Propagation de K7RA

This is an early bulletin because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but the timing is wrong for publishing another week of solar and geomagnetic data, so the numbers at the bottom of this bulletin are the same as in last week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin, ARLP047.

An additional bulletin will come out on Monday, November 27 with the updated numbers.

Last weekend geomagnetic conditions were quiet for the ARRL Phone Sweepstakes. But we are about to experience the effects of a solar wind stream just before this next weekend's big contest, the CW portion of the CQ Worldwide DX Contest. The planetary A index for November 22-26 is predicted at 5, 10, 20, 15 and 10. Helioseismic holography has detected the emergence of a new large sunspot on the
sun's far side.

Check "The World Above 50 MHz" column in the current (December 2006) issue of QST for a good piece about "Solar Cycles and the Coming of Cycle 24," part 1. It was written by Jim Kennedy, K6MIO of the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii, and gives good information on the magnetic conveyor belt, solar magnetic fields, and a 22 year solar magnetic cycle.

Brett Graham, VR2BG wrote from Hong Kong with some reports on beacons he monitored recently on 12 meters at 24.93 MHz. He often hears these from JA, VK, ZS and 4S, but at the same time hears nobody on the band, even when he is monitoring the beacons operating down to the milliwatt level. You can get information on the NCDXF beacons at, http://www.ncdxf.org/beacons.html.

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://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html.

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/.

Sunspot numbers for November 9 through 15 were 29, 13, 13, 18, 30, 41 and 50 with a mean of 27.7. 10.7 cm flux was 89.4, 91.1, 97, 96.7, 95.2, 94.5, and 96.1, with a mean of 94.3.

Estimated planetary A indices were 10, 36, 20, 7, 2, 4 and 5 with a mean of 12. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 7, 29, 20, 9, 1, 3 and 6, with a mean of 10.7.

Source: The American Radio Relay League