SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP049

ARLP049 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP49

QST de W1AW 

Propagation Forecast Bulletin 49  ARLP049

From Tad Cook, K7RA

Seattle, WA  December 5, 2014

To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP049

ARLP049 Propagation de K7RA

Average daily sunspot numbers rose substantially over the past week,

from 97.4 in the previous seven days to 152 for the most recent.

Average daily solar flux rose from 168.9 to 172.1.

 

Predicted solar flux is currently 150 on December 5 and 6, 145 on

December 7, 140 on December 8 to 12, 180 on December 13 and 14, 185

on December 15 to 19, 170 on December 20 to 23, 175 on December 24

to 27, 180 on December 28 to 30, 170 on December 31 through January

1, then 165, 160, 170 and 175 on January 2 to 5, and 180 on January

6 to 10.

 

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on December 5 to 12, 20 on December

13, 10 on December 14 and 15, then 8, 10 and 12 on December 16 to

18, 10 on December 19 to 20, 8 on December 21, 5 on December 22 to

27, then 15 and 12 on December 28 and 29, 8 on December 30 and 31,

and 5 on January 1 to 6.

 

Petr Kolman, OK1MGW sent us his latest geomagnetic stability

forecast. This might be important for this weekend's ARRL 160 Meter

Contest.

 

Petr says to expect mostly quiet conditions December 5, quiet to

active December 6 and 7, quiet to unsettled December 8, mostly quiet

December 9 and 10, quiet to unsettled December 11, quiet to active

December 12 and 13, quiet to unsettled December 14 and 15, quiet to

active December 16 and 17, quiet to unsettled December 18 to 20,

mostly quiet December 21, quiet December 22, mostly quiet December

23 and 24, quiet on December 25 and 26, quiet to unsettled December

27 and 28, and mostly quiet December 29 to 31.

 

Petr also expects increased solar wind on December 5 to 7, 11 to 13

and 16 to 18.

 

Note that OK1MGW has quiet to active conditions December 6 and 7,

the days for the 160 Meter Contest, but the NOAA USAF prediction

says an A index of 5 (which is quiet) for all of December 5 to 12.

 

The Space Weather Prediction Center warns that although their

websites will remain up, the data will be stale from 6:00 AM until

6:00 PM MST on Saturday, December 13 due to system maintenance.

 

In addition, on December 2 SWPC posted this information:

 

"SWPC is pleased to announce that it will be switching to our new

website on December 9th.  When the site change is implemented

www.spaceweather.gov and www.swpc.noaa.gov will link to the new

website that is currently in final beta release at

origin-www.swpc.noaa.gov. SWPC's legacy website will be available to

all users for a transition period of at least 60 days (with the

exception of POES satellite products which will be discontinued

December 31). The legacy website will be located at

legacy-www.swpc.noaa.gov.

 

Please note that if you have bookmarks or automatic links to pages

on the old website, these links will no longer work. Most of the

content will be available on the new site under new links and we

will work with customers who bring up specific content issues to

ensure that their links are re- established on the new site.

 

Since April 2014, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has

sought feedback from stakeholders and customers via a survey on the

beta release of the new website. We will continue to respond to

feedback from stakeholders and customers regarding issues of content

or behavior of the new site as we go through this transition to

operational status.

 

For questions or feedback regarding this action, please use our

feedback form:

 

http://origin-www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/contact-us "

 

Now let us examine some recent averages and trends for daily sunspot

numbers. The average for the month of October was 92.1 and it was

101.9 for November.

 

Our three month moving averages of daily sunspot numbers centered on

January through October were 138.5, 146.4, 148.2, 129.6, 118.4,

112.8, 109.2, 115.6, 108.4 and 107. The reason it ended in October

is because this is the month the average is centered on, so the

number for October consists of all the data for September, October

and November, and the number centered on September is all the data

for August, September and October.

 

Ken Gordon, W7EKB of Moscow, Idaho sent in a suggestion for a

propagation program he likes, which is a part of the free Airmail

Pactor software package, which you can download from

http://siriuscyber.net/ham/ . He likes it better than the W6ELprop

program, which is also free. I had a couple of confusing issues to

work out to get it running, but Ken cleared things up.

 

Paging back through correspondence, I see that he also suggested it

in June 2013, but I was slow to act on it.

 

It gives you a nice percentage rating on the viability of the path,

and the resolution is in one degree steps.

 

You can enter the default geographic coordinates for your station,

but you actually need to pre-program the coordinates for every

location you want to target. Ken says to edit some system files

which were not apparent when I hunted for them, but you can actually

edit a station list by clicking View, Station List, then click on

the Ham folder and click the New button. The simplest way I found to

do this was get the grid square from WM7D.net for domestic call

signs, and you can enter this and the program will calculate the

geographic coordinates.

 

Then to calculate path reliability or signal strength (I think based

on 100 watts and a dipole), click View, Propagation or hit F8 and

your station list comes up, and the option to enter either solar

flux or sunspot numbers. I just averaged solar flux for the past 3

days and used that.

 

Then in the top Frequency window I enter the frequency in KHz.

Remember it is KHz, so the low end of 20 meters might be 14020, but

never 14.02.

 

There is also a way to have a list of frequencies shown for each

station, but I am not that far along with it to describe it here.

 

To run the calculation, just hit the update button over on the

right.

 

The ARRL Ten Meter Contest is next weekend, December 13 and 14. Find

details at http://www.arrl.org/10-meter .

 

Note this event runs from 0000 UTC Saturday through 2359 UTC on

Sunday. For most of us the start of the contest will be late

afternoon or early evening on Friday.

 

Fortunately the Geminid meteor shower should peak on December 14, so

ten meter propagation may be aided by ionization from meteor trails.

NASA has detected meteor fireballs beginning two weeks before the

peak, according to Spaceweather.com.

 

Spaceweather.com also reported an M-6 class solar flare at 1825 UTC

on December 4, and this caused a brief HF radio blackout in the

Western Hemisphere. There was no CME. Forecasters estimate a

forty-percent chance of additional M-flares over the next day or so.

 

We have all enjoyed the all-over real-time views of the sun at

http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ .  But Don Kalinowski, NJ2E of Cary,

North Carolina reports that contact with the STEREO B spacecraft has

been lost.

 

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/stereo-b-contact-lost-11212014/?et_mid=706619&rid=246428211

 

View a series of solar images at

http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/curiosity/topics/sunspot-pictures/ and

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=105003PHPSESSID=2vpvkjg2rm771nb6726mhql492 .

 

For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL

Technical Information Service at

http://arrl.org/propagation-of-rf-signals. For an explanation of the

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 November