GB2RS Propagation News
Propagation News – 14 January 2024
We couldn’t have asked for better solar conditions last week. We had a low Kp index that never got any higher than 2.67, and a solar flux index that started the week at 167 and then rose to 186 by Wednesday. So, at first glance, this looks like ideal conditions for HF. However, we are […]
Propagation News – 14 January 2024
Welcome to the first HF propagation report of 2024—it looks like it will be business as usual! A massive X5-class solar flare occurred on 31 December 2023. Luckily, this happened at 2155UTC, so didn’t affect the ionosphere over the UK, but it did launch a large coronal mass ejection, which was forecast to possibly hit […]
Propagation News – 24 December 2023
We filed last week’s GB2RS propagation report and, shortly after, we had the biggest X-ray solar flare event this cycle! This just shows how hard it is to predict solar activity and why long-term HF predictions are problematic. Anyway, back to the solar flare which occurred at 1702UTC on the 14 December. This was an […]
Propagation News – 17 December 2023
We had a fairly settled time last week with only the solar wind and some solar flare activity to contend with. Sunspot region 3514 produced a moderately strong M5.8 solar flare on the 14 December. This event was responsible for a coronal mass ejection, or CME, but that was directed to the west and missed […]
Propagation News – 10 December 2023
We dodged a bullet last week as a high-speed solar wind stream from a coronal hole sped past the Earth. Although the wind speed was often in excess of 600 kilometres per second, its Bz, or magnetic field, was pointing north. The net result was that most of this passed harmlessly away from Earth and […]
Propagation News – 3 December 2023
We were lucky last week – the solar flux index remained quite high and, after the geomagnetic upsets around the 25 November, we had settled conditions, with the Kp index below two. Unfortunately, it looks like that is all about to change. On Tuesday 28 November, two M-class solar flares and associated coronal mass ejections […]
