLM beacon near Atlanta, Georgia. Warming-up the transmitter and calling a few CQ's on 50.098, I was soon answered by Bob, N3LL, in EL86 on the west coast of Florida ....a nice single-hop (2600mile) F2 QSO. Another CQ brought KJ4E in EL98, to the northeast of Bob.

Courtesy: https://maps.google.com/

Now normally, at this time of the morning, the F2 MUF would continue to slowly climb....usually peaking-out somewhere between 1030-1230 local time, so things were looking hopeful. During our exchange, N3LL peaked at 599 as the MUF continued to surge between 46 and 50MHz, struggling to maintain its ever weakening-grip on the magicband.

From here, things went south fast and for some reason, the normally slow climb halted as the MUF quickly retreated to the low 40MHz regions...it was all over.

The end of the opening can be clearly seen in the geomagnetic activity recorded at the Kiruna Magnetometer (Sweden). The circled area indicates the period of high MUF:

 ...but what started the sudden spike in the MUF today...was it the earlier flare or the suddenly south-going 'Bz' component of the Interplanetary Magnetic Field as seen about an hour earlier?

Courtesy: http://www.solarham.net/solarwind.htm

Such are the things that 6m junkies find fascinating, as this portion of the spectrum is always full of surprises and curiosities. Even as it slowly decays, poorly-performing Cycle 24 can't resist the opportunity to keep us guessing once again.

I wonder what surprises tomorrow will bring?

Solar Flare Magic

Courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

 

Cycle 24 continues to behave like few others! The slowly-decaying cycle released a major solar flare at 2247 UTC Friday....afternoon on the west coast. Topping-off at X3.1, it was the sixth-strongest of the cycle and originated from sunspot 2192, the largest in the past 24 years.

Courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

Since then, there have been three more major flares from this same region, one at X1.0 (on Saturday) and the most recent (this morning) at X2.0. Oddly enough, none of these flares have produced CME's as little plasma release has been detected. Any associated auroral events will be very weak or unlikely in spite of region 2192 being geoeffectively positioned at the time of the flares.

However, the near light-speed arrival of Friday's emitted UV radiation caused a fast rise in the muf as spotty signals from various regions of South America were soon being heard on 6m in North America.

The most prominent signal was that of CX7CO (Carlos), in Montevideo, Uruguay. Thanks to the ever-alert KE7V, who posted news of the sudden arrival of Carlos, he was widely worked around North America including the west coast, a region that is usually left-out of the action. Known to have worked Carlos from here were myself, VE7XF, VE7DAY, KE7V, K7CW and possibly others outside of my hearing range. Shortly after working the west coast, Carlos was heard working JA's as his signal became weaker.


The distance from Mayne Island to Montevideo is 11,425km (7100 miles), which would tend to indicate that the contacts were a result of F2 propagation. Some have suggested a Sporadic-E-to-TEP link but I have my doubts...several 'TEP markers' were not present and there were no signs of any Es activity from this area. Although his signal peaked at 569, it is not uncommon for F2 signals to be weak, unlike the bone-crushing levels they can sometimes reach.

Courtesy: https://maps.google.ca/

As spot number 2192 slowly rotates out of view, it looks like the overall solar flux levels will quickly decline, diminishing the chances of any new activity on 6m this fall. One thing however is for certain...you just never know what might come next on the Magic Band!