Canadian lighthouse operation
Operators Chris VE3FU (VO2AC), Frank VO1HP and Dave VE9CB (VO2AAA) will be active as VO2AC during the 2020 CQWW 160M CW Contest (January 24-26th) from the Point Amour Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada, on the south coast of the rare Labrador (LB) multiplier.Point Amour is located in the southeast part of CQ Zone 2, and has a salt water path from NE clockwise through SW. The team will be putting in a serious Multi-Op/High-Power effort as VO2AC.
Expect some pre contest activity as VO2AC, VO1HP/VO2 and VO2AAA on 160m as they get their wire vertical array and beverage working; they will especially be looking for JA/Asia on CW and FT8.
If time permits, they may also be active before the contest on 80m, 60m, 40m and the amateur radio FM satellites (AO- 85, AO-91 and AO-92) from Grid GO11.
OPDX
Two Solar Cycle 25 sunspots appear
New Solar Cycle 25 is on the way, but just when the transition from Solar Cycle 24 to Solar Cycle 25 will take place is not entirely clear.On December 24, two new sunspots - one in each hemisphere - emerged on the face of the Sun that exhibit the reversed magnetic polarity marking them as belonging to Solar Cycle 25. According to Hale's Law, sunspot polarities flip-flop from one solar cycle to the next, the National Center for Atmospheric Research explains.
"The Sun is currently in solar minimum - the nadir of the 11-year sunspot cycle," Tony Phillips said in his article, "Reversed Polarity Sunspots Appear on the Sun" on the Spaceweather.com website. "It's a deep minimum, century-class according to sunspot counts." The remarkable sunspot scarcity has prompted discussion of a possible "extended minimum" akin to the Maunder Minimum in the 17th century, when no sunspots appeared for decades, Phillips said.
"Such an event could have implications for terrestrial climate."
This article can be found online at,
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2019/12/25/reversed-polarity-sunspots-appear-on-the-sun/
"Today's new-cycle sunspots (along with isolated new-cycle spots earlier this year) suggest that the solar cycle is, in fact, unfolding normally," Phillips wrote, adding that a new Maunder Minimum does not appear to be in the offing.
Earlier this month, the NOAA/NASA-co-chaired international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel released its latest forecast for Solar Cycle 25. The panel's consensus calls for a peak in July 2025 (+/- 8 months), with a smoothed sunspot number of 115 and the solar minimum between Solar Cycles 24 and 25 occurring in April 2020 (+/- 6 months). If this solar minimum prediction is correct, it would make Solar Cycle 24 the seventh longest on record at 11.4 years.
The forecast can be found online at,
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/solar-cycle-25-forecast-update .
Climate scientist David Archibald speculates that the Solar Cycle 24/25 minimum could occur as late as March 2021, and that Solar Cycle 25 maximum might not happen until 2027.
"We are well into the Solar Cycle 24/25 minimum but [Cycle] 24 may not have ended yet," Archibald said in a December 22 update on the "Watts Up With That?" website. "A solar cycle isn't over until the heliospheric current sheet has flattened. And that could be as late as March 2021. Solar cycle amplitude does matter with respect to climate and the amplitude of Solar Cycle 25, from projecting trends from the last three cycles, looks like being about 80 in 2027."
The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel agreed that Solar Cycle 25 will be of average intensity and similar to Solar Cycle 24.
In an article posted on NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center site, Scott McIntosh, the Director of the High Altitude Observatory at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR - https://ncar.ucar.edu/ ), stresses that Solar Cycle 25 will happen, "but a sunspot cycle could be small."
Predictability comes with some physical understanding of the underlying process, McIntosh asserts. "The sunspot cycle is erratic," he said in his presentation, "provocative of a chaotic, turbulent solar interior where sunspot progressions with time and latitude are the only tracers..."
The American Radio Relay League
EI1KNH beacon
The new EI1KNH five meter beacon is now operational on the air from its site near Enniskerry Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Frequency is 60.013 MHz.It has been working successfully for the past few days since its installation on the 16th of this month. It shares the site with EI4RF and EI0SIX.
For additional information please visit the beacons QRZ.com profile.
IRTS
New Year's Day Contest
A reminder that the IRTS 80 metres Counties Contest takes place on Wednesday from 15:00 to 17:00 UTC.There are SSB only and SSB/CW mixed mode sections.
Multipliers are the 32 EI and GI counties, while overseas DXCC entities are also multipliers for EI and GI stations.
See www.irts.ie/contests for the full rules which include permitted frequency ranges
Suriname activity
Arie, PA4ARI, is now active as PZ/PA4ARI close to the city of Paramaribo until January 7th (2020).Activity will be on 80/40/20 meters using SSB, FT4 and FT8.
Some suggested frequencies are 7080, 7090, 7150, 7160, 14160 and 14240 kHz.
QSL via PA4ARI, direct or by the Bureau.
Canadian lighthouse operation
Operators Chris VE3FU (VO2AC), Frank VO1HP and Dave VE9CB (VO2AAA) will be active as VO2AC during the 2020 CQWW 160M CW Contest (January 24-26th) from the Point Amour Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Atlantic Canada, on the south coast of the rare Labrador (LB) multiplier.Point Amour is located in the southeast part of CQ Zone 2, and has a salt water path from NE clockwise through SW. The team will be putting in a serious Multi-Op/High-Power effort as VO2AC.
Expect some pre contest activity as VO2AC, VO1HP/VO2 and VO2AAA on 160m as they get their wire vertical array and beverage working; they will especially be looking for JA/Asia on CW and FT8.
If time permits, they may also be active before the contest on 80m, 60m, 40m and the amateur radio FM satellites (AO- 85, AO-91 and AO-92) from Grid GO11.
OPDX
