Monday, August 31, 2009

Sunspot Drought !!


I borrowed the following from VE3EN's web page at
http://www.solarcycle24.com/.The sun has been blank of official sunspots for 50 days in a row. This is only the forth time the sun has been blank for atleast 50 days since 1849. The 3rd longest streak on the list is 54 days between February-April 1879. The record is 92 days in 1913. We still have a while to go before we beat the record. Click the link below for all of the spotless day streak records.
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html .
73 & GUD DX,
Thomas F. Giella, NZ4O
Lakeland, FL, USA
nz4o@arrl.net

Posted Monday August 31, 2009 at http://www.wcflunatall.com/nz4o1.htm and
http://www.wcflunatall.com/nz4o4.htm

After a grueling 51 day period with no sunspot groups a small solar cycle 24 sunspot group has emerged in the northern and western hemisphere of the Sun. Hopefully it will survive long enough to be numbered by NOAA/SWPC.

As a side note yesterday evening we experienced an unexpected brief (3 hrs) but moderately strong (Kp-6) geomagnetic storm. It did not come from a geo-effective (Earth facing) sunspot group associated coronal mass ejection. The likely source of the geomagnetic storm was a collapsing solar filament on the Sun or and unidentified deep space (out of our solar system)
source.

My forecast for the above mentioned period of 08/29-09/01/2009 was a Kp 0-2
(quiet), isolated 3 (unsettled).
73 & GUD DX,
Thomas F. Giella, NZ4O
Lakeland, FL, USA
nz4o@arrl.net
eList Owner/Moderator

New Australian DX Report includes propagation analysis
Episode no. 166 of the Australian DX Report audio news magazine includes propagation research analysis of current spectrum occupancy in the 9 MHz band during the 0830 to 0930 time window, as monitored here in Melbourne.

There are also other features, news and information about shortwave broadcasting, propagation, solar activity, monitoring notes, new schedules, extracts from schedules, and schedule updates.

It's 14 mins duration, and may be accessed from

http://airm.edxp.org/

You may download/listen to/save the episodes as an MP3 file on your laptop/desktop, set up a Podcast, or receive/save it on your Mobile Phone or other portable internet-enabled digital device.

You may also subscribe via the site's RSS/Atom feed - full details are at the site.

The episodes are also available on-air, over WWCR Nashville, 0200-0215 on Sundays, on 5070, and on Mondays 1145-1200 on 15825, and via WWCR's streaming audio (live) at http://wwcr.com/
Good listening to the Australian DX Report Episode No. 166, and enjoy the musical interludes!
(Bob Padula, Melbourne, Australia)