ZCZC AP05
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 5 ARLP005
>From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 31, 2020
To all radio amateurs
SB PROP ARL ARLP005
ARLP005 Propagation de K7RA
This week we finally saw the return of sunspots, over seven of the last eight days, January 24-30. Average daily sunspot numbers rose from 0 to 11.1, while average daily solar flux jumped from 71.2 to 72.9.
Geomagnetic indicators remained very quiet, signaling continued great conditions on 160 and 80 meters.
Predicted solar flux over the next month and a half is 74 on January 31 through February 2, 70 on February 3-6, 71 on February 7-13, 72 on February 14-20, 73 on February 21-22, 74 on February 23-29, 72 on March 1-3, 71 on March 4-11, and 72 on March 12-15.
Predicted planetary A index is 8 on January 31, 5 on February 1-4, 10 on February 5-6, 5 on February 7-24, 10 on February 25-26, 5 on February 27-29, 8 on March 1-3, and 5 on March 4-15.
On January 27, 2020 the total sunspot area was 100 millionth of the visible solar disc. The total sunspot area hasn’t been larger or even near that size since May 18, 2019 when the area was 140 millionth.
Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 31 to February 26, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH and the Czech Propagation Interest group. OK1HH has been making these reports for 42 years, since January, 1978.
“Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: February 8-9, 15-16, 20-23
quiet to unsettled on: February 3, 10-11, 14, 18-19, 24
quiet to active on: (January 31, February 1-2, 6-7, 13, 26)
unsettled to active on: (February 4-5, 12, 17, 25)
active to disturbed: no predicted disturbances.
“Solar wind will intensify on: January 31, February 1 (-3,) 6-7, 12-15, (16,) 18-20, (21-22,) 26.
“Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. The predictability of changes is lower again.”
Thanks to all who sent in this, a link to the highest resolution images of the Sun ever recorded:
https://bit.ly/2tSr1P6
David Moore sent this link:
“A ‘great’ space weather super-storm large enough to cause significant disruption to our electronic and networked systems occurred on average once in every 25 years according to a new study.
“ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200129104745.htm .”
Rich Zwirko, K1HTV wrote:
“This Winter season has been very good one for morning DXing here in Virginia on 160 Meters. In the past 2 weeks, I have worked 12 different stations in Japan on FT8 on the Topband. Running only 75 Watts, 8 of the 12 JA QSOs were made after my local sunrise, some as late as 30 minutes past SR. Some JA stations were decoded more than 40 minutes after the Sun had risen. Many days with the K index at 0 or 1 is making for a very stable path through the magnetic north polar region to the Orient.
“Activity on the higher bands have been made more interesting with a number of maritime mobile stations now working the FT8 mode. Stations traveling through many of the world’s water grids and signing /MM at the end of their calls include DD6AJ, HA3FOK, R0LER, UR7FM, UT1FG, UW5EJX and YU2AX.
“Even with the SFI in the low 70s, the 15 Meter band has been open daily for FT8 QSOs with stations in South America and a few western Africa. The 17 Meter band has been open daily to Europe, Africa, South Americas and to a few VK and ZL stations.
“I’m looking forward to the Summer months, hoping for a good 6 Meter DX season via E-skip and the SSSP mode.”
Solar orbiter launches next week:
https://bit.ly/38MfKhY
On January 24, Jon Pollock, K0ZN in De Soto, Kansas wrote:
“Friday night, January 17th, there was some extraordinary propagation on 80 M (CW) about 0530 UTC. Europeans were very strong here in the Midwest, well over S9 in some cases. I had just finished working an Italian station and the next station that called him, which had about an S6 signal was a ZL. I listened to the entire exchange between the Italian station and the ZL. I have never heard anything like that before on 80 M. Basically, 80 M was open with good signals over the entire dark side of the planet. My antenna is an 80 M dipole at 35 feet. This is my 5th sunspot cycle low and, in fact, 80 and 160 are better at cycle lows. Clearly, the longer skip zone when the band goes ‘long’ late at night, reduces the received noise level on 80M.”
On January 26 he wrote:
“I got into ham radio in 1959…been through several sunspot cycles, as you can see. NO QUESTION 80 and 160 get better at the bottom of the cycle. I am one of those twisted, sick people that actually LIKE that! Ha Ha! I like the low bands and I see it as a great equalizer. I can’t put up a big antenna on the upper bands, but many of the Big Guns can’t put up a big antenna on 80 and 160, so the playing field gets leveled. I have (in terms of distance) worked some really good DX on 80 and 160 this winter…with simple wire antennas. You just gotta QSY with the sunspot cycle if you want to have fun!”
N8II wrote on January 24 from West Virginia:
“In the CW OPS mini test at 1900Z Saturday, the skip zones were very long on 40 and 20, but 15 was wide open to southern CA. 15 has been pretty quiet; FR4QT (peaking S7) on Reunion Island was ragchewing with a Caribbean station (unreadable) at 1500Z Wednesday January 22. I did get an answer from a French station who was weak one day around 1445Z on 15.
“Low band conditions have declined in the past 10 days, but at 0330Z 160 was in good shape to LY4A in Lithuania with a S9 signal and I logged 4Z5IW in Israel through a NA pileup (he was S4-7).”
The latest space weather report from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, from several days ago:
https://youtu.be/Xuz2t0-l5NE
Recently I (K7RA) decided to try FT8 with the very crude and limited wire antenna I mentioned in ARLP051 at the recent end of last year. This is a wire of no particular length (perhaps 30-40 feet total) that winds around through laurel bushes in my back yard, about 4 feet above the ground, fastened to the branches with tie-wraps and fed with an antenna tuner.
I knew FT8 was a powerful weak signal mode, but I was astonished at the results on 80, 30 and 20 meters. Running low power, I was being heard all over the world. Checking pskreporter.info I was surprised to see a report from central Russia on 30 meters, and various Japan, New Zealand and Brazilian stations, and of course coverage all over North America. Even though I had very few 2-way QSOs (which are minimal anyway in FT8) just seeing where my pipsqueak signal was propagating was quite a revelation.
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 web page 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.
Sunspot numbers for January 23 through 29, 2020 were 0, 12, 14, 18, 12, 11, and 11, with a mean of 11.1. 10.7 cm flux was 70.8, 71, 72.7, 74.7, 72.9, 74.2, and 74.3, with a mean of 72.9. Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, and 9, with a mean of 4.6. Middle latitude A index was 3, 1, 3, 2, 2, 4, and 6, with a mean of 3.
NNNN
/EX
Source: W1AW Bulletin via the ARRL.