ARRL
11/02/2018
At 2347 UTC on November 1 the Australia Space Weather Service issued this warning: "Geomagnetic activity is expected to reach active to minor storm levels on UT day 03 November and active levels on 04 November. The disturbance is due to the expected arrival of CIR (a Co-Rotating Interaction Region) and HSS (High Speed Stream) associated with a large recurrent equatorial coronal hole. The approaching coronal hole has produced solar winds reaching 650 km/s at the location of STEREO-A. Similar effects are expected at Earth."
GEOMAGNETIC ACTIVITY FORECAST
03 Nov: Active
04 Nov: Unsettled to Active
For more on HSS and CIR: https://bit.ly/2Jw3syV
In related news, Spaceweather.com reported: "GEOMAGNETIC STORM PREDICTED: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is monitoring a large hole in the sun's atmosphere, now directly facing Earth. A stream of solar wind escaping from the opening is expected to reach our planet during the late hours of November 3, likely sparking minor G1-class geomagnetic storms over the weekend. Visit Spaceweather.com for more information and updates."
Another week passed with no sunspots, yet we received numerous reports of favorable HF propagation. Average daily solar flux declined from 70.4 to 68.6. Geomagnetic indicators were quiet, up only slightly from the previous seven days. Planetary A index rose from 3.3 to 4.4, and middle latitude A index from 2.1 to 3.4.
Solar activity will probably bottom out in the next couple of years. But where are we compared to the previous solar minimum? For the month of October, average daily sunspot number was only 4.5. Looking back, the average October sunspot numbers for 2007-2018 were 1.3, 5.2, 7, 35, 116.9, 73.8, 127.2, 92.1, 59.6, 29.1, 12.9 and 4.5. So, in terms of sunspot numbers, it appears we may be at about the same level of activity as the period from 2007-2008.
Predicted solar flux for the short term is 67 on November 2-8, 68 on November 9, 70 on November 10-17, 69 on November 18-19, 68 on November 20 through December 2, 70 on December 3-14, and 69 on December 15-16.
Predicted planetary A index is 5 on November 2, then 25, 20, 15, 12, 8 and 5 on November 3-8, then 8 on November 9-10, 10 on November 11, 5 on November 12-13, then 12 on November 14, 5 on November 15-24, then 8, 12 and 10 on November 25-27, 5 on November 28-29, 20 on November 30, 15 on December 1-3, then 8, 5, 12, 8 and 10 on December 4-8, and 5 on December 9-16.
Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period November 2-28, 2018 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.
Geomagnetic field will be:
Quiet on November 2, 12-14, 19-20
Quiet to unsettled on November 7-8, 15-16, 23-25, 28
Quiet to active on November 6, 21-22, 26
Unsettled to active on November 4-5, 9-11, 27
Active to disturbed on November 3, (6, 17-18)
Solar wind will intensify on November 3-4, (5-6, 9,) 10-12, (17-22,) 23
Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of forecasts remains low and their compilation is difficult.
Last Friday, October 26, Steve Sacco, NN4X, reported, "I've been messing around on 15 meters with FT8 today, and found the band to be quite good, at least here in Florida. I didn't realize how good until I checked PSKReporter." The image he sent seems to show coverage over North and South America, Europe, Greenland and elsewhere.
On October 29 Steve sent this regarding the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly: https://go.nasa.gov/2PBJgkz
Fred, K9SO, reported on October 31: “What an opening we're having this morning! Who needs sunspots? Huge signals on 20 and 17-meter phone from Central and Eastern Europe into my Southern Wisconsin location. Todor, LZ1WR, said it best regarding my signal report: ‘My gosh! You're coming in like my next-door neighbor!’"
N0JK reported on October 29: "Despite a solar flux of only 69, the VP6D Ducie DXpedition has been successful working North America on 10 meters. They had a strong opening to North America on October 25, and again the afternoon of October 29. I was able to log them on 10-meter CW at 2231z on October 29 while on a break from work. My set up was a Yaesu FT-897 transceiver running 100 W to an MFJ whip/magnet-mount antenna on the car. It was a nice fall day with temperatures as high as 75 degrees F! VP6D peaked up to 599 at times. I heard many Midwest stations go into their 10-meter log including K0TRL in Leawood, Kansas, who made a contact with VP6D just before me. The Ducie operator was UT6UD, who did a great job picking up weak callers and keeping the pileup moving briskly.
“With the F2 layer MUF often below 28 MHz to Ducie from North America, many days they were inaudible or very weak for modest stations. On some days high-power North American stations in the eastern worked VP6D on 10 meters by beaming southeast or south, on side scatter."
Ward Silver, N0AX, pointed out a correction to my comment last week regarding WSJT: "WSJT is not a mode, per se. It is a software package or suite that supports several modes: JT65, JT9, FT8, etc. The meteor scatter mode it is currently supporting is MSK144, replacing the older FSK441. Fldigi is the same thing - a program that can communicate using many modes."
This weekend is the CW portion of ARRL Sweepstakes. See http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes .
For more information concerning radio propagation, see the ARRL Technical Information Service 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.
Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.
Sunspot numbers for October 25 through 31, 2018 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 69.4, 69.2, 69.3, 68.3, 68.8, 67.1, and 68.1, with a mean of 68.6. Estimated planetary A indices were 6, 6, 4, 4, 3, 4, and 4, with a mean of 4.4. Estimated mid-latitude A indices were 5, 6, 3, 2, 1, 4, and 3, with a mean of 3.4.
