SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP030
ARLP030 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP30
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 30  ARLP030
> From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA  July 28, 2017
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP030
ARLP030 Propagation de K7RA

All of the indicators we track at the bottom of this bulletin fell last week.

Because there were no sunspots in six of the seven days (July 20 to 26) last
week, average daily sunspot number dropped from 26.6 to 1.7.  Average daily
solar flux declined from 85.9 to 69.7.

Average daily planetary A index declined from 13 to 11.9, while the
mid-latitude A index went the opposite direction, from 10.9 to 12.9.

The latest predicted solar flux (as of July 27) shows 68 on July 28 and 29, 72
and 76 on July 30 and 31, 80 on August 1 to 3, 82 on August 4 to 11, 80 and 75
on August 12 and 13, 70 on August 14 to 25, 80 on August 26, 82 on August 27
through September 1, 80 on September 2 to 4, 82 on September 5 to 7, and 80, 75
and 70 on September 8 to 10.

Predicted planetary A index is 7, 5, 6, 12, 10 and 8 on July 29 through August
2, 5 on August 3 to 5, 25 and 10 on August 6 and 7, 5 on August 8 to 15, 15 on
August 17 and 18, then 12 and 8 on August 19 and 20, 5 on August 21 to 31, then
25, 10 and 8 on September 1 to 3, and 5 on September 4 to 10.



F. K. Janda, OK1HH of the Czech Propagation Interest Group sent this
geomagnetic activity forecast for the period July 28 to August 22, 2017.

Geomagnetic field will be:
Quiet on August 4, 9
Mostly quiet on July 30, August 2, 8, 10, 14 and 15
Quiet to unsettled July 28 and 29, August 1, 3, 16
Quiet to active on July 31, August 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 to 22
Active to disturbed on August 6, 12

Amplifications of the solar wind from coronal holes are expected on July 13 to
16 (-17), 20 and 21, (23 and 24, 28 and 29,) August 6 to 8.

Remark:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement and/or lower
reliability of prediction due to irregular changes in position and area of
coronal holes.



American Geophysical Union reports on 200 year old sunspot drawings discovered
in Maine:

http://bit.ly/2tPjuiI



Don't miss the Solar Eclipse QSO Party on Monday, August 21 from 1400-2100 UTC.
 This is a wide-ranging propagation experiment intended to observe what happens
when the moon blocks ionizing solar
radiation from the ionosphere.  The event is sponsored by ARRL and HamSCI, and
the details are in the August 2017 QST, or you can read the same QST article at
http://bit.ly/2tJ6EON .



Martin McCormick, WB5AGZ of Stillwater, Oklahoma reported on July 23:

"This has been one of the less spectacular sporadic E seasons so far with
several openings but very few that are the type one will remember much after
they occurred.

After learning that WWV had installed a turnstile antenna on its 25 MHZ
transmitter, I began parking a receiver on that frequency to see if I could
hear it in North-Central OK.

The first couple of weeks were nothing but then WWV began coming in around 0000
UTC starting July 20.

Whatever is ionizing the E layer to create this propagation is sticking around
for a few days because once it started fading in, it has made numerous
appearances this last week.  It has mostly been in the mid to late evenings
Central time but on Sunday July 23, it has been in with a fair signal since
around 1200 UTC and is still somewhat audible at 1700 UTC as I write.

It is good that WWV is transmitting on 25 MHZ as there are almost no steady
identifiable signals in high HF and low VHF anymore to indicate when the bands
are open.

There is an announcement at 17 minutes past the hour stating that the turnstile
antenna's configuration will not change until after the eclipse on 21 August.

The theory that one of the possible triggers for a Sporadic E event has to do
with clouds of iron and magnesium atoms from meteorites is interesting because
we seem to have nothing for days at a time even though Geo magnetic activity is
not unusually low or high and then we have several active days of Sporadic E
and the numbers are not any different than they were when there was no E sub S
at all."



Today Martin wrote:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010JGRA..11512318K

"The idea that a cloud of something such as magnesium or iron ions is one of
the factors makes a lot of sense since we don't have Sporadic E every day, all
Summer or all Winter even though the angle of Solar radiation is totally
predictable and the Geo magnetic activity indices are always present if
variable so something else which is hard to see and slow-moving must also
contribute to causing sporadic E.

Those of us who have been listening to both sporadic E and normal ionospheric
propagation for years notice that the fading rate of signals always speeds up
when there is lots of variation in the Sun's magnetic field and slows way down
when things are quiet.

The 25 MHZ WWV signal was audible here last week almost every evening and most
of last Sunday but this week, there have been only a few seconds in which it
pops in briefly and then everything goes
dead again."



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 July 20 through 26, 2017 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, and 0,
with a mean of 1.7.  10.7 cm flux was 70.2, 69.4, 69.5, 70.6, 70.1, 69.8, and
68.6, with a mean of 69.7.  Estimated planetary A indices were 7, 14, 16, 14,
12, 9, and 11, with a mean of 11.9. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 6,
13, 18, 16, 13, 9, and 15, with a mean of 12.9.

NNNN
/EX

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it
wrong...
... Hey, I hear that vegetarians taste good.
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