Propagation News – 9 September 2018

The Sun was spotless for most of last week and no spots are expected to rotate into view over the next few days. This will keep flux levels low, and working frequencies will remain depressed. Maximum useable frequencies may struggle to include the 18MHz band. Warnings of a rising Kp-index have been issued, and geomagnetic disturbance may increase as next week progresses. This would bring difficult conditions to the bands. It is also expected that the unsettled period will continue over this weekend due to the persistence of a negative polarity coronal hole.

It’s worth monitoring the International Beacon Project frequencies, even though solar activity and flux is low. The Venezuelan beacon YV5B was heard on 14.100MHz at 2230UTC. Other DX beacons heard in daytime on that frequency included RR9O in Siberia and VR2B in Hong Kong. Another way to assess propagation conditions is to make routine listening checks of stations operating a continuous service. The mid to lower-end of the HF spectrum is well served by the Russian RWM time service stations. These operate close to five and 10MHz. Their signal strength and fade characteristics are indicative of propagation conditions.

In spite of the doom and gloom regarding the state of the solar cycle and propagation conditions, there are instances of fair to medium DX to be found. These include XV1 in Vietnam and 3B9 Rodriguez Island on 14MHz around 1400UTC, and A5 Bhutan on 7MHz at 2330UTC. Optimism regarding the start of the next cycle may be slightly premature, but every one is eagerly looking now for definite signs of the beginning.

VHF and up

As the autumn season arrives and early morning mist and fog become part of the daily weather fare, then it’s the season for tropo. The coming week will offer some regions of high pressure, in the south initially, but perhaps more generally by the end of the week, so add tropo to your operating list and get some activity going in the multimode end of the VHF/UHF bands. There will also be some heavy rain showers, particularly over northern Britain this weekend, so there is a chance of some rain scatter on the GHz bands.

The disturbed geomagnetic conditions that are expected this weekend will make it worth checking the K-index and 6m to 2m bands for signs of auroral propagation.

The Moon will be at perigee on Saturday, its closest approach and declination is still positive until Tuesday, so the early part of the week should be best for EME. This Sunday, though, after about 11.30 until moonset, the Sun and Moon are very close, meaning lots of sun noise in the antenna beamwidth.

This Sunday, the September Epsilon Perseids meteor shower takes place within the boundaries of the constellation of Perseus. It occurs between 5 and 21 September with the small peak occurring on Sunday.

Category: GB2RS Propagation News