GB2RS Propagation News
Propagation News – 14 July 2019
Last week saw poor geomagnetic conditions on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Kp index hitting five. This was due to a weak coronal mass ejection followed by the onset of a solar wind stream from a coronal hole. A solar wind speed above 650km/s, coupled with a strongly south-pointing Bz field, led to geomagnetic unrest […]
Propagation News – 7 July 2019
Good news—this week saw two sunspots appear from the upcoming solar cycle 25. We know this due to their magnetic polarity and locations close to the solar equator. Unfortunately, the sunspots didn’t last very long before vanishing. But it is a start. Earlier this year, an international panel of experts predicted that solar minimum would […]
Propagation News – 30 June 2019
Last week saw a continued quiet Sun with zero sunspots at the end of the week and a settled geomagnetic field. A feature in Nature magazine has suggested that we may be heading for a Maunder Minimum in the next three decades. The report cites a study of long-term oscillations of the solar background magnetic […]
Propagation News – 23 June 2019
The week was dominated by thunderstorms and rain. While not strictly HF propagation-related, this did cause havoc on the lower bands, with frequent static crashes. This was particularly noticeable in Thursday’s RSGB 80m Club Championship CW contest, where storms over the low countries made the contest hard-going. Other than that the week was once again […]
Propagation News – 16 June 2019
We had another quite settled week. The Kp index rose to four on the 8th thanks to a glancing blow from an earlier coronal mass ejection. It rose to three again on Thursday the 13th due to an enhanced solar wind stream. The solar flux index remained around 70 thanks to a total lack of […]
Propagation News – 9 June 2019
We had a very quiet, settled Sun last week. The solar flux index never got above 70, reflecting a complete lack of sunspots, while the Kp index eventually decreased to one or two, due to a lack of coronal holes on the solar surface. The net result was that HF conditions were not bad, but […]
