|
|
|
www.southgatearc.org
|
Propagation de K7RAThis week we are on the road in Boise, Idaho. This was another week with little or no sunspots. Most days had 0 spots, but from time to time a new sunspot will appear, but only briefly. If you go to the table of sunspot readings at, Expect more of the same conditions, with little or no sunspots. Eventually this year we should reach a point when the only place for solar activity to go is up. Today, April 20, we may see unsettled geomagnetic activity. Paolo Battezzato, N1XOI, who lives in Westford, Massachusetts, northwest
of Boston, sends in an interesting report from April 1 of a PSK contact,
and he says this is no April Fools joke. Paolo writes, "I was working
PSK31 around 22:45 local time when I saw a very weak signal on my Digipan
waterfall display. I clicked on the trace and read Pablo, AY7X. I'm intrigued
by the call sign, so I try to reply to his CQ and after few attempts I
contact him. Imagine my Great story, Paolo, and I understand many PSK operators are using simple gear with low power and even indoor antennas. In my experiments with PSK I've been amazed at the signals it digs out of the noise. Barry Roseman, W0LHK of Stilwell, Kansas mentioned that during the recent N8S expedition to Swains Island, he worked them with 80 watts SSB on several bands, including 12 and 15 meters using a 60 meter inverted vee pressed into service. Ken Kopp, KK0HF of Topeka, Kansas sent a link to an article from Physicsweb
that proposes a much more modest prediction for solar Cycle 24 than the
big one predicted last year by Dikpati, et al. This article predicts a
cycle 35% weaker than the current one. Read it at, http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/4/7/1
and as Ken Jeff Lackey, K8CQ of St. Simons Island, Georgia is living with CC&R restrictions limiting his antennas, but he may have happened upon just the right magic rain gutter configuration. Two weeks ago Jeff wrote, "I use a gutter antenna and 100 watts. The gutter has five downspouts, spaced over approximately 90 feet distance as the gutter zigzags around the back of the house.I feed the center downspout against a ground plane of 16 ground radials. Since January 1, 2007, I've worked 33 zones in 121 countries. The gutter loads up fairly well even on 160m where I've worked 34 states. I've worked Chagos on 80m, about 10,000 miles. Yesterday I worked Swains Island on 12m and 17m. And a couple of weeks ago I caught Kermadec. So the DX is there. You just have to be patient." That is quite an inspiration at the bottom of the solar cycle. 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, For a detailed explanation of the numbers used in this bulletin see, http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/k9la-prop.html. An archive of past propagation bulletins is at, http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/prop/ . Monthly propagation charts between four USA regions and twelve overseas locations are at, http://www.arrl.org/qst/propcharts/. Sunspot numbers for April 12 through 18 were 0, 0, 11, 0, 0, 12 and 11
with a mean of 4.9. 10.7 cm flux was 68.3, 68.3 68.2, 69.3, 69.3, 69.2,
and 68.8, with a mean of 68.8. Estimated planetary A indices were 8, 2,
4, 4, 1, 8 and 9 with a mean of 5.1. Estimated mid-latitude A indices
were 7, 1, 3, 2, 0, 6 and 6, with a mean of 3.6.
Source: The American Radio Relay League
• All propagation
reports can be found at:
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
