Propagation News – 6 March 2022

We had another pretty uninspiring week, sunspot wise, with the solar flux index struggling to get above 100, at least until later in the week when it touched 110 on Thursday. The good news is that, on the whole, geomagnetic conditions were quiet, which really allowed the F2 ionospheric layer to develop.

As a result, there were reports of some good 10 metre openings at times. Members of the 10m UK Net Facebook group reported FT8 openings to the west coast of the USA, as well as openings to Malawi, Indonesia and Australia.

Propquest.co.uk confirmed this, showing 10m openings over a 3,000km path throughout the day. It is worth calling CQ on 28MHz even if the band sounds closed as some openings will be fleeting and short lived.

Next week, NOAA predicts that the SFI will start in the low 100s, but then decline to the high 90s as the week progresses.

Unsettled geomagnetic conditions are forecast for this weekend and next, but with only a maximum Kp index of four. Having said that, it would only take an Earth-facing coronal mass ejection to push the index even higher. These CMEs are very hard to predict, but unfortunately very common at this point in the cycle.

If the Sun behaves itself, we might see more openings on 10 metres this week, so do keep a look on the band.

This weekend is the ARRL International DX SSB contest, which is another opportunity to increase the count for your Worked All States award.

VHF and up

We had a fleeting distraction of high pressure last weekend, after not quite making it during the last week, it nearly got here, but the Atlantic fronts won that battle.

So, this first weekend looks promising with another attempt to get high pressure established and a chance of some Tropo on the VHF bands.

However, like last week, approaching fronts and new areas of low pressure will soon turn next week into the unsettled variety with rain and even some snow as the milder Atlantic air meets the cold southeasterly over the eastern side of the country. These fronts with big temperature contrasts can produce some temporary enhancement of Tropo parallel to the front, so it is worth checking.

We’re still not in the new Sporadic-E season yet, but the Propquest graphs at Propquest.co.uk do occasionally pick up the odd ‘blip’, which might show up on the digital modes on 10m. As in previous weeks, don’t forget to stay in tune with solar events for chance aurora should the Kp index rise, and for the early risers some pre-dawn random meteor scatter.

The Moon’s declination is positive all week, but path losses are rising as we approach apogee this Thursday. 144MHz sky noise is low to moderate all week, peaking around 500 Kelvin on late Thursday and Friday.

Category: GB2RS Propagation News