Propagation de K7RA

25 January, 2020
No sunspots appeared over this reporting week (January 16-22) and on January 22 Spaceweather.com reported currently the consecutive period of spotless days is 11. But all recent sunspots have had Solar Cycle 25 polarity.
Average daily solar flux reported in last week's bulletin was 72.5, and this week it was 71.2. Average daily planetary A index went from 5.6 to 4.1, and the middle latitude A index changed from 3.7 to 3.
Predicted solar flux is 71 on January 24-31, 72 on February 1-5, 71 on February 6-20, 72 on February 21 to March 3, 71 on March 4, and 70 on March 5-8.
Predicted planetary A index is 5 on January 24-31, 10 on February 1-5, 5 on February 6-27, 10 on February 28 to March 3, and 5 on March 4-8.
Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 24-February 19, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.
"Geomagnetic field will be quiet on: January 29-30, February 6-9, 13-16 quiet to unsettled on: January 24-28, February 1, 4-5, 10-11, 18-19 quiet to active on: (January 31, February 2-3, 12, 17) unsettled to active on: no days active to disturbed: no days
"Solar wind will intensify on: January 24, February 2 (-3,) 6-7, 12-13, 18-19
"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. The predictability of changes is lower again"
David Moore sent this article, "Scientists measure the evolving energy of a solar flare's explosive first minutes."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200117122105.htm .
New from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:
https://bit.ly/2RY4HLZ .
On January 21, G4KSG told me that two days earlier using a dipole at 30 feet he heard both sides of a EA3/JA7 QSO at 0900 UTC on 20 meters, but he did not specify the mode.
From Jeff, N8II:
"WX is very warm here after 4 inches of wet snow and 3 cold days this week, currently about 52F at 9PM, 66 tomorrow!
"I took down a 40M quad loop today which performed poorly compared to my 80M dipole fed with ladder line. It took a while to remove all of the wire wrapped with stiff heavy wire at the insulators to prevent slippage and untie tight knots. I will put up a 40M dipole with higher average height.
"In the past month my band slot totals have increased considerably, about 1950 slots since Jan. 2017 now as I recall counting the same country on CW and SSB on same band as 2 slots. Very few DXpeditions were active, but activity and low band condx were good over Christmas season. A UK group at ZC4UW in the British bases on Cyprus was active with over 25K QSOs, but good for only 1 slot as ZC4A was QRV another year.
"73, Jeff N8II."
When there are no sunspots, 160 meters seems to improve, probably because of lower associated geomagnetic activity. In fact, geomagnetic activity is recently nearly non-existent. This weekend is the CQ World Wide 160 Meter CW contest. See details at, https://www.cq160.com/rules.htm
Note the low geo-activity toward the end of 2019:
ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/old_indices/2019Q4_DGD.txt
Compared to 2015:
ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/old_indices/2015_DGD.txt
Note October 29-30, 2003!
ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/old_indices/2003_DGD.txt
Check this bulletin from back then:
http://www.arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive/ARLP044/2003
Be sure to check out the SSN/flux values for that week!
If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers, email the author at k7ra@arrl.net.
For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service at http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals.
For an explanation of 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 January 16 through 22, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 71.8, 70.1, 71.3, 71.8, 71.2, 70.5, and 71.9, with a mean of 71.2. Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 3, 4, 3, 2, 6, and 6, with a mean of 4.1. Middle latitude A index was 4, 2, 3, 2, 2, 4, and 4, with a mean of 3.
• All propagation reports can be found at:
http://www.southgatearc.org/propagation