"Solar minimum is truly upon us" ??

[KL7OF]

http://www.solarham.net/

[WA2SQQ]

Maybe I've been believing an urban legend, but I've always believed that during such periods when 10-15-20 were dead, 160 - 75 - 40 got better. Looked back at my logs and about 80% of my best WAS and DX activity on 160 / 75 took place during the low point of the previous cycle. If it's true, we should be rejoicing!

[W1RKW]

late night propagation on the low bands, especially 2AM EST and later has been horrible.  160 tanks around 3AM.  However, the other night in the 75m DX window Spain was coming in nice and strong when the rest of the band was dead.  It seems hit or miss or spotty.

[K1JJ]

Maybe I've been believing an urban legend, but I've always believed that during such periods when 10-15-20 were dead, 160 - 75 - 40 got better. Looked back at my logs and about 80% of my best WAS and DX activity on 160 / 75 took place during the low point of the previous cycle. If it's true, we should be rejoicing!

Yes, it's true.

During solar minimums, the lower bands get VERY long. Working DX into Eu on 75M is easy.  

If you were active on 75M AM during the past 40 years - on solar minimum evenings, you will probably remember the band usually going long early in the night and the locals dropping out. In place of the locals in New England I would hear 0's, 7's and 6's as the night got later. They would roll up the sidewalks on 75M locally and we'd hear faint aurora AM signals, if heard at all.

Back in '85, the 75M DX window was so crowded and active that there were single pileups lasting a few minutes - US hams calling a single Eu station. There were 100's of 75M ssb DXers having fun. However, activity has died and it gets a little more active during solar mins, but not that much.

Think back to 1974, '85, '96, 2007 and now 2018 (solar minimums) and you will know what I mean if you were on.  The coming winter will be hell to pay with most loco local 75M AM activity during daylight hours.   The only refuge becomes 160M.

T

[KD6VXI]

The difference between most solar minima periods and this one, from what I've read on different forums, in talks with propagation folks, etc. is that this is considered a 'Maunder Minimum' as well.

Don't think the low bands will be peaking nearly as well as before, but hopefully I'm dead wrong. 

People have been complaining about a lack of sporadic e on 6 meters.  My 11 meter friends are also complaining about no 'short skip' or spotlight skip,

Strange times we be livin' in!

--Shane
KD6VXI

[K1JJ]

Yep, I tuned the 11M band last week for the first time in a few years and was amazed that not only was there no local activity, but the big gun skip stations were absent. I've never seen it so dead. Probably a combination of the internet and lack of spots. Just like any fad.

There are medium, long term and mega solar cycles.  We have tracked data back a few hundred years - who knows, there are probably 1000 year, 10,000 year and larger cycles too.  Maybe the hams in the 1950's lucked out and got the biggest combination we will ever see in the short lifespan of ham radio.

It's like ripples riding the waves and riding the ocean tide, adding and subtracting. When they all vectorally add, the big effects happen.

It's all a matter of how much solar radiation we get. The less radiation, the higher the layer that gets ionized and used on 75M, thus the farther out it will bounce on one hop.

For example, at a 45 degree incident angle,  an optimum average layer at 50 miles high will skip signals out 100 miles. A layer 250 miles high will skip out 500 miles on one bounce.  

 If we get a truly sunspot-free minima and maxima due to some rare coincidence of nulling cycles in the future, we could technically go through a full solar maxima with zero skip propagation. We have not seen it yet in hundreds of years and it may never occur, though some decade stretches have been quite dead.

Remember the 75M AM coast-to-coast sessions we used to do back around 2006-2008?  Check your logs. West coast guys with 100 watt rigs were working us here on the east coast. It's the perfect time to do it again, especially this next fall/winter.

T

[Steve - K4HX]

Zero sunspots is zero sunspots. The low bands never heard of Maunder. 

This past fall there were several nights where I didn't hear one station out of Europe that was less than S9, most were 59+20.

40 meters has been great too. Worked HS0 back in March like the guy was next door.

We should do a call for west coast USA this weekend on AM.

[KB5MD]

I tuned across 20 meters a couple of nights ago and it was totally empty of anything but static, with one exception: Siberia and he was 15 over 9 here in south Arkansas.  Really a freak occurrence I guess.

[K1JJ]

I tuned across 20 meters a couple of nights ago and it was totally empty of anything but static, with one exception: Siberia and he was 15 over 9 here in south Arkansas.  Really a freak occurrence I guess.

Interesting.

I notice on 75M the northern latitude stations like Norway, Finland, Siberia, etc., are always complaining about what a disadvantage they have due to absorption, especially during active sun periods. They are usually down 15-20 dB compared to the more southern Europeans. The aurora usually affects them big time.  Some years ago I spent 2 weeks in Alaska camping and hiking and had the chance to listen to the bands. Everything was way down in strength. We rarely hear Alaska in the states due to this absorption problem.

Bottom line is I'll bet we hear a lot more of these northern stations now that the spots and activity are low.

T

[Steve - K4HX]

That's fairly normal for this time of year. Right around the equinox (+/- some weeks), there can be some very good over the pole propagation between the USA and UA9/AU0 Russia, Kazakstan, Tajikistan, etc.

I tuned across 20 meters a couple of nights ago and it was totally empty of anything but static, with one exception: Siberia and he was 15 over 9 here in south Arkansas.  Really a freak occurrence I guess.

[KD6VXI]

Make sure the station isn't operating remote.

Pretty easy to sign in to a Maine based remote station with your Siberia call.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[k3msb]

Make sure the station isn't operating remote.

Pretty easy to sign in to a Maine based remote station with your Siberia call.

--Shane
KD6VXI

Yep.   Last year there were several contacts between a station in India and US hams on 80 CW where it was discovered that the Indian was operating from a remote in Canada.  The Indian amateur was surprised anybody was concerned about it,  but most (if not all) of the US contacts refused to honor the QSO after they found out.    That incident surprised a lot of us that are avid 80/160 CW DXers.

[KD6VXI]

There was a huge (regurgitated almost monthly, although now it's more whining about FT8) stink on the topband reflector about it.

Myself, with the two solar farms straddling me and a new pot grow house, if it wasn't for KFS, Utah and Sedona, I'd have ZERO capabilities for receive

BUT, all TX power comes from personal equipment.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[WU2D]

40 wide open to Australia and south pacific most mornings between 5:30 and 6:30 EST.

[Steve - K4HX]

Yep. Low bands are where it's at right now (or all the time). And on these bands, receive capability is extremely important. No cheating with web receivers. Come on! 

BTW, SN number is 14 today.

[KD6VXI]

All the receivers in the world aren't going to take out 50 plus thousand watts of switching power supplies within 200 yards of me.

When I moved here, I had S3.  Thought BIG PROBLEMS!! When a neighbor got a plasma TV.

Now, he has 10 x thousand Watt grow lights, neighbor other side, 15 kw solar system.  And close to a 25 kw at the 2 family system across the street.  Both have optimizers, both by solar city.  I've called solarcity, they don't know what I'm talking about.  Been turned in to the FCC.  Since I have no before / after screen shots, hard to prove my case to the contractors.

So, I have the web receivers. 

You can't work em if you can't hear em.  I'm on an eighth acre lot in suburbia.  What else can I do?  Shoot, I'm only allowed 36 feet HAAT for any antenna, due to faa regulations (I'm on the approach to BFL).  The high tension lines between my house and the airport are taller, as are the palm trees.  But it's my wire antennas and single 72 foot tower gonna bring a plane down.  Probably not, but I'd like to get something above all the noise.

--Shane
KD6VXI

[Detroit47]

Shane

Bitch to the FCC about the noise. They will adress it. They made the pot farmer on the next street from me go quiet. You need to document it with recordings. Document the time of interference. You can always sue the Solar farm they are responsible for their emmisons.

73 John N8QPC

[Steve - K4HX]

Just busting' your chops Shane. I can't imagine have to deal with that sort of noise. That said, the noise has risen several S-units over the last 10 years at my location. Getting to the point of being irritating on 80 meters.

[PA0NVD]

Just got a message that the German and Dutch government together with the  hams have an action to sent all bad-EMC LED lamps and strips with PS to them . The authorities will investigate and take them off the market. It becomes a real nuisance in all communications and they take action.
GOOD NEWS 

[Steve - K4HX]

From the most recent ARRL Propagation Letter.

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP019
ARLP019 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP19
QST de W1AW 
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 19  ARLP019
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA  May 11, 2018
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP019
ARLP019 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots reappeared this week, after none on April 28 through May 3.
Average daily sunspot numbers increased from 3.6 (last week) to 14.6
(May 3-9).

So far in 2018 56% of days were spotless. For all of 2017 the rate
was about half or 28%, for the whole year, a total of 104 days.
These numbers are according to http://www.spaceweather.com .

Seemingly counter-intuitively considering the slight rise in sunspot
numbers, yet not unusual, average daily solar flux declined one
point from 69.3 to 68.3.

Solar activity continues to decline, and we've been expecting (over
the past few years) solar minimum to arrive about two years from now
in 2020.

But some have suggested that perhaps the decline is currently faster
than anticipated. I like to imagine a sooner minima could precede a
faster rise in the next cycle! What if the upcoming Cycle 25 echoes
Cycle 19? Sorry, no scientific evidence, but I like to dream this
could happen.

Cycle 19 was the largest in recorded history, and I would be glad to
see another one, just so it isn't accompanied by a Carrington Event.
The Carrington Event happened in September 1859 and produced solar
flares so powerful that telegraph offices, connected by long lines
acting as antennas, caught fire. But the peak of Cycle 19 happened
about 100 years later.

Spaceweather.com reports this week that the American Geophysical
Union (agu.org) in a paper published May 10, researchers from the
University of Birmingham use Extreme Value Theory to estimate the
average time between "Carrington-like flares."

See https://bit.ly/2G6J2sR

Tough to predict, but they estimate one every 100 years. Of course,
this means we are long overdue, but perhaps this is like the
gambler's fallacy: don't bet on red just because the last five spins
of the wheel landed on black:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

According to http://legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov/weekly/pdf/prf2227.pdf
on page 11, smoothed solar flux numbers around 63 are predicted
toward the end of 2019. But when we observe numbers around the last
solar minimum (right now I am looking at the 109 days ending on
October 9, 2008 as an example) there were numerous consecutive
periods of no sunspots (average daily sunspot number during that
time was only 1.046) but average daily solar flux was 66.4, several
points higher than values predicted for the end of 2019.

These long term predictions are updated about every four weeks, but
I have no idea when predictions for 2020 will appear.

Predicted solar flux is 69 on May 11-12, 68 on May 13-15, 67 on May
16-18, 72 on May 19-25, 70 on May 26, 68 on May 27 through June 8,
and 70 on June 9, 72 on June 10-21, 70 on June 22 and 68 on June
23-24.

Predicted planetary A index is 8 on May 11, 5 on May 12-16, 12 on
May 17-18, 8 on May 19, 5 on May 20-31, then 18, 25, 20, 16, 12 and
8 on June 1-6, 5 on June 7-12, then 42, 12, and 8 on June 13-15 and
5 on June 16-24.