SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP027
ARLP027 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP27
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 27 ARLP027
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA July 7, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP027
ARLP027 Propagation de K7RA

No sunspots this week. The pattern persists, and this surprises me.
But Spaceweather.com reported a couple of weak, barely emerging
spots, never numbered, and by their magnetic polarity were from new
Solar Cycle 25.

We rely on NOAA for official sunspot numbers, and the most recent
one reported was 11 on June 15. See, ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/DSD.txt

Average daily solar flux over the recent reporting week (June 25 to
July 1) averaged 68.6 up from 67.7 over the previous seven days.
Average daily planetary A index was 4.7, the same as the average
middle latitude A index.

Predicted solar flux over the next 45 days is 68, every day July 3
to August 16, which is hardly a promising outlook. Even with no
sunspots, it would be nice to see solar flux values north of 70.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on July 3-26, 8 on July 27-28, 5 on
July 29 through August 1, 8 on August 2-3, and 5 on August 4-16.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period July 3-29, 2020 from
OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: July 3, 9-11, 14, 18-22.
quiet to unsettled on: July 4, 8, 12-13, (15, 17,) 25-28.
quiet to active on: (July 5-7, 16, 23-24, 29).
unsettled to active on: None!
active to disturbed: None!

"Solar wind will intensify on: July (4,) 5-8, (9-10, 16-18, 21-22,)
23-25, (26-27).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains in the long run lower as
there are very few indications.

"F. K. Janda, OK1HH."

This video is quite dramatic and remarkable. An entire decade of
continuous solar rotation images compressed into an hour:

https://youtu.be/l3QQQu7QLoM

About:

https://go.nasa.gov/2CXkw1k

Mike, KA3JAW reported from Easton, PA urging everyone to monitor
29.6 MHz FM. He heard nothing on 10 meter FM over Field Day weekend.
I will start doing this myself now with a new radio that covers that
band/mode.

Interesting article about solar plasma flow can be found on:

https://www.inverse.com/science/solar-cycle-plasma-flow

Thanks to AA2F for catching errors in the A index averages appearing
in the ARRL Letter (my fault), so I could correct them in this
bulletin.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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 June 25 through July 1, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 68.9, 67.8, 68.9, 69.2,
68.7, 68.1, and 68.9, with a mean of 68.6. Estimated planetary A
indices were 3, 6, 7, 4, 3, 4, and 6, with a mean of 4.7. Middle
latitude A index was 2, 6, 6, 4, 4, 5, and 6, with a mean of 4.7.
NNNN
/EX
---
* Synchronet * The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP029
ARLP029 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP29
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 29 ARLP029
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA July 17, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP029
ARLP029 Propagation de K7RA

It turns out last week's bulletin ARLP028 did not get posted to the
ARRL web site and did not go out via the usual channels. If you
need a copy, check the bulletin archive link given at the end of
this bulletin (perhaps tomorrow), or email a request to the author, k7ra@arrl.net.

Over the past week, July 9 to 15, just one day had sunspot activity,
and that was July 10 when the daily sunspot number was 12. The
sunspot was number 2766, returning for a second appearance from old
cycle 24.

On July 16 Spaceweather.com reported "a tiny proto-sunspot"
exhibiting polarity indicating cycle 25. But later it seemed to be
gone, and every time I thought I'd spotted something, it turned out
to be dirt on my computer screen.

From the previous week to this week, average daily sunspot number
declined from 3.3 to 1.7, but average daily solar flux stayed the
same, at 68.5.

Predicted solar flux remains low, further evidence of this long,
deep solar minimum. All flux values for the next 45 days are
predicted to stay below 70. 69 is the predicted 10.7 cm solar flux
on July 17 to 22, 68 on July 23 and 24, 69 on July 25 through August
1, 68 again on August 2 to 20, 69 on August 21 to 28 and 68 on
August 29 and 30.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on July 17 to 30, then 8 and 10 on
July 31 through August 1, 5 on August 2 to 8, 8 on August 9 and 10,
5 on August 11 to 26, 8 on August 27 and 28, and 5 on August 29 and
30.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period July 17 til August 12,
2020 from OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: July 17 to 21, 25 and 26, 28 and 29, August 4 to 7
Quiet to unsettled on: July 24, 27, 30, August 1 to 3, 10 to 12
Quiet to active on: (July 22 and 23, 31, August 8 and 9)
Unsettled to active on: nothing predicted
Active to disturbed: nothing predicted

Solar wind will intensify on: July (17 and 18, 21 and 22) 23 to 25,
(26 and 27,) August 1 to 3 (4)

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains in the long run lower as
there are very few indications."

George Hall, N2CG reported, "I'm located in Northern New Jersey
(FN20wv) and on July 11th starting around 8 AM EDT (1200Z) and for
the next eleven hours the 6m band on FT8 mode was open to five
continents.

All parts of Europe were coming in for over 10 hours and I managed
to work 11 different DXCC entities, including JW7QIA in Svalbard for
an ATNO.

In Africa the Canary Islands were coming in and there were a few
Caribbean stations as well as many areas of the US and parts of
northern South America workable with strong signals.

At 2200Z I had to go QRT due to an approaching thunderstorm. When I
returned to the air at 2240Z in just a few minutes the HamSpots DX
cluster was showing I had spotted over a dozen JA stations on 6m
FT8! For the next 25 minutes I managed to work six Japanese
stations, with received signals ranging from -06 to -18 dBm. So,
working Japan not only gave me an ATNO, it also gave me Asia; the
last continent I needed for 6m WAC which I'll be able to apply for
when I receive a paper QSL card from one of the JA stations.

So lets hope the remaining weeks of this Summer 6m Es Season will
bring more DX supersizes."

Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW of Easton, Pennsylvania wrote:

"On Sunday July 12, 1 pm local (1700 UTC) heard and worked Elye,
KI5DLL from Malvern, Arkansas (95 miles away from the Texas state
line in Texarkana) at a distance of 1,057 miles. Initially his
signal report was 1x1, but later rose to 3x3.

On Thursday, July 14, 11 local (1500 UTC) heard Mark, KI4SWB from
Melbourne Beach, Florida at a distance of 924 miles. His signal
report was 4x7, peaking +30 db with deep QSB.

Both receptions were on the 10 meter FM simplex frequency of 29.600
MHz.

Considering operators on the lower segment 10 meter band (28 MHz)
are having a rough time making DX contacts using SSB (J3E) - 3KHz
bandwidth, which is four times narrower compared to FM (F3E) - 11.25
KHz bandwidth, so it is somewhat amazing that we are starting to
hear these type of emissions.

Plus, keeping in mind that we are slowly exiting out of Solar Cycle
24, which was reported to be a deep century-class lull in solar
activity.

I urge everyone to continue monitoring 29.600 FM simplex. Even if
the frequency sounds closed, give a call out, you might be
pleasantly surprised with an unexpected DX reply."

Mike sent an update on July 16:

"Today, at 11:53 am local (1553 UTC) heard Lloyd, KC5FM from
Newkirk, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City, near the Kansas state
line in a QSO when his signal was a 4x4 QSB. When he finished, I
called him at 12:02 pm (1602 UTC), to my surprise he returned my
call with a 3x3 signal report. Distance was 1,203 miles. Up to
this point in time, this is my record distance using F3E
modulation."

The latest from WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/KK-kGMZe71Q

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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 July 9 through 15, 2020 were 0, 12, 0, 0, 0, 0,
and 0, with a mean of 1.7. 10.7 cm flux was 68.7, 68.8, 68.7, 67.6,
68.2, 68.9, and 68.4, with a mean of 68.5. Estimated planetary A
indices were 4, 3, 3, 3, 6, 11, and 5, with a mean of 5. Middle
latitude A index was 4, 3, 2, 3, 7, 9, and 6, with a mean of 4.9.
NNNN
/EX
---
* Synchronet * The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP030
ARLP030 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP30
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 30 ARLP030
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA July 24, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP030
ARLP030 Propagation de K7RA

Another cycle 25 sunspot appeared this week (AR2767), with a minimum
non-zero sunspot number of 11 on July 21 to 23. Thus, the average
daily sunspot number for this reporting week (July 16 to 22) was
3.1, up from 1.7 over the previous seven days.

Geomagnetic indicators remain very quiet, with average daily
planetary A index declining from 5 to 3.9.

This sunspot cycle minimum remains surprisingly inactive. As time
goes on, I keep expecting it to perk up, but all indicators remain
quiet.

One very hopeful outlook for cycle 25 comes from a group of
scientists who predict it possibly being one of the biggest cycles
of all time. Could we finally see a repeat of cycle 19? See their
paper here:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.15263.pdf

Predicted solar flux, which roughly correlates to sunspot activity,
also looks quite dull. Until Thursday, the 45 day outlook had
predicted solar flux never at 70 or above.

Predicted flux values are 70 on July 24 to 31, 69 on August 1, 68 on
August 2 to 20, 69 again on August 21 to 28, and 68 on August 29
through September 6.

Predicted planetary A index is 8, 12, 8, and 5 on July 24 to 27, 5
on July 27, 8 on July 28 and 29, then 5, 8 and 10 on July 30 through
August 1, 5 on August 2 to 18, 8 on August 19 and 20, and 5 on
August 21 through September 5.

Spaceweather.com reports a possible coronal mass ejection impact
this week. The faint CME left the sun on July 19, and may cause a
minor disturbance on July 24 and 25. This is reflected in the
planetary A index forecast.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period July 24 to August 19,
2020 from OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: July 24 to 26, 28 and 29, August 4 to 7, 13 to 18
Quiet to unsettled on: July 27, 30, August 1 to 3, 10 to 12
Quiet to active on: (July 31, August 8 and 9, 19)
Unsettled to active: not expected
Active to disturbed: not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: July (23 to 27,) August 1 to 3 (- 4,
11 to 15)

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains in the long run lower as
there are very few indications, as solar cycle minimum is here."

Wade Blake, N7LGK sent this link, showing current solar cycle
progress:

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

Last week exceptional HF conditions during the IARU HF World
Championship (July 11 and 12) were reported, and with no sunspots.
K7HV, K7SS and others reported conditions on Saturday night "like
the good old days" with worldwide propagation.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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 July 16 through 22, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 11,
and 11, with a mean of 3.1. 10.7 cm flux was 68.7, 69, 67.8, 68.9,
69.3, 69.8, and 70, with a mean of 69.1. Estimated planetary A
indices were 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, and 3, with a mean of 3.9. Middle
latitude A index was 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, and 5, with a mean of 4.3.
NNNN
/EX
---
* Synchronet * The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP031
ARLP031 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP31
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 31 ARLP031
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA July 31, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP031
ARLP031 Propagation de K7RA

Finally, sunspots have returned! There are currently two sunspots
visible, both from new solar cycle 25. The daily sunspot number was
11 on July 21 to 27, then rose to 22 on July 28 to 30.

Recently we have noticed an improvement in propagation due to
seasonal sporadic-E activity.

Average daily sunspot numbers rose from 3.1 to 14.1 this week, and
average daily solar flux changed from 69.1 to 71.1.

Total sunspot area covered 80 millionths of the solar disc on July
21, 120 millionths on July 22 to 26, and the coverage on the
following four days was 70, 50, 85 and 110.

Geomagnetic indicators were a bit more active, with average daily
planetary A index rising from 3.9 to 6.7, while average daily
mid-latitude indicators rose from 4.3 to 8.7.

Predicted solar flux is 72 on July 31 through August 2, 70 on August
3 to 7, 68 on August 8 to 22, 69 on August 23 to 28, and 68 on
August 29 through September 13.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on July 31, then 8 and 10 on August
1 and 2, 5 on August 3 to 23, 8 on August 24 and 25, and 5 on August
26 through September 13.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period July 31 to August 26,
2020 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: August 4 to 7, 15 to 19, 22 to 26
Quiet to unsettled on: July 31, August 2 and 3, (8,) 9, 11, (12 to
14,) 20
Quiet to active on: (August 1, 10, 21)
Unsettled to active on: not expected
Active to disturbed: not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: August 1 to 3 (-4, 11 to 15,) 20 and
21, (22 to 25)

- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains lower, this time thanks to
new active regions on the Sun."

K7DWI has interesting details on his blog about using cheap SDR
dongles for studying VHF openings:

https://bit.ly/315dRdP

Thanks to Howard Lester, N7SO for this article on solar flares:

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2020-15

And thanks to regular contributor David Moore for this:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200727145826.htm

The latest from Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vifDrXHwwsE

It looks like her entry on QRZ.com was recently updated and
expanded:

https://www.qrz.com/db/wx6sww

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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 July 23 through 29, 2020 were 11, 11, 11, 11,
11, 22, and 22, with a mean of 14.1. 10.7 cm flux was 70.3, 69.5,
70.4, 71.4, 71.4, 71.8, and 72.6, with a mean of 71.1. Estimated
planetary A indices were 4, 11, 15, 3, 4, 5, and 5, with a mean of
6.7. Middle latitude A index was 4, 13, 27, 3, 5, 5, and 4, with a
mean of 8.7.
NNNN
/EX
---
* Synchronet * The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net
* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP032
ARLP032 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP32
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 32 ARLP032
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA August 7, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP032
ARLP032 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot cycle 25 is well underway. We saw one new spot last week, on
July 28, and two new ones this week on August 2 and 3. The daily
sunspot numbers were 22 and 23 on the dates of their appearance, and
the total sunspot area grew on Wednesday to 160 millionths of the
visible solar disc.

The total sunspot area was smaller the next day, August 6, but the
daily sunspot number increased from 13 to 14.

Sunspot area has not been as large since May 2019, when it ranged
from 140 to 410 millionths of the solar disc over a two week period.

Average daily sunspot number for July 30 to August 5 was 19.6, up
from 14.1 over the previous seven days. Average daily solar flux
rose from 71.1 to 72.8 over the same period.

The A index remained about the same, with planetary A index barely
increasing from 6.7 to 7 and mid-latitude A index declining slightly
from 8.7 to 7.4.

Predicted solar flux is 73 on August 7 to 9, 71 on August 10 to 14,
69 on August 15 to 17, 71 on August 18 to 25, 73 on August 26 to 30,
71 on August 31 to September 7, 69 on September 8 to 13, and 71 on
September 14 to 20.

The planetary A index forecast is 5 on August 7, 8 on August 8, 5 on
August 9 to 23, 8 on August 24 and 25, 5 on August 26 to 28, then
12, 8 and 8 on August 29 to 31, 5 on September 1 to 19 and 8 on
September 20.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period August 7 til September
2, 2020 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: August 7 (-8,) 12, 15 and 16, September 2
Quiet to unsettled on: August 9, 11, 13 and 14, 17 to 19, 22, (23 to
27,) 28 and 29, September 1
Quiet to active on: (August 10, 20 and 21)
Unsettled to active on: August (30 and 31)
Active to disturbed: not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: August (10 and 11, 22 23,) 24 and 25,
September 1 and 2

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains lower because there are few indications, moreover, in new active areas."

Geomagnetic conditions have been very quiet and stable for a long
time, and this week is the first time in recent memory that OK1HH
predicted any unsettled to active conditions.

Frank Donovan, W3LPL noted in an August 5 email that "Today marks
the longest stretch of consecutive days with sunspots since
September 2017 when there were 56 consecutive days."

"The next solar cycle 25 milestone will be an energetic sunspot
region that increases the adjusted SFI to 80 or higher. Fingers and
toes crossed..."

WJ5O has an interesting history of 10 meter sporadic-E and info on
beacons:

https://www.qsl.net/wj5o/

Frequent contributor Ken Brown, N4SO writes to us from the Gulf
Coast in Grand Bay, Alabama.

He noted an announcement about the Reverse Beacon Network map
display in the ARRL Letter, with this link:

http://beta.reversebeacon.net/main.php

"On a 'Dead Band', I get the following from a series of CQ's.

W8WTS N4SO 21035.1 CW CQ 4 dB 28 wpm 1722z 06 Aug 70 seconds ago
KO7SS N4SO 21033.1 CW CQ 23 dB 28 wpm 1721z 06 Aug 2 minutes ago
W3UA N4SO 21033.1 CW CQ 13 dB 28 wpm 1721z 06 Aug 2 minutes ago
W3RGA N4SO 21033 CW CQ 23 dB 28 wpm 1721z 06 Aug 2 minutes ago
W3RGA N4SO 21035 CW CQ 20 dB 28 wpm 1721z 06 Aug 2 minutes ago
K1TTT N4SO 21035 CW CQ 6 dB 28 wpm 1720z 06 Aug 3 minutes ago"

"On CW, 21 MHZ CW frequencies will often appear dead from 21.000 to
21.060 MHZ.

For a quick propagation check, I will often use W1AW on their CW
broadcasts.

On 21 MHZ, I use the W1AW Schedule, for Code Practice or Code
Bulletins on 21.0675000 MHZ. The 3 PM (5 August) code practice, for
example, had no signals at all, and the Reverse Beacon Network did
not show a Spot for 5 August, and confirms no signals. On several
good days in the past there are signals just above the noise level
to about S1 or S2.

28 MHZ has a broadcast on 28.0675000 MHZ. In addition to propagation
checks, I use the signals from W1AW for a frequency calibration
check.

On Reverse Beacon Network, I will often do a W1AW 'Spot' check,
which shows dates and times past history, for W1AW and the
frequencies when they were spotted."

David Moore sent this link from Science Daily about our quiet sun
being much more active than it appears:

https://bit.ly/2C5jRee

Occasionally we ponder past geomagnetic storms which were so huge,
if they occurred today with our dependence on technology it seems as
if they could end life as we know it. In the past, they have even
appeared during periods of otherwise low sunspot activity. Here is
one to think about:

https://bit.ly/3ijXjWq

An astrophysicist's obituary:

https://bit.ly/3iaJh9E

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for July 30 through August 5, 2020 were 22, 23, 22,
22, 23, 12, and 13, with a mean of 19.6. 10.7 cm flux was 73.3,
72.3, 72, 72.7, 72.7, 73, and 73.4, with a mean of 72.8. Estimated
planetary A indices were 4, 4, 3, 9, 16, 8, and 5, with a mean of 7.
Middle latitude A index was 5, 5, 3, 9, 15, 9, and 6, with a mean of
7.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP033
ARLP033 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP33
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 33 ARLP033
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA August 14, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP033
ARLP033 Propagation de K7RA

New sunspot cycle 25 continues to make a strong showing. Sunspots
appeared on every day for over three weeks, beginning on July 21.

Average daily sunspot numbers for the week slipped a bit from 19.6
to 14.3 this week, but average daily solar flux increased from 72.8
to 73.8.

Geomagnetic indicators remain quiet. Both the average daily
planetary and mid-latitude A index were 3.7.

Predicted solar flux for the next month and a half is 72 on August
14 and 15, 70 on August 16 to 21, 72 on August 22 to 27, 73 on
August 28 and 29, 75 on August 30 to September 9, 73 on September 10
and 11, 72 on September 12 to 23, 73 on September 24 and 25, and 75
on September 26 and 27. This is a welcome change from recent
forecasts which saw predicted solar flux consistently below 70.

Predicted planetary A index forecasts continued quiet geomagnetic
conditions, at 5 on August 14 to 23, 8 on August 24 and 25, 5 on
August 26 to 28, then 8, 16 and 8 on August 29 to 31, 5 on September
1 to 19, 8 on September 20 and 21, 5 on September 22 to 24, then 8,
16 and 8 on September 25 to 27.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period August 14 til September
9, 2020 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: August 15 and 16, September 5 to 7
Quiet to unsettled on: August 14, 17 to 19, 22, (23,) 24 and 25, (26
to 29,)
September 2 to 4, 8 and 9
Quiet to active on: (August 20 and 21, 30 and 31, September 1)
Unsettled to active is not expected
Active to disturbed is not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: August (22 and 23,) 24 and 25,
September 1 and 2, (4 to 6)

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Jon Jones, N0JK (EM28 in Kansas) had this comment about the mention
of 6 meter sporadic-e in last week's bulletin. "Many of the reports
I have received for July (including long time 6M op N0LL) reported
great conditions on 50 MHz Es. On July 13 N0LL had his FT8 screen
full of stations from Japan calling him on 50.313 MHz. Today August
9 I had sporadic-E on 6 Meters to Florida, Texas, Mexico, and
Arizona from Kansas."

Jon is editor of the monthly "World Above 50 MHz" column in QST.

A recent video from WX6SWW, Tamitha Skov:
https://youtu.be/6giEZ8rcBhk

K9LA recently posted a survey of various solar cycle 25 predictions.
Read it at http://k9la.us/Aug20_Cycle_25_Predictions.pdf . He also
did a presentation at https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com/ on the same
subject. The material from that event will be up for a limited
time, so catch it before it is gone on September 9. And Carl's
Basic Concepts resource is always good for a review at http://k9la.us/html/basic_concepts.html .

Personally I like the prediction that promises a repeat of the epic
Cycle 19 of the late 1950s. I was a small child then, but my father
had a low-band FM 2-way radio mounted in his company car, probably
operating somewhere between 30-40 MHz judging from my hazy memory of
the length of the bumper mounted whip antenna.

We were in Reedley, California in the San Joaquin Valley, and he
sold agricultural chemicals to farmers. He would use the radio to
contact the office in Fresno, but at the peak of Cycle 19 local
communications were often interrupted by skip from Texas and various
states in the Midwest.

From correspondence I've received from readers, I know there were
many new teen aged hams at that time, and many just assumed that the
fantastic propagation of the day was normal. Many were disappointed
by Cycle 20, which was when I got my Novice ticket.

So I think we are due for another big cycle, although this is purely
emotional, and I try to avoid the Gambler's Fallacy. That is the
name of the logical fallacy in which when observing a random series
of events such as when spinning a roulette wheel, if we keep seeing
the ball land on red over and over, then we are due for black to
come up. But with independent random events, one result cannot
predict the next.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for August 6 through 12, 2020 were 14, 14, 11, 13,
12, 12, and 24, with a mean of 14.3. 10.7 cm flux was 73.1, 74,
74.7, 73.9, 74.2, 73.5, and 73.1, with a mean of 73.8. Estimated
planetary A indices were 5, 4, 5, 3, 3, 3, and 3, with a mean of
3.7. Middle latitude A index was 4, 5, 5, 3, 3, 3, and 3, with a
mean of 3.7.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP034
ARLP034 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP34
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 34 ARLP034
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA August 21, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP034
ARLP034 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots disappeared during four days over the past week, but then
came back. Average daily sunspot number declined from 14.3 to 5.4,
while average daily solar flux went from 73.8 to 71.

Geomagnetic indicators remain quiet. Average daily planetary A
index increased from 3.7 to 4.4.

Predicted solar flux is 70 on August 21 and 22, 69 on August 23 to
28, 72 on August 29, 73 on August 30 to September 5, 72 on September
6 to 9, 71 on September 10 and 11, 70 on September 12 to 19, 71 on
September 20 o 23, 72 on September 24 and 25, 73 on September 26 to
October 2, and 72 on October 3 and 4.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on August 21 and 22, 6 on August 23
to 25, 5 on August 26 to 28, 8, 16 and 8 on August 29 to 31, then 5
on September 1 to 14, 10 on September 15 and 16, 5 on September 17
to 24, then 8, 16 and 8 on September 25 to 27, and 5 on September 28
to October 4.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period August 21 to September
16, 2020 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: September 5 to 7
Quiet to unsettled on: August 22, (23,) 24 and 25, (26 to 28,)
September 2 to 4, 8 and 9
Quiet to active on: (August 21, 29 to 31, September 1, 16)
Unsettled to active: not expected
Active to disturbed: not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: August (21 to 23,) 24 and 25, 29,
September 1 and 2, (4 to 6,) 8, 15 and 16

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."
- Next Geomagnetic activity forecast will be issued on 3rd
September, so it must be time for OK1HH to take his annual vacation.

Thanks to Max White for this link to an article about a dent in
Earth's magnetic field and the South Atlantic Anomaly:

https://bit.ly/2Qbmw9R

The latest report from Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, the Space Weather
Woman:

https://youtu.be/GW4HOvejxFA

The CME she spoke of turned out not to be geo-effective, so we
missed a disturbance.

From reader David Moore, info on the NASA THEMIS Mission:

"A special type of aurora, draped east-west across the night sky
like a glowing pearl necklace, is helping scientists better
understand the science of auroras and their powerful drivers out in
space."

https://bit.ly/2QeRU78

George Hall, N2CG wrote:

"Reading The K7RA Solar Update 08/14/2020 issue of your personal
experience of solar Cycle 19 when you were a young boy with your dad
listening to the low band VHF FM 2-Way radio in your dad's company
car in California and suddenly hearing stations in Texas and other
Midwestern states brought back fond memories of a similar nature I
experienced in Solar Cycle 20.

I was a Radioman on active duty in the USCG stationed at Coast Guard
Radio Station NIK/NJN located on the U.S. Naval Air Station
Argentia, Newfoundland CANADA. One day the Crash Crew (a fire
department specifically devoted to incidents on the airport with
specially equipped fire trucks that could literally drive right up
on top of a fire on the ground and expel fire extinguishing foam
from the underside of the crash crew trucks to put out the fire).

The Crash Crew was a 24/7/365 operation and monitored the airport
control tower's VHF Low Band (I don't remember the frequency but it
was VHF Low Band between 30 to 49 MHz). One bright sunny early
afternoon in June 1968 all of a sudden over the radio came the loud
and clear call "ROLL THE GEAR" "ROLL THE GEAR" which is the highest
response precedence for the Crash Crew to man the crash crew trucks
and head for the airport crash site.

So, without hesitation the Argentia Newfoundland Crash Crew
immediately manned the crash crew trucks and headed for the airport
except they saw no evidence of a crash. There was no smoke or fire.
The senior on-scene crash crew member called the tower and asked if
this was a drill? The tower replied they also heard the "ROLL THE
GEAR" call but it was not them and for the crash crew to return to
station.

Later that day it was determined that the "ROLL THE GEAR" call was
actually from the U.S. Naval Air Station in Rota, Spain, over 2,500
miles away! Both Argentia and Rota used the same VHF Low Band
frequency.

Thanks for bringing back the fond memories of over 52 years ago."

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for August 13 through 19, 2020 were 11, 0, 0, 0, 0,
12, and 15, with a mean of 5.4. 10.7 cm flux was 72.3, 70.8, 70.6,
70.9, 70.8, 71.3, and 70.5, with a mean of 71. Estimated planetary
A indices were 4, 4, 3, 4, 3, 7, and 6, with a mean of 4.4. Middle
latitude A index was 5, 3, 3, 5, 3, 7, and 9, with a mean of 5.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP035
ARLP035 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP35
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 35 ARLP035
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA August 28, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP035
ARLP035 Propagation de K7RA

Our closest star seems to have quieted again. We have now
experienced seven consecutive days with no sunspots at all.

Average daily sunspot number dropped from 5.4 to 1.9 this week, and
average daily solar flux declined from 71 to 70.4. Geomagnetic
indicators increased marginally, with average daily planetary A
index going from 4.4 to 5.1, and average middle latitude A index
from 5 to 6.

Predicted solar flux is 70 on August 28 to September 3, 71 on
September 4, 72 on September 5 to 9, 71 on September 10 to 16, 70 on
September 17 to 27, 71 on September 28 to 30, 72 on October 1 to 6,
and 71 on October 7 to 11.

Predicted planetary A index is 8, 10, 12 and 8 on August 28 to 31, 5
on September 1 to 17, 8 on September 18 and 19, then 10, 15 and 10
on September 20 to 22, then 5, 10, 12 and 18 on September 23 to 26,
15 on September 27 and 28, 12 on September 29, and 5 on September 30
to October 11.

OK1HH is on his annual hiatus, so no geomagnetic prediction from him
this week. Instead, we present a much more limited forecast from
Tomas Bayer of the Budkov Observatory.

"Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period August 28 to September
03, 2020

Quiet: August 27, September 1 to 3
Unsettled: August 27 to 31, September 1 and 2
Active: Possibly on August 30 and 31
Minor storm: 0
xhMajor storm: 0
Severe storm: 0

Geomagnetic activity summary:
Friday, August 28, we expect at most quiet conditions. On the same
day, in the evening, more unsettled conditions are possible.

The most unsettled conditions are expected during the coming
weekend, August 29 and 30. The unsettled stage can also peak by any
isolated active event.

From Monday, August 31, we expect waning of the unsettled conditions
to the quiet to unsettled level. The first three days of September,
we expect quiet conditions to return."

Now, since sunspots are fading (I assure you this is temporary) we
have received another of the occasional reports from Cycle 19.

"I love reading your weekly prop report hoping to see the beginning
in the new cycle. So far, not much news, so I reminisce about that
fantastic cycle 19. Not many active hams have lived through the
cycle, but I did. I would love for everyone to experience another
cycle 19 in the next 10 years.

I received my novice license in 1954 at the age of 16. My station
was an S38 and a homemade 6V6 xmtr on 80 meters, crystal controlled.
Later I was given a 40 meter crystal and I enjoyed more distant
QSOs. One night I was called by a very strange call and I learned
that I was talking to CM7JA in Camaguey, Cuba. My first DX and I
was hooked. I built a mighty Heathkit AT1 and moved to 15 meters in
my quest for DX. Hawaii was my 1st DX on 15. Novices were allowed
on 80, 40, and 15 at that time, crystal controlled only.

I received my General class license in 1955, built a Heathkit VFO.
Now I was set for DX. In late 1954 the SSN was bouncing around 5,
good for 80 and 40. In late 1955 the SSN was bouncing around 70 and
20, 15, and 10 were alive with signals from everywhere. I was in
hog heaven! I upgraded to an NC-98 receiver and a Globe scout
transmitter and in late 1956 the SSN was about 160, I thought DX
could not be better than this.

But it did! I built a homemade 10 meter beam made from bamboo poles
wrapped in aluminum foil and could contact anyone I could hear. By
the end of 1957 the SSN was 200 with excursions to 250. All the
high bands (20, 15, and 10) were open all night long! Ten watts and
a wet string could work the world. It was fantastic! Most of my
operation was on CW with an occasional QSO on AM if I heard a new
one.

By 1958 school and girls competed with radio for my attention, but I
always found some time to operate. SSN was still up around 160.
Soon it was graduation, job, marriage, and kids but I always found
time to flip the new and improved rig on. I was also working on
getting those elusive QSL cards to improve my DXCC standing.

Now at 82 yo I am still working DX but mostly on FT8 and I am
looking forward to an exciting cycle 25. I hope y'all can
experience what I did."

Thanks, Bill for the report from the middle of the 20th century!
Nice to hear of a Yagi built from bamboo poles wrapped in aluminum
foil.

I hope we see more sunspots soon, and one thing we have to look
forward to currently is improved propagation due to seasonal
effects. We are just a few weeks away from the autumnal equinox.

A new video from WX6SWW, Dr. Tamitha Skov, the Space Weather Woman:

https://youtu.be/CnNpWD5UzVs

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for August 20 to 26, 2020 were 13, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
and 0, with a mean of 1.9. 10.7 cm flux was 69.9, 70.9, 70, 70.6,
70.3, 70.6, and 70.4, with a mean of 70.4. Estimated planetary A
indices were 3, 4, 8, 7, 3, 4, and 7, with a mean of 5.1. Middle
latitude A index was 4, 5, 13, 7, 3, 3, and 7, with a mean of 6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP036
ARLP036 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP36
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 36 ARLP036
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA September 4, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP036
ARLP036 Propagation de K7RA

I goofed last week and did not attribute that wonderful narrative
about solar cycle 19, which was written by Bill Hawkins, W5EC, who
is currently at the top of the DXCC Honor Roll.

As of Thursday night, no sunspots have appeared for the past 13
days. I know we are all hoping for more sunspots, which I am sure
will return soon. I have no special knowledge, but the trends for
this newly awakening solar cycle seem to favor it. One event to
look forward to this month is the autumnal equinox on Tuesday,
September 22, which should favor worldwide HF propagation.

Average daily solar flux declined this reporting week (August 27
through September 2) from 70.4 to 69.6.

Geomagnetic indicators showed quite a bit more activity than they
have in some time now. Average daily planetary A index rose from
5.1 to 13.1. The most active day was August 31, when the planetary
A index reached 26. The cause was a vigorous solar wind spewing
from holes in the solar corona.

Predicted solar flux is 70, forecast for every one of the next 45
days. Predicted planetary A index is 5 on September 4 to 17, 8 on
September 18 and 19, 5 on September 20 to 22, then 8, 10 and 14 on
September 23 to 25, 10 on September 26 and 27, then 12 and 10 on
September 28 and 29, then 5 on September 30 through October 18.

This article says the solar minimum most likely occurred last
December:

http://www.sidc.be/silso/node/166

F. K. Janda, OK1HH has returned from vacation with his geomagnetic
activity forecast for the period September 4 to 29, 2020.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: September 5 to 8, 10 to 13, 16 and 17, 20 and 21
Quiet to unsettled on: September 4, 9, 14, 29
Quiet to active on: September 15, 18 and 19, 22 to 24, 26
Unsettled to active: September 25, 27 and 28
Active to disturbed: Not expected

Solar wind will intensify on: September (4, 15, 19,) 22 and 23

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

OK1HH wrote to us about his river cruise:

"As a captain, I sailed on the M / Y 'Daisy' (LOA 8 meters, 0.4
tons) on the Czech rivers Elbe and Vltava on the route Melnik -
Zernoseky Lake, Usti, Melnik, Luzec, Melnik, a total of 217.4 km.
And it was a beautiful week!"

https://pujcovna-plavidel.cz/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMAG1260-1-min.jpg

Thanks to K9LA for this link to a fascinating and informative RSGB
lecture about sporadic-e propagation:

https://youtu.be/wn5as91ndG4

An article about Europe's most powerful solar telescope:

https://bit.ly/2ETMA75

Tamitha Skov has a new video:

https://youtu.be/bTkkmrhxMfU

I love Dr. Skov's enthusiasm: "Whamo!" And also of course her
expertise, which she shares so generously.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for August 27 through September 2, 2020 were 0, 0,
0, 0, 0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 70, 70.1,
70.2, 70, 69.2, 69.5, and 68.3, with a mean of 69.6. Estimated
planetary A indices were 8, 10, 14, 9, 26, 16, and 9, with a mean of
13.1. Middle latitude A index was 7, 8, 14, 8, 19, 16, and 8, with
a mean of 11.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP037
ARLP037 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP37
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 37 ARLP037
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA September 11, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP037
ARLP037 Propagation de K7RA

An extended lull in solar activity persists. The smoothed sunspot
minimum occurred last December, but the flurry of moderate sunspot
activity in August has not continued.

An event to look forward to is the Autumnal Equinox, which occurs at
1330 UTC on Tuesday, September 22. We should see a seasonal
improvement in HF propagation around that date because the northern
and southern hemispheres are bathed in roughly equal solar
radiation, enhancing north-south propagation.

Thursday, September 10 was the twentieth consecutive day with no
sunspots, but Spaceweather.com reported a small sunspot with a Solar
Cycle 25 magnetic signature may be forming in the Sun's southeastern
quadrant. As of Thursday night it was still too small to merit
numbering.

Average daily solar flux barely budged from 69.6 to 69.7.
Geomagnetic indicators were very quiet, with average daily planetary
A index declining from 13.1 to 4.4.

Like last week's forecast, predicted solar flux is 70 on every day
over the next 45 days, from September 11 until October 25.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on September 11-17, 8 on September
18-19, 5 on September 20-22, then 8, 10 and 15 on September 23-25,
then 10, 25, 15 and 10 on September 26-29, 5 on September 30 and 8
on October 1, 5 on October 2-14, 8 on October 15-16, 5 on October
17-19, then 8, 10, 15, 10. 25 and 15 on October 20-25.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period September 11 to October
6, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: September 11-13, 16-17, 20-21
quiet to unsettled on: September 14, 22-25, 29, October 1-2
quiet to active on: September 15, 18-19, 26-27, (October 5-6)
unsettled to active: (September 28-30, October 3-4)
active to disturbed: not expected

"Solar wind will intensify on: September (15, 19,) 22-23, (October
3-4).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Frank Donovan, W3LPL shared this on September 6:

"Exactly three years ago, on September 6th 2017, the Sun ejected the
strongest solar flare and Earth-directed coronal mass ejection (CME)
of Solar Cycle 24. Solar region 2673 produced four X-class solar
flares including a massive X-class solar flare of magnitude 9.3 from
1153 to 1210Z September 6, 2017.

"Just over eight minutes later, powerful hard x-rays from the flare
increased D-layer ionization by several orders of magnitude,
completely blacking out HF skywave propagation on the daylight side
of the Earth for about an hour, an event called a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID).

"Solar flares are commonly followed by CMEs. Solar region 2673
ejected powerful Earth-directed CMEs on September 6th 2017, causing
visible aurora on September 7th and 8th and a severe geomagnetic
storm the planetary Kp index reached magnitude 8 on September 8th.

"https://youtu.be/gWTzNe436iw

"The strongest solar flare measured in modern times was an X28 flare
on 28 October 2003 which blacked out HF skywave propagation on the
sunlit side of the Earth for several hours. Extremely powerful CMEs
on 28 and 29 October caused severe geomagnetic storms on 29, 30 and
31 October and the Kp index reached magnitude 9 during all three
days."

Here is a 3-hour video from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, entitled,
"Coronal Holes and Sources of the Solar Wind - Part 2."

https://youtu.be/0FG7CxZYbpI

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for September 3 through 9, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 70, 69.7, 69.2, 69.5,
70.2, 69.9, and 69.7, with a mean of 69.7. Estimated planetary A
indices were 4, 8, 6, 4, 4, 4, and 1, with a mean of 4.4. Middle
latitude A index was 3, 9, 7, 5, 5, 4, and 1 with a mean of 4.9.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP038
ARLP038 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP38
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 38 ARLP038
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA September 18, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP038
ARLP038 Propagation de K7RA

Lots of news lately about the solar cycle, but no sunspots. Today,
September 18 is the 29th consecutive day with zero sunspots.

News was about the cycle minimum being announced recently as
occurring during December 2019, which indicates the beginning of
Solar Cycle 25. The reason for the delay in the announcement is the
nature of moving averages, which in this case is a smoothed sunspot
number, derived from arithmetic averaging of sunspot numbers over a
whole year. That is, half the numbers before December and half after
to derive a mid-point average.

Here is the announcement:

https://bit.ly/35FQKKZ

Recent news stories give predictions for the next solar cycle, such
as this one from SpaceRef:

https://bit.ly/3iFe9zU

The recent reporting week (September 10-16) gave us an average daily
solar flux of 69.2, no significant difference from the previous
week, which was 69.7. Average daily planetary A index was 5.3, up
only a little from 4.4 the previous week. Average daily mid-latitude
A index went from 4.9 to 5.4.

Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days (September 18 til November
1) is the same as reported in past recent bulletins, 70 on every
day.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on September 18-22, then 8, 10, 15,
10, 25, 15 and 10 on September 23-29, 5 on September 30 til October
14, then 8 on October 15-16, 5 on October 17-19, then as in the
earlier period, 8, 10, 15, 10, 25, 15 and 10 on October 20-26, then
back to 5 on October 27 til November 1.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period September 18 to October
13, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
quiet on: September 21-22, October 6-8
quiet to unsettled on: September 18, October 3-5, 9-10, 13
quiet to active on: September 19-20, 23-24, 29-30, October 1-2
unsettled to active: (September 25-28, October 11-12)
active to disturbed: not expected

"Solar wind will intensify on: September (19,) 22-23, 27-29, October
(3-4,) 11-13.

"- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains lower because there are few
unambiguous indications."

Steven Rudnick, W1KYB of Santa Fe, New Mexico asked, "How did they
come to the conclusion that we are in a new cycle when the sunspot
number has been 0 for 27 days now?"

They probably looked at a couple of factors. One is the polarity of
sunspots. As the Sun transitions from one cycle to the next, the
polarity of sunspots changes. It starts with a few sunspots having
opposite polarity from sunspots in the recent cycle, then gradually
it shifts so eventually the majority have the new cycle polarity.

The other factor is the smoothed sunspot number, which is an average
based on an entire year of sunspot numbers. This reduces the noise
in the numbers, so it is easier to see the trends.

The smoothed sunspot number for December 2019 would be based on the
monthly sunspot numbers for approximately July 2019 through July
2020.

Data is here:

http://www.sidc.be/silso/datafiles

If you look at the monthly averages, they jump all over the place.

The monthly averages for September 2019 through March 2020 were 1.1,
0.40, 0.50, 1.5, 6.2, 0.20 and 1.5.

But the smoothed numbers for those same months were 3.1, 2.6, 2,
1.8, 2.2, 2.8, and currently undetermined for March, placing the
lowest number in December.

The current dearth of sunspots over the past month may just look
like noise in retrospect some time in the future. Or maybe not,
should it continue. I hope it does not persist.

From the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, predicted solar flux
and sunspot numbers through December 2040:

https://bit.ly/2ZPW4aK

NASA on Solar Cycle 25:

https://go.nasa.gov/2RDSlc0

The latest from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/dYibU6gy3yw

Love her enthusiasm!

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for September 10 through 16, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 69.3, 68.7, 69.3,
69.8, 68.9, 68.8, and 69.5, with a mean of 69.2. Estimated planetary
A indices were 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 7, and 3, with a mean of 5.3. Middle
latitude A index was 2, 2, 6, 7, 10, 8, and 3 with a mean of 5.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP039
ARLP039 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP39
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 39 ARLP039
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA September 25, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP039
ARLP039 Propagation de K7RA

Until September 23, we saw 32 consecutive days with no sunspots.
Then we saw new sunspot group AR2773 which has a magnetic signature
indicating it is part of new Solar Cycle 25.

Spaceweather.com noted it was a weak one, and may not
persist for long. The daily sunspot number for September 23 was 13,
indicating three sunspots visible in that group. But the next day
that sunspot was gone.

Average daily solar flux rose from 69.2 to 71.1 this week (September
17-23). Geomagnetic indicators were about the same, with average
daily planetary A index declining from 5.3 to 5.1.

Predicted solar flux for the following 45 days on Wednesday,
September 23 was 73 on September 24 through October 1, and 70 on
October 2 through November 2.

The next day that forecast was revised to a predicted solar flux of
70 on every day until November 8. But on Thursday, September 24 the
solar flux was 73.6, closely matching the previous day's forecast.

Predicted planetary A index is 15, 12, 25 and 15 on September 25-28,
8 on September 29-30, 5 on October 1-10, 10 on October 11, 5 on
October 12-19, then 10, 12, 16, 28, 18 and 10 on October 20-25, then
5 on October 26 through November 6, 10 on November 7 and back to 5
on November 8.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period September 25 to October
20, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: October 6-7
quiet to unsettled on: October 5, 8-9, 13-16, 18
quiet to active on: September 30, October 1-2, (3-4, 10, 12, 17,) 19
unsettled to active: September 25-26, 28-29, (October 11, 20)
active to disturbed: (September 27)

"Solar wind will intensify on: September (27-28,) 29-30, October 1,
13-14, (15, 21,) 22.

"- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Note the OK1HH forecast sees active to disturbed conditions on
September 27, which matches our (actually NOAA and USAF) A index
prediction of 25 on that date. Note this disturbance returns about
30 days later with A index of 28 on October 23.

A great article on tracking sunspot cycles can be found at: https://bit.ly/33Pifza .

Ken, N4SO on the Alabama Gulf Coast reports that he hears three 15
meter beacons daily on 21.150 MHz, LU4AA in Argentina, OA4B in Peru,
and YV5B in Venezuela. These are part of the NCDXF beacon network,
and he rarely hears the 1 watt transmission. At the other power
levels they are S3-S4.

See https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/beaconlocations.html .

Several days ago, a new weekly Space Weather video from Dr. Tamitha
Skov, WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/sitciVFVsfM

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page at, 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for September 17 through 23, 2020 were 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, 0, and 13, with a mean of 1.9. 10.7 cm flux was 69.7, 69.9, 70.6,
70.2, 71.3, 72.4, and 73.3, with a mean of 71.1. Estimated planetary
A indices were 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 6, and 11, with a mean of 5.1. Middle
latitude A index was 5, 4, 4, 4, 3, 5, and 10, with a mean of 5.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP040
ARLP040 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP40
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 40 ARLP040
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA October 2, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP040
ARLP040 Propagation de K7RA

Solar wind disturbed HF conditions this past week, September 24-30.

Average daily planetary A index rose from 5.1 to 22, while average
middle latitude A index went from 5 to 15.6. Average daily sunspot
number declined from 1.9 to 1.6; a weak sunspot only appeared on two
dates, September 23 and 25, with sunspot numbers of 13 and 11,
respectively.

Average daily solar flux was on the increase, edging up from 71.1 to
73.4.

Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days is 73 on October 2-4, 70
on October 5-18, 72 on October 19-31, 70 on November 1-14 and 72 on
November 15.

Predicted planetary A index is 12 and 8 on October 2-3, 5 on October
4-10, 10 on October 11, 5 on October 12-19, then 10, 18 and 20 on
October 20-22, then 24, 16, 38 and 38 on October 23-26, then 26, 15
and 10 on October 27-29, 5 on October 30 thru November 6, 10 on
November 7, and 5 on November 8-15.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period October 1-27, 2020 from
OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
quiet on: October 6-7
quiet to unsettled on: October 5, 13-16
quiet to active on: October 1-2, (3-4, 8- 9, 12, 17,) 18-19
unsettled to active: October 10-11, 20, 22, (24,) 27
active to disturbed: October 21, 23, (25-26)

"Solar wind will intensify on: October 1-3, 13-14, (15, 20-25,)
26-27.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Here is an article about the European Space Agency Solar Orbiter:

https://bit.ly/2GxUX8P

Southgate Amateur Radio has a 10 meter report:

https://bit.ly/34gkTOK

W6MVT in Southern California was pleasantly surprised after erecting
a new vertical. His first catch was E51JD from the South Cook
Islands on 28 September at 0022 UTC. This was his first SSB DX on 15
meters in many years, though the opening vanished as quickly as it
came.

Jeff, N8II reported last Saturday, September 26:

"Solar storm today, early about 1400-1500Z skip was shorter than
normal (NJ and NC on 40) and W9-land on 20 along with a few ME/NB
stations (Maine QSO Party this weekend), but after a good run of 5s,
6s, 7s, and 0s on 20 SSB this afternoon the condx are very poor as
of 2015Z. The storm is in full force."

Ken, N4SO shared this from the Alabama Gulf Coast:

"A wealth of information is available from the following:

"http://www.reversebeacon.net/beacons/beacons_ncdxf.php

"Also, one more Beacon on 21.150 MHZ is heard to add to LU4AA, OA4B,
YV5B.

"W6WX is often heard at this location near 2300-0000 UTC. His
signals are strong enough to hear at 100 watts and 10 watts."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for September 24 through 30, 2020 were 0, 11, 0, 0,
0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 1.6. 10.7 cm flux was 73.6, 73.4, 72.6,
74.1, 73.9, 72.8, and 73.3, with a mean of 73.4. Estimated planetary
A indices were 19, 20, 27, 24, 33, 16, and 15, with a mean of 22.
Middle latitude A index was 11, 17, 18, 16, 21, 14, and 12, with a
mean of 15.6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP042
ARLP042 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP42
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 42 ARLP042
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA October 16, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP042
ARLP042 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots returned for a few days, on October 9-12, with sunspot
numbers of 24, 26, 15 and 15, respectively. No sunspot appeared on
the next day, but late on Wednesday Spaceweather.com reported a new
emerging Solar Cycle 25 spot on our Sun's southeastern limb, and a
daily sunspot number of 12. NOAA Space Environment Center did not
report this, instead reporting the sunspot number at 0.

But the next day the record was corrected and NOAA reported sunspot
numbers of 12 and 14 on October 14-15.

Average daily sunspot number increased from 0 to 13.1, while average
daily solar flux went from 71.8 to 73.1.

Geomagnetic indicators were lower, with planetary A index dropping
from 7.1 to 2.7 and middle latitude A index from 6 to 1.9.

Prior to October 9 there were no sunspots for two weeks, and at that
time a sunspot number of 13 on September 23 and 11 on September 25.

Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days is 74 on October 16-17, 72
on October 18-31, 70 on November 1-7, 73 on November 8-10, then 72,
71 and 71 on November 11-13, 70 on November 14-23, 72 on November
24-27 and 73 on November 28-29.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on October 16-19, then 10 on
October 20, 8 on October 21-23, then 16, 38 and 38 on October 24-26,
then 26, 15 and 10 on October 27-29, 5 on October 30 through
November 6, 10 on November 7, 5 on November 8-15, then 10, 15 and 18
on November 16-18, 20 on November 19-20, then 24, 14 and 10 on
November 21-23, 8 on November 24-25, and 5 on November 26-29.

From OK1HH, this report:

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: October 16, November 5-7, 10-13
quiet to unsettled on: October 17, 31, November 3, 14-16
quiet to active on: October (18,) 19-20, 28-29, (30,) November (1, 4)
unsettled to active: October 22, (24,) 27, November 2, 8 (-9)
active to disturbed: October (21, 23,) 25-26

"Solar wind will intensify on: October (20-21,) 22, (23-25,) 26-29,
(30,) 31, November (2-3,) 4-5, (9-11).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Do you think the recent (or current) solar minimum is lasting a
little too long? Check this contrarian view:

https://bit.ly/3nWoGK0

Note the link Victor20-Sep23-SSN_Forecasts.tab toward the bottom of
the page. It shows sunspot records and predictions from 1730 til
2101!

Don't ask me to explain the numbers or how they were derived.

Also, perhaps someone can help this programmer on Stack Overflow
with his Python program for performing linear regression with a
sunspot database:

https://bit.ly/3lVNgIX

On Thursday I was listening to the local Puget Sound Repeater Group
machine on 146.96 MHz, and heard a couple of stations talking about
gray line long path propagation on 40 meters.

Dean Holtan, N7XS of Camano Island, Washington wrote, after I
inquired:

"On Wednesday October 14 at 1530 UTC I heard K6MYC and company
working ZS6 stations. I also heard a station in the Netherlands,
PA1A I believe. He was very loud along with the ZS6 stations, S9
plus on the long path.

"I was listening on my SDRplay RSPduo and a 160 meter loop at 100
feet. If I had gotten out of bed and went down to the shack I could
have worked them. Thursday October 15, 20 meters was nicely open
into Europe. KW7Y was working many G stations and EA short path at
1630 UTC. The above was all on phone.

"Last week on October 10 starting at 0130 UTC when I was on
vacation, on 20 meters at our sunset I worked UN7JX and VU2MB along
with many others in Asiatic Russia. I was called by a station in
Lebanon but that was unsuccessful all on FT8 running 500 watts and
my 160 meter loop at 100 feet from Camano Island Washington."

Also in the conversation (linking via internet from Kitchener,
Ontario) was Doug Behl, VE3XDB. Later, Doug wrote:

"Many amateurs today complain about propagation. Conditions haven't
been great for several years, although there is some glimmer of hope
that things may be getting better. Those experiencing the most
frustration seem to be the sideband operators. I have had some
success over the past few years, using a couple of principles:

"1. Use a mode that does better in poor conditions. These days,
everyone jumps to 'FT8,' which is a fantastic, low power mode that
does very well in poor conditions. However, I prefer a mode that is
more 'chatty,' creating a more traditional QSO experience. CW and
PSK31 are both very good modes for effective contact when conditions
are poor, and may provide an opportunity to get to know the contact
a bit better.

"2. Work the gray line. Grayline propagation occurs at daybreak or
at dusk. It is very interesting because it occurs at a very
particular time of day, opens up very quickly, and then, when time
is up, it just disappears! Here is an short, interesting article on
the science and experience of gray line propagation:

"https://www.qsl.net/w2vtm/grayline.html ."

"Following the above two principles, I have worked western and
eastern Europe, the Caribbean and South America, as well as Oceania
and Southeast Asia over the past few months, My modest station is
made up of a a short, inverted-L antenna and an old Kenwood
transceiver, usually running about 20 watts, and never more than 40
watts. Best results have been achieved on 20, 30 and 40 meters.

"To work the world when conditions are poor, I encourage others to
try CW and PSK31, especially at dawn or at dusk. You may be
surprised by the results achieved using a modest station. We need
more operators in both of these modes!"

Ken Brown, N4SO wrote:

"Evidence pointed to a very good propagation path to Asiatic Russia,
Japan, and to China on Saturday evening.

"From October 10, 2330Z UA0, and first BV, 21.074 MHZ FT8 mode.

"I first noticed UA0CA calling CQ from Asiatic Russia. This is a
rarity to see a UA0 on the screen and so far I have never completed
a contact. I have also never completed a contact with China until
Saturday evening.

"Calling UA0CA from my station was noticed by BV1EK, China, and he
called me, and was able to complete a contact. At this same time
period, completed contacts with JA1FGX, JQ1CIV, and JG1SRB.

"A contact with UA0CA or with UA0ZK was not made, but I can
appreciate the distance is roughly 5000 miles away. I will try again
on Sunday.

"(Distance to UA0ZK, for example, is 5391 miles.)"

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for October 8 through 14, 2020 were 0, 24, 26, 15,
15, 0, and 12, with a mean of 13.1. 10.7 cm flux was 71.6, 73.1,
73.6, 72.9, 73.8, 72.3, and 74.5, with a mean of 73.1. Estimated
planetary A indices were 3, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, and 2, with a mean of
2.7. Middle latitude A index was 2, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, and 0, with a
mean of 1.9.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP043
ARLP043 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP43
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 43 ARLP043
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA October 23, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP043
ARLP043 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots appeared every day of the past reporting week, and compared
to the previous seven days, average daily sunspot number increased
from 13.1 to 15. Average daily solar flux rose from 73.1 to 74.5.
Geomagnetic indicators were up slightly, with average daily
planetary A index rising from 2.7 to 5, and middle latitude A index
from 1.9 to 4.1.

Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days is 75 on October 23-27, 72
on October 28, 70 on November 1-7, 73 on November 8-10, 72 on
November 11, 71 on November 12-13, 70 on November 14-23, 72 on
November 24-27, and 73 on November 28 through December 6.

Predicted planetary A index is 18 and 20 on October 23, 15 on
October 24-26, 12 on October 27, 10 on October 28, 8 on October 29,
and 5 on October 30 through November 6, 10 on November 7, 5 on
November 8-15, then 10, 15 and 18 on November 16-18, 20 on November
19-20, then 24, 14 and 10 on November 21-23, 8 on November 24-25,
and 5 on November 26 through December 6.

F.K. Janda, OK1HH sent us his geomagnetic activity forecast for the
period October 23 to November 18, 2020.

"Geomagnetic field will be
quiet on: November 5-7, 10-13
quiet to unsettled on: October 31, November 3, 14-15
quiet to active on: October 28-29, (30,) November (1, 4,) 16
unsettled to active: October (24,) 27, November 2, (8-9,) 17-18
active to disturbed: October (23, 25-26)

"Solar wind will intensify on: October (23-25,) 26-29, (30,) 31,
November (2-3,) 4-5, (12-14,) 15-18.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

This report from Jeff, N8II in West Virginia:

"It took a while (first 10 days of October were pretty dismal), but
recently there has been an opening to Europe daily here on 15M and
perhaps conditions on 15 are better than the same time last year.
Conversely, very little has been heard on 12 or 10M CW or phone.
Last year featured some loud SA signals on 10M in the late
afternoon. I was busy today, October 22nd, no activity.

"It was October 10th when I started seeing 15M EU QSOs in my log.
MI0SAI in Northern Ireland was 59 at 1525Z on SSB and SJ6A in Sweden
was about S5-7 at 1542Z. Sunday the 11th I had some time to operate
and worked Germany, England, Italy, Netherlands, and Croatia all
with S7 or better signals on SSB between 1417-1527Z.

"One thing seems apparent, the MUF is so close to 21 MHz that each
opening is somewhat different in coverage and peak time of
propagation. Some other highlights: EU1KY in Belarus on SSB at
1306Z, OZ8KW in Denmark at 1411Z, SP9LCW in Poland at 1414Z, SM5YOC
Sweden at 1416Z and SM3LBP at 1528Z, OD5OZ Lebanon at 1608Z (quite
late for him) on the 12th. On the 13th I worked LY2TS in Lithuania
on CW at 1516Z and I had a CW pile up of mostly western EU until
1552Z with best DX being southern Russia, R6MI at 1544Z and UR7QC at
1547Z. Signals seem to completely or nearly fade by 1630Z and
decrease right after 1600Z. On the 16th 9K2HS Kuwait was my first
QSO on CW at 1532Z and he was S5-6, but heard me on first call. On
the 18th I logged 7Z1IS Saudi Arabia 5x7 at 1407Z. On the 19th,
there was a very strong opening to the UK from 1515-1548Z, but not
much happening earlier. On the 20th OH5LF Finland was 59+ when we
signed on SSB 1407Z; his antenna was 5 over 5 element yagis and he
was running 1.5 KW remote from his summer cottage.

"There were strong EU SSB signals on the 20th from 1330-1510Z after
starting with 9K2HS S5 on SSB. I worked 3 OD5 stations in Lebanon in
a row on SSB at 1500Z. The condition dropped rapidly after 1510Z,
very early for the band to close. Other stations worked during the
EU opening timeframe were ZS6TVB in South Africa and ZD7FT on St.
Helena Island with strong signals."

Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW of Easton, Pennsylvania (FN20jq) sent this:

"Yikes, October out-of-season single-hop sporadic-E (Es) is active
on the 6 meter band along the east coast!

"Saturday, October 17th from 5 to 7 PM eastern local time, 2100 to
2300 UTC.

"This day is twenty-five days past the Autumnal Equinox, if anyone
is keeping track.

"Once again, the unexpected happens during the early recovery out of
a Solar Minimum.

"I was monitoring the 6M FT-8 mode on 50.313 MHz with WSJT-X for Es
to show-up along the Gulf of Mexico coastal region.

"Then it happened, the first direct decodes in monitor receiving
mode:

"215700 3 -0.4 1527 ~ WA2FZW W4KBX EL98
220345 -2 -0.4 2178 ~ KK2DOG W4KBX EL98
220545 -1 -0.4 2177 ~ KC3PIB W4KBX EL98
220845 -9 -0.5 1566 ~ CQ K2IL EL97

"Grid Squares:
EL98 - central Florida, around Orlando
EL97 - south central, north of Lake Okeechobee

"Now that the band is open with the Es expanding further south, I
decided to try for any contacts down on the SSB calling frequency on
50.125 MHz.

"When I rolled down there, several operators were already having
conversations about how pleasant that the band came back to life
since the summer months.

"At 2252 UTC I put out the first CQ call, AG4N, Bill from West
Point, Georgia, which is like 300+ yards from the Alabama state line
replied.

"From my QTH to AG4GN - azimuth 230 degree, distance 771 air miles.

"I gave Bill a signal report of Readability (4), Signal (7) with
QSB.

"The Es was being funneled as far away as Mobile, Alabama (996
miles) and Biloxi, Mississippi (1,045 miles).

"By 2335 UTC the band started to collapse with signal reports
sliding down to 2x2.

"No double-hop Es from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic or other
northern Caribbean Sea islands was heard.

"Even if the band sounds dead, I urge everyone to continue
monitoring the 6M SSB calling frequency, 50.125 MHz, then take it
one step further and make that CQ call. You might be pleasantly
rewarded even if you are running 10 watts into a 6M horizontal 1/2
wave dipole that is below eight feet off the ground."

A recent video from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW can be found online at, https://bit.ly/34mi67T .

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

For customizable propagation charts, vist the VOACAP Online for Ham
Radio website at, http://www.voacap.com/hf .

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for October 15 through 21, 2020 were 14, 14, 15, 28,
12, 11, and 11, with a mean of 15. 10.7 cm flux was 73.8, 75.3,
73.1, 75.9, 74.8, 74.7, and 73.7, with a mean of 74.5. Estimated
planetary A indices were 3, 4, 5, 3, 6, 4, and 10, with a mean of 5.
Middle latitude A index was 2, 4, 5, 3, 5, 3, and 7, with a mean of
4.1.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP044
ARLP044 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP44
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 44 ARLP044
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA October 30, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP044
ARLP044 Propagation de K7RA

Our sun is finally waking up. Average daily sunspot number rose
this week from 15 to 17, which is nothing remarkable, but the
reporting week ended on Wednesday with a daily sunspot number of 36.
Average daily solar flux rose from 74.5 to 76.9.

The two sunspot regions currently visible, 2778 and 2779, have been
growing rapidly. The total sunspot area in millionths of the solar
disc on October 27 to 29 were 140, 230 and 440. Such activity has
not been seen since spring 2019, when the total sunspot area was
280, 300 and 410 on May 5 to 7, 2019. Still further back, the last
time the sunspot area was higher than the 440 we saw on Thursday was
late September and early October, 2017, when sunspot area reached
560.

You can find these old records here:

ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/old_indices/

Predicted solar flux is 88 on October 30 and 31, which is
remarkable, then 82, 78, 75 and 72 on November 1 to 4, 74 on
November 5 to 7, 75 on November 8 to 12, 72 on November 13, 70 on
November 14 to 21, 74 and 72 on November 22 and 23, 70 on November
24 to 26, 72 on November 27, 74 on November 28 through December 4,
75 on December 5 to 9, 72 on December 10, and 70 on December 11 to
13.

Predicted planetary A index is 8, 5, 12 and 8 on October 30 through
November 2, 5 on November 3 to 6, 10 on November 7, 5 on November 8
to 16, then 10, 8 and 12 on November 17 to 19, 18, 15 and 20 on
November 20 to 22, then 15, 10 and 8 on November 23 to 25, 5 on
November 26 to 27, 8 on November 28, and 5 on November 29 through
December 13.

F. K. Janda, OK1HH sends his geomagnetic activity forecast for the
period October 30 til November 25, 2020.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: November 5 to 7, 10 and 11
Quiet to unsettled on: October 31, November 12 to 15
Quiet to active on: October (30,) November (3 and 4, 8 and 9,) 16,
23 to 25
Unsettled to active: November (1 and 2, 17 to 19,) 21 and 22
Active to disturbed: November 20

Solar wind will intensify on: October (30 and 31,) November (2,) 3
to 5, (18 to 20,) 21 to 25

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Note that OK1HH predicts disturbed conditions on the day prior to
the ARRL Phone Sweepstakes Contest. But over that weekend, Friday
through Sunday, the NOAA/USAF prediction sees planetary A index at
18, 15 and 20.

I frequently check https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html for
connections from CN87, my local grid square. With the increasing
solar activity over the past couple of days I've seen worldwide 12
meter propagation via FT8 reported.

I also check the STEREO site at https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ to
peek across the solar horizon to look for upcoming activity. Right
now on Thursday night I see some big white blotches, in both the
southern and northern hemispheres indicating possible activity.

This report from Jeff, N8II in West Virginia on October 29:

"Today was a great day on 10 through 15 meters with the SFI reported
as high as 88! I was slow to get started, but worked about 20
Europeans on 10 meters with some signals around S9! At one point 4
out of 5 CW QSOs in a row were new band slots on 10M CW in my 4 year
old log: Hungary, Ireland, Slovak Republic, and Montenegro, also
adding Serbia. Some signals from England, Wales, and Italy were
still good copy past 1600Z. Most 12M activity was FT8, but I did
work loud stations from France and Bulgaria.

In the CQWW Phone contest, I worked mainly 15M, but was peeking at
10M long enough to work 4 Italians quite early around 1325Z at the
same time there was sporadic E to Newfoundland Saturday. I worked 3
French stations, plus OE2S in Austria, DL5L in Germany and the
loudest PI4DX in the Netherlands about S8 in the 1500Z hour Sunday.

I expected to hear no signals on 15M at the 0000Z start as it was
nearly 2 hours past sunset. I was surprised to make 26 QSOs before
the band died past 0100Z. At the start there was sporadic E to
Florida and Cuba, and stations from southern SA were workable. Into
the Pacific, I worked 3 Hawaiians, New Zealand, and Queensland,
Australia.

All weekend the K index was either 3 or 4 and especially Saturday it
hurt propagation to Europe despite an early opening to southern EU.
The most northern QSOs were Scotland and Poland. But, there were
plenty of stations from Central and Western EU to work and late in
the opening I caught a big gun in the Ukraine. The 250 kHz phone
band filled up by 1300Z. I could tell prop to Germany was limited
and UK stations were not as loud as a normal recent day. In fact,
Friday before the WW was one of the best EU openings of the season
so far.

In the afternoon many stations in SA were active, particularly from
Brazil and Argentina, but signals mid afternoon were weaker than
expected. African signals from the Madeira and Canary Islands were
loud until about 1900Z. I also worked 7Q6M in Malawi and ZS6TVB in
South Africa. Over both days, conditions were often good to the
Middle East: I logged Israel, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates,
and Saudi Arabia, missing Lebanon which I had worked multiple times
the week prior. The last stations worked were around 2340Z in
Mexico.

Sunday, conditions were better to EU and SA. I started filling in
the Northern EU map working Belarus, UB7K in southern Russia,
Lithuania, OH0V in Aland Is., Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, missing 2
weak stations from Estonia. After the band closed fairly late to
EU, there was an auroral sporadic E opening to Finland around 2000Z
working OH1F and OG6N about 3 KHz apart.

Band crowding was severe during the EU opening making it hard to
hear weaker signals. I noticed USA big guns working EU stations I
could not hear or barely heard the last 90 minutes of the opening.
ZD7BG on St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic was very difficult
to work due to the pile up, but finally logged around 1915Z. I kept
looking for Alaska, Japan, or north/east Pacific stations to no
avail due to the disturbed conditions both days. SA stations were
workable an hour past sunset, but no new Pacific countries were
heard."

Jon Jones, N0JK of Lawrence, Kansas wrote:

"Last week's bulletin mentioned sporadic-E reported by Mike, KA3JAW
on 6 Meters October 17.

More sporadic-E appeared on 6 Meters the following week, and some
interesting links and propagation occurred.

On October 22, there was a major sporadic-E opening on 50 MHz across
the eastern half of North America. The sporadic-E was able to link
to late afternoon TEP (trans-equatorial-propagation) on to Brazil.
Stations in New England and along the eastern seaboard were able to
work deep into Brazil. This with a solar flux of only 75.

October 24 sporadic-E took place from the Heartland to the southeast
states in the evening on 50 MHz. KF0M (EM17), N0LL (EM09) and N0JK
(EM28) made 6 Meter FT8 contacts to Georgia, Florida, and South
Carolina around 0030z (October 25 UTC). Earlier I had sporadic-E on
10 Meters to Mexico, working XE1KK and XE1RK on 28.074 MHz FT8.

The following morning a very unusual opening took place on 6 Meters
around 1440z. Trans-Atlantic multi-hop sporadic Es occurred from
New England to central Europe. This is the first trans-Atlantic
October sporadic-E opening I am aware of. Es are rare in October,
and a multi-hop trans-Atlantic opening of this magnitude is
incredible."

Max White, M0VNG sent this from the UK concerning our sun's
reawakening:

https://bit.ly/2TCTWQc

The latest from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://bit.ly/34DkQO8

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for October 22 through 28, 2020 were 11, 11, 11, 11,
17, 22, and 36, with a mean of 17. 10.7 cm flux was 74.9, 72, 72.1,
74.2, 75, 82.4, and 87.6, with a mean of 76.9. Estimated planetary
A indices were 6, 12, 17, 15, 15, 9, and 12, with a mean of 12.3.
Middle latitude A index was 3, 10, 16, 9, 15, 7, and 9, with a mean
of 9.9.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP045
ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP45
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 45 ARLP045
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA November 6, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP045
ARLP045 Propagation de K7RA

10.7 cm solar flux density was 88.1 on Wednesday, November 4, the
highest since October 14, 2016 when it was 92.8.

The average daily solar flux for that week as reported in this
bulletin was 76.9, and average daily sunspot number was 18.7 (see https://bit.ly/3oYTDxO), so activity four years ago was similar to
recent activity (in fact those numbers closely match the flux and
SSN in last week's bulletin). But in 2016 Solar Cycle 24 was
declining, reaching a minimum about three years later, in December
2019.

The daily solar flux is measured at noon local time (GMT -8 hours)
in Penticton, British Columbia, but there are actually three daily measurements, at 1800 UTC, 2000 UTC and 2200 UTC.

Solar flux has been steadily increasing since the 2000 UTC reading
on November 2. The three daily readings through November 5 were
81.6, 81.9, 82.9, 82.9, 83.7, 86.9, 88.1, 89, 91.1, 90.7 and 92. But
the daily 2000 UTC reading is always reported as the official number
for the day.

https://www.spaceweather.gc.ca/solarflux/sx-5-flux-en.php is where
you can see all the daily flux readings.

Average daily sunspot number during the current reporting week
(October 29 through November 4) was 21.3, compared to 17 over the
prior seven days. Average daily solar flux was 81.6, compared to
76.9 reported last week.

Average daily planetary A index this week was 6.3, down from 12.3
last week. Average daily mid-latitude A index was 4.9, down from 9.9
last week.

Spaceweather.com reported at 0703 UTC on November 3 the new sunspot
group produced a minor solar flare, and a pulse of UV radiation
"briefly ionized Earth's upper atmosphere, causing a low-frequency
radio blackout over the Indian Ocean."

Later another flare occurred at 0022 UTC on November 5, which caused
a brief blackout over Australia and the Pacific Ocean, causing
signals below 10 MHz to fade.

Check https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/beacon/ for a 360-degree view of
the STEREO image, which you can see in its conventional format at, https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov .

Predicted solar flux is 88 on November 5-10, 83 on November 11, then
dropping to 75, 74 and 75 on November 12-14, 76 on November 15-21,
75 on November 22-27, 74 on November 28-29, 72 on November 30
through December 5, 74 on December 6-10, 75 on December 11, 76 on
December 12-18, and 75 on December 19.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 8 and 8 on November 5-7, 5 on
November 8-16, 10, 5, 10 and 15 on November 17-20, 12 on November
21-22, then 8, 10 and 12 on November 23-25, 5 on November 26-27, 10
on November 28, 5 on November 29 through December 13, then 8, 5 and
8 on December 14-16, 12 on December 17, and 10 on December 18-19.

The forecast was from November 4, but unfortunately there was no
updated prediction on November 5. But you can check these daily flux
and geomagnetic predictions updated daily at, ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/forecasts/45DF/ .

There is a big new sunspot group, AR2781, which Spaceweather.com
reports is the largest so far in new Solar Cycle 25. It should be
geo-effective (facing Earth) over the next ten days.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period November 6 to December
2, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: November 6-7, 9-11, December 1-2
quiet to unsettled on: November 8, 12-15, 19, 26-27, 30
quiet to active on: November 16-18, 22-25, (29)
unsettled to active: November 21, (28)
active to disturbed: November 20

"Solar wind will intensify on: November (18-20,) 21-25 (30, December
2).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

This weekend is the CW portion of the ARRL Sweepstakes contest,
running from 2100 UTC Saturday until 0259 UTC on Monday. See http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes for details.

A cool photo of the WWV antennas in Colorado, and from an unusual
perspective:

https://bit.ly/35UUA1l

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

For customizable propagation charts, visit the VOACAP Online for Ham
Radio website at, http://www.voacap.com/hf .

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for October 29 through November 4, 2020 were 35, 32,
26, 12, 11, 15, and 18, with a mean of 21.3. 10.7 cm flux was 84.6,
79.6, 76.8, 77.3, 81.6, 82.9, and 88.1, with a mean of 81.6.
Estimated planetary A indices were 14, 5, 6, 10, 3, 3, and 3, with a
mean of 6.3. Middle latitude A index was 11, 4, 6, 8, 2, 2, and 1,
with a mean of 4.9.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP046
ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP46
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 46 ARLP046
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA November 13, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP046
ARLP046 Propagation de K7RA

The last time we experienced a day with no sunspots was October 13.
Prior to that, September 26 through October 8, September 24, and
August 21 through September 22 had no sunspots. Cycle 25 is clearly
underway and going strong.

Average daily sunspot number over the past reporting week, November
5 to 11 was 31.3, up from 21.3 in the previous seven days. Average
daily solar flux increased from 81.6 to 90. The higher HF bands are
opening up.

Geomagnetic indicators were very quiet, with average daily planetary
A index dropping from 6.3 to 4.4, and middle latitude A index (based
on readings from a single magnetometer on Wallops Island, Virginia)
from 4.9 to 2.7.

Predicted solar flux for the following seven days was revised
downward on Thursday, November 12. Predicted flux is 85 on November
13 to 15, 82 on November 16, 80 on November 17 to 19, 78 on November
20 to 25, then 80 and 82 on November 26 and 27, 86 on November 28
through December 5, then 90, 88, 86 and 84 on December 6 to 9, 82 on
December 10 and 11, 80 on December 12, 78 on December 13 to 22, 80
and 82 on December 23 and 24, and 86 on December 25 to 27.

Predicted planetary A index is 8 on November 13 to 15, 5 on November
16 to 19, then 15, 12 and 15 on November 20 to 22, then 8, 10 and 12
on November 23 to 25, 5 on November 26 through December 2, 8 on
December 3 and 4, 5 on December 5 to 8, then 8 and 10 on December 9
and 10, 5 on December 11 to 13, then 10, 5 and 10 on December 14 to
16, then 15, 12 and 15 on December 17 to 19, then 8, 10 and 12 on
December 20 to 22, then 5, 5, 8, 5 and 5 on December 23 to 27.

See https://bit.ly/38CfS6W for an article about increasing solar
activity.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period November 13 to December
9, 2020 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: November 13 and 14, December 1, 6 to 8
Quiet to unsettled on: November 15 to 19, 23 to 30, December 2, 4
Quiet to active on: December 3, 5, 9
Unsettled to active: November (20 to 22)
Active to disturbed: None

Solar wind will intensify on: November (18 to 20,) 21 to 25, (30,)
December (2,) 3 to 5, (9)

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW of Easton, PA reported:

"Friday, November 6th was a good day for 10 meters, between
2000-2100 UTC, a wide regional swath between the North Pacific
Ocean, North America and Western Europe were all hearing call sign
prefixes of:
CE/XR: Chile
CX: Uruguay
LU/LW: Argentina
PY: Brazil

Modes heard were CW, FT8, SSB.

Signal strength went from background noise level of 2 up to 9+ dB.
F2 distances ranged approximately from 3000 to 6000 miles (4828 to
9656 km). DXmaps on 28 MHz indicated the MUF reached 66 MHz above
grid square FN11 (Williamsport, PA) at 2009 UTC, then ramped up to
72 MHz above FN00 (Altoona, PA) at 2046 UTC.

Prior to local sunset at 2152 UTC, the F2 slowly faded out into the
South Pacific Ocean off the middle western coast of South America.

Five days later, November 11th:

Around 2130 to 2320 UTC both Sporadic-E (Es) and F2 started on the
11 meter band.

Background noise level ranged between 3 to 4 db.

Puerto Rico stations via Es were heard strong up to 20+ db with
light fades.

The following eight southern states were heard with signal
strength's ranging from 8 to 18 db: AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, TN.

At 2248 UTC the 10 meter band, FT8 mode was lightly active into AL
and TN til 2320 UTC when the DX finally dived under the 4 db noise
floor."

Useful images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory:

https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

Atlas Obscura on Hisako Koyama:

https://bit.ly/2Uu1Cod

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for November 5 through 11, 2020 were 28, 35, 37, 40,
27, 27, and 25, with a mean of 31.3. 10.7 cm flux was 90.7, 93.8,
90.6, 90, 90, 86.8, and 88.1, with a mean of 90. Estimated planetary
A indices were 4, 8, 7, 5, 1, 2, and 4, with a mean of 4.4. Middle
latitude A index was 3, 7, 4, 3, 0, 0, and 2, with a mean of 2.7.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP047
ARLP047 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP47
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 47 ARLP047
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA November 20, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP047
ARLP047 Propagation de K7RA

As solar flux declined over the past week, I noticed less long
distance propagation on 10 meters reported on pskreporter.info from
my local grid square CN87.

Propagation on 12 meters though was quite strong. After 0100 UTC on
Nov 15 trans-equatorial propagation was evident between East Asia
and Australia on 10 meters.

Further down in this bulletin is a 12 meter report from NN4X.

Solar activity declined dramatically over the past week, with
average daily sunspot numbers going from 31.3 to 12. On November 15
and 16 there were no sunspots at all, which greatly affected the
decline in this week's average.

Solar flux weakened from a weekly average last week of 90, to 79.8
this week.

Predicted solar flux over the next 45 days until the start of 2021
is also relatively weak, although the short term prediction improved
from November 18 to November 19. The November 19 prediction is 75 on
November 20 to December 8, 72 on December 9-10, 70 on December
11-12, 75, 72 and 72 on December 13-15, 70 on December 16-22, 72 on
December 23-24, and 75 on December 25 through January 3, 2021.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 8, 12 and 8 on November 20-23,
then 5 on November 24 through December 2, 8 on December 3-4, 5 on
December 5-17, then 8, 12, 8, 10 and 12 on December 18-22, 5 on
December 23-29, 8 on December 30-31, and 5 on January 1-3, 2021.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period November 20 to December
16, 2020 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: December 1, 6-8, 12-14, (15-16)
quiet to unsettled on: November 28-30, December 2, 4, 10-11
quiet to active on: November 26-27, December 3, 5, 9
unsettled to active: November (20,) 21-22, (23-25)
active to disturbed: - None predicted

"Solar wind will intensify on: November (20,) 21-25, (30,) December
(2,) 3-5, (9).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes remains lower because there are
few unambiguous indications."

This bulletin has mentioned the paper by McIntosh, et. al.,
"Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number:
Predicting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude."

This week a reference appeared in the ARRL Letter, and
https://bit.ly/36Pb0J7 is a link to that paper.

My favorite passage: "Our method predicts that SC25 could be among
the strongest sunspot cycles ever observed, and that it will almost
certainly be stronger than present SC24 (sunspot number of 116) and
most likely stronger than the previous SC23 (sunspot number of 180).
This is in stark contrast to the consensus of the SC25PP, sunspot
number maximum between 95 and 130, i.e., similar to that of SC24."

SC25PP is the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel, which met in
September 2020.

The new prediction is very exciting, and suggests a cycle that may
rival Cycle 19, which peaked in March, 1958. The effects on
shortwave radio propagation were remarkable, and included daily
worldwide propagation on 10 and even 6 meters, and not just during
daylight hours.

I was about to turn six years old at the time, and we lived in
Reedley, a small fruit packing town in California's San Joaquin
Valley, where my father worked supplying agricultural chemicals to
farmers. He drove a company car which contained a low-band VHF FM
radio (probably 30-40 MHz, judging from my memory of the bumper
mounted antenna), and I recall him describing being unable to
contact the base station in Fresno, about 25 miles away, while
getting QRM from other users in Texas.

I've heard from many hams who were new Novice licensees at the time,
and assumed conditions would always be like they were then. They
have been waiting a long time.

I would love to see daily sunspot numbers above 200.

An article about sunspot activity in 1958:

https://bit.ly/3pOtbHE

NN4X reported from Florida on 12 meter FT8 activity on November 14:

"12M was in great shape!
------------------------------------ 12m
134500 1 0.1 1225 ~ DL1EZ TZ1CE -14
134500 3 -0.5 1596 ~ OQ4U KM8AM R-07
134500 20 0.5 1786 ~ PY2GG EA8TH R+12
134500 13 0.3 2058 ~ SM7DLK WA8NLX EM92
134500 9 0.2 1976 ~ CQ OZ7PBI JO45
134500 2 -0.4 1712 ~ SV2DFK V51LZ RR73
134500 0 0.0 2107 ~ CQ EA1DR IN82
134500 -9 0.1 629 ~ 9J2BS EA4CYQ IM78
134500 -20 -0.2 1393 ~ 9J2BS YB9WIC R-13
134500 -18 0.0 994 ~ CQ S79VU LI75
------------------------------------ 12m
134530 20 0.5 1786 ~ PY2GG EA8TH R+12
134530 28 0.1 862 ~ EA8AAH W4AFB EL98
134530 -5 -0.4 1712 ~ 4Z4DX V51LZ R+01
134530 -13 0.1 1225 ~ DL1EZ TZ1CE -14"

Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW (FN20jq) wrote:

"Yikes, October out-of-season single-hop sporadic-E is active on the
6 meter band along the east coast!

"On Saturday, October 17, 2100-2300 UTC, it is 25 days past the
Autumnal Equinox.

"Once again, the unexpected happens during the early recovery out of
a Solar Minimum.

"I was monitoring the 6M FT-8 mode on 50.313 MHz for Es to show-up
along the Gulf of Mexico coastal region.

"Then it happened, the first direct decodes in monitor receiving
mode:

"215700 3 -0.4 1527 ~ WA2FZW W4KBX EL98
220345 -2 -0.4 2178 ~ KK2DOG W4KBX EL98
220545 -1 -0.4 2177 ~ KC3PIB W4KBX EL98
220845 -9 -0.5 1566 ~ CQ K2IL EL97

"Grid Squares:
EL98 - central Florida, around Orlando
EL97 - south central, north of Lake Okeechobee

"Now that the band is open with the Es expanding further south, I
decided to try for any contacts down on the SSB calling frequency on
50.125 MHz.

"When I rolled down there, several operators were already having
conversations about how pleasant that the band came back to life
since the summer months.

"At 2252 UTC I put out the first CQ call, AG4N, Bill from West Point,
Georgia, very close to the Alabama state line replied.

"From my QTH to AG4N, azimuth 230 deg, distance 771 air miles.

"I gave Bill a 4x7 signal report with QSB.

"The Es was being funneled as far away as Mobile, Alabama (996 miles)
and Biloxi, Mississippi (1,045 miles).

"By 2335 UTC the band started to collapse with signal reports sliding
down to 2x2.

"No double-hop Es from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic or other
northern Caribbean Sea islands was heard.

"Even if the band conditions sound dead, I urge everyone to continue
monitoring the 6M SSB calling frequency, 50.125 MHz, then take it
one step further and make that CQ call. You might be pleasantly
rewarded even if you are running 10 watts into a 6M horizontal 1/2
wave dipole that is below eight feet off the ground."

Here is a forecast from November 14 from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/HCBth8nS79w

This weekend is the ARRL SSB Sweepstakes Contest, see http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes .

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for November 12 through 18, 2020 were 27, 24, 11, 0,
0, 11, and 11, with a mean of 12. 10.7 cm flux was 85.1, 81.9, 80.2,
78.7, 76.6, 79.1, and 77.3, with a mean of 79.8. Estimated planetary
A indices were 3, 3, 3, 4, 2, 3, and 4, with a mean of 3.1. Middle
latitude A index was 3, 2, 2, 2, 0, 3, and 3, with a mean of 2.1.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP048
ARLP048 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP48
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 48 ARLP048
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA December 1, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP048
ARLP048 Propagation de K7RA

Over the past week our Sun has been quite active, with rising
sunspot numbers and solar flux showing strong evidence that Solar
Cycle 25 is progressing.

Average daily sunspot number rose from 12 last week to 27.9 in the
current week, while solar flux rose to a high of 103.7, bringing
average daily solar flux up from 79.8 to 90.1.

Average daily planetary A index rose from 3.1 to 9.9, and average
daily middle latitude A index went from 2.1 to 7.7.

Predicted solar flux is 106, 108 and 105 on November 27-29, 102 on
November 30 through December 4, then 92, 88 and 85 on December 5-7,
then 82, 80 and 78 on December 8-10, 75 on December 11-17, then 77,
80, 90 and 92 on December 18-21, 94 on December 22-25, 92 on
December 26 through January 1, 2021, then 88, 85, 82, 80 and 78 on
January 2-6, and 75 on January 7-10.

The Planetary A Index forecast shows values of 8 on November 27, 5
on November 28 through December 17, then 12, 24 and 18 on December
18-20, 10, 12 and 10 on December 21-23, 5 on December 24-29, 8 on
December 30-31, and 5 on January 1-10, 2021.

Solar flux is measured thrice daily in Penticton, British Columbia,
and values have risen steadily in the past few days. Starting at
2200 UTC on November 24, they were 99.6, 102.8, 103.7, 104, 105.7,
105.8 and 110.2.

See them here:
https://www.spaceweather.gc.ca/solarflux/sx-5-flux-en.php

The official daily flux value is taken at noon, local time in
Penticton, which is 2000 UTC.

VA7JW article about the observatory:

http://archive.nsarc.ca/hf/drao_solar.pdf

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period November 27 until
December 22, 2020 from OK1HH:

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: December 7, 12-14, (15-16)
quiet to unsettled on: November 29-30, December 1-2, 6, 8, 11
quiet to active on: November 27-28, December 3-5, 9-10, 17, 22
unsettled to active: December 18, 21
active to disturbed: December 19-20

"Solar wind will intensify on: November (30,) December (2,) 3-5,
(9,) 17-19.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. The predictability of changes remains lower because there are still few
unambiguous indications. In addition, the situation is relatively
rapidly changing. Which, by the way, is an indicator of further
growth in activity."

Jon Jones, N0JK reported on November 25:

"Sporadic-E is picking up on 6 Meters as Thanksgiving approached.

"Had K0GU (DN70) into northeast KS via Es on 50.313 MHz ~ 2344z with
'-12 dB' signals on FT8 November 24.

"Noted K0GU made a number of contacts into the St. Louis, MO area
and W9. Also saw AC4TO (EM70) in Florida working Brazil ~ 0050z
November 25. May have been a sporadic-E link to TEP or possibly
direct TEP.

"A typical spot: PY1MHZ 20/11/25 0057Z 50313.0 Into EM70 AC4TO"

KA3JAW reported November 25:

"Sporadic-E, both double and triple-hop rolled-up on 10 meters for
six hours starting around 1253 till 1921 UTC.

"Background noise level was 4 dBm on the signal strength meter.

"The following countries, states heard: Trinidad, West Indies, AZ,
Canada, CO, KS, NM, OK, TX, WA

"Texas was the most heard state.

"What was different with this event was the lack of southeastern
states."

AA8WH reported:

"This is Bill Herzberg, AA8WH, of Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Just
wanted to let you and everybody else know, 10 METERS IS ALIVE AND
WELL.

"Starting after noon on November 25, I decided to check out the 6m
and 10m FT8 frequencies. Wasn't much happening on 6m, only heard a
few calls, so I moved down to 10m. Boy what a difference. 10m FT8
signals were coming in from all over the place.

"I decided to go down to the sideband portion and see what was going
on. Heard lots of ssb stations around 28.4. Heard some more above
that.

"Went down to 28.3, and heard several really strong stations.

"Went down to the beacon subband, heard beacon stations, lots of
'em, some doubling up on frequencies.

"So I went down to 12m. Heard several SSB stations, FT8 was hopping.
15m was wide open, as was 17m. 20m was also going strong.

"I think that it was a combination of better conditions and a lot of
folks home for the holidays.

"Nice to hear the bands open. It's a taste of what's coming, when it
will be possible to work the world with a few watts. Those times are
coming, and it won't be soon enough for me."

Thanks to Paul NO0T for this recording of Dr. Scott McIntosh (see https://bit.ly/3lafPle for his CV) and his presentation to the
"Front Range 6 Meter Group" concerning Solar Cycle 25:

https://youtu.be/lRNJPkQPo_g

Don't miss this! Some of what he reports is quite startling, and
optimistic.

Coming up in two weeks is the ARRL 10 Meter contest, which will
especially benefit from higher solar activity. See
http://www.arrl.org/10-meter for details.

See this article on helioseismology and sunspot prediction:

https://bit.ly/39gIAdD

Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, is very excited about the new solar
activity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6L-FutZmw8

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for November 19 through 25, 2020 were 11, 11, 23,
35, 38, 37, and 40, with a mean of 27.9. 10.7 cm flux was 76.7,
81.7, 85, 87.7, 95.5, 100.4, and 103.7, with a mean of 90.1.
Estimated planetary A indices were 3, 8, 12, 27, 8, 4, and 7, with a
mean of 9.9. Middle latitude A index was 2, 9, 9, 19, 7, 4, and 4,
with a mean of 7.7.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP049
ARLP049 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP49
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 49 ARLP049
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA December 4, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP049
ARLP049 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot cycle 25 is a year old, and increasing solar activity
continues to surprise and amaze.

Average daily sunspot numbers more than doubled every week over the
past few weeks. ARLP047 reported average daily sunspot numbers of
12, then last week the average was 27.9, and now this week we report
the average daily sunspot number at 57.6.

In the past week the highest daily sunspot number was 84 on Sunday,
November 29, and solar flux also peaked that day, at 116.3, pushing
the week's average solar flux to 108.1, up from 90.1 over the
previous seven days and 79.8 in the week prior to that.

Geomagnetic indicators were moderate, despite several solar flares
reported on Spaceweather.com. Jon Jones, N0JK reports that on
November 29 at 1311 UTC earth orbiting satellites detected the
biggest solar flare in over 3 years. But it was not earth directed,
so magnetometers on earth indicated nothing unusual.

But this is a sure sign that activity is increasing.

Predicted solar flux over the next 45 days is 100, 95, 90, 85 and 80
on December 4 to 8, 75 on December 9 to 11, 85 on December 12, 82 on
December 13 to 16, 85, 90 and 100 on December 17 to 19, 105 on
December 20 and 21, 108 on December 22, 110 on December 23 to 25,
115 on December 26 and 27, 113 on December 28 to 30, 110 on December
31, 105 and 103 on January 1 and 2, 2021, 95 on January 3 and 4, 92
and 88 on January 5 and 6, 85 on January 7 and 8, 82 on January 9 to
12, then 85, 90, and 100 on January 13 to 15 and 105 on January 16
and 17.

Planetary A index is predicted at 5 on December 4 to 17, then 12, 20
and 8 on December 18 to 20, 5 on December 21 and 22, 8, 10 and 8 on
December 23 to 25, 5 on December 26 2020 through January 13, 2021,
then 12, 20, 8 and 5 on January 14 to 17.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period December 4 to 29, 2020
from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: December 6 and 7, 12 and 13, (14 to 16)
Quiet to unsettled on: December 8 to 11, 21, 28
Quiet to active on: December 4 (and 5), 17, 22 and 23, 26, 29
Unsettled to active: December 18, 20, (24) and 25, (27)
Active to disturbed: December 19

Solar wind will intensify on December 4, (5 to 8, 11, 19,) 20 to 22,
(23,) 27 (28 and 29)

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Jeff Hartley, N8II reports from FM19cj in Shepherdstown, West
Virginia.

"About 10 days does not make an average, but I can never remember
such a sudden sustained increase in SFI as the new cycle begins.
Perhaps October 1978 may have been similar, but assume flux was
already fairly high in the preceding months and the new cycle was
only about a year from the peak.

Conditions or at least activity seemed to be down a bit in the week
preceding the CQWW CW contest until Friday which seemed better. 20M
was a bit disappointing at the Saturday November 0000Z start with
most DX coming from Southern South America.

D4Z on Cape Verde was loud and continued to be through most of the
weekend on 20.

I managed a marginal scatter with Italy beaming at 150 degrees (over
Brazil).

Moving to 40 at 0023Z signals were loud from Germany and Hungary
farther south. At 0121Z 7Q6M Malawi and CR3W Madeira Is. were logged
easily on 40. On 80M at 0220Z I could work EU excluding Russia north
of the Black Sea area and the Baltic states, but signals were not
that loud. 160M was very tough with large pile ups on NA DX and not
much readable from Africa or Europe.

I resumed on 20M at 1158Z about 10 minutes before sunrise and the
band was already full of loud Europeans even open already to Russia.
Signal levels were very good with high activity. R8WF in Asia but
still in the EU Russian zone 16 was my best DX to the east.

By 1309Z signals from EU were building nicely on 15M from nearly all
corners. Some of my first contacts were OH3077F in Finland, RL6M
southern Russia, LY4T Lithuania, and UT7NY Ukraine. By 1430Z,
Northern EU was mostly gone on 15M, but I maintained a good EU QSO
rate until about 1522Z. A brief visit to 10M then found Spain (very
weak), Canary Is., Puerto Rico, French Guiana, and Cayman Is. Then
it was back to 20 with good western EU conditions until about 1700Z
staying there working EU until 1721Z. 5H3EE Tanzania went into my
15M log at 1735Z.

Starting at 1741Z 10M was open well to Chile, Argentina, and a bit
less well to Brazil. The 10M SA opening was starting to fade at
1900Z. Back on 20M at 1927Z there was a good auroral sporadic E
opening to Scandinavia on 20M. ZM1M New Zealand had a good long path
signal at 1953Z as did VK4TS Queensland, Australia shortly after.

On 15M starting at 2015Z, I worked New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii,
and Alaska. A quick check of 10M at 2105Z yielded 5 contacts with
loud Hawaiians! The first Japanese station, JA1ZGO I worked at
2125Z, but the auroral curtain was like a wall and only big gun JA's
were worked through 2355Z. I heard 3 Chinese stations due north from
here, but no contacts were made.

At sunset 2151Z, southern SA was loud and I was thrilled to work
JR1GSE Japan at 2157Z. The low band conditions were not good to
northern EU on any band during the evening, but 40 did stay open to
some extent to southern EU through 0200Z. 80M EU signals were down,
and on 160 very weak.

I managed some quick QSOs on 40 to UN9L Kazakhstan, VK3GI Australia,
and ZM1A New Zealand starting at 1133Z. 20M was not fully open to EU
at 1152Z, but much better 10 minutes later.

I logged many EU over the next 70 minutes and was thrilled to be
called by EX8MJ Kyrgyzstan who was weak, and UN0L. At 1304Z, I found
good EU signals on 15M and soon there were some incredibly loud
signals 20 to 30db over S9! Even stations in N and NE EU were very
workable but weaker.

4L6QL, Georgia was my best DX to the east. At 1424Z, there was a
weak opening to EU on 10M logging Italy, Slovak Rep., and France,
and CR3DX on Madeira, AF. Later at 1524Z on 10, I found ZD7BG, St.
Helena Is., and at 1603Z Croatia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and 7Q6M
Malawi. CR6K in Portugal was still heard at 1730Z, very late! The
opening to EU on 15M lasted late, still okay but fading at 1650Z. I
was able to keep a good EU QSO rate going on 20 through 1743Z, much
later than Saturday."

On December 3, N7RP reported from New Mexico:

"This morning a little after 8 AM local time, I worked HS0ZGC
(Thailand) on 12 meters on FT8. He was working South American
Stations and I did not see any other US stations work him other than
myself. I am just running 100 W to a vertical, so I have no idea
what path it was. It was amazing, since it must have been around
midnight there. He immediately uploaded to LOTW, so the contact is
confirmed."

Look up N7RP on QRZ.com to read his great narrative about his life
in ham radio. Not to be missed!

6,000 km TEP contact between Aruba and Argentina on 2 meter SSB
reported:

https://bit.ly/2JJ3veM

Mike Schaffer, KA3JAW reported from Easton, Pennsylvania FN20jq.

"On Monday, November 30, 11 meter CB (27 MHz) was very active from coast-to-coast.

Even if you're under heavy rain, with severe thunderstorms you still
can detect stations via sporadic-e (Es) well past the 2,600 mile
(4184 km) range.

The radio background noise levels varied between 3 to 5 dBm on the
signal strength meter.

Below are places that I heard, distance, and sporadic-e hops.

AZ (Tempe) - 2072 miles (3334 km) (2x)
CA (Los Angeles) - 2384 (3836 km) miles (2x)
CA (San Diego) - 2366 miles (3807 km) (2x)
CO (Denver) - 1567 miles (2521 km) (1x)
MT (Bozeman) - 1823 miles (2933 km) (2x)
NM (Albuquerque) - 1749 (2814 km) (1x)
NV (Los Vegas) - 2167 miles (3487 km) (2x)
OK (Oklahoma city) - 1261 miles (2029 km) (1x)
PR (San Juan) - 2625 miles (4224 km) (2x)
TX (San Antonio) - 1524 miles (2452 km) (1x)
TX (El Paso) - 1839 miles (2959 km) (2x)
UT (Salt Lake City) - 1908 miles (3070 km) (2x)
WA (Seattle) - 2349 miles (3780 km) (2x)
Canada, Alberta (Calgary) - 1974 miles (3176 km) (2x)
Canada, British Columbia (Vancouver) - 2377 miles (3825 km) (2x)
Jamaica (Kingston) - 1569 miles (2525 km) (1x)"

Newspaper coverage of solar flare:

https://bit.ly/2I9hXME

And NYC image:

https://bit.ly/3g6migj

Frank Donovan, W3LPL shared this several days ago:

"A solar flare from massive solar region 2786 at 1311Z on Sunday 29
November was the most powerful solar flare and coronal mass ejection
(CME) thus far during solar cycle 25. The sun's activity is now
rapidly increasing after a slow increase in activity this year
following solar minimum last December.

The flare and CME erupted from just behind the southeast solar limb
and was not Earth directed. The shock enhancement/glancing blow from
the CME may cause unsettled to active geomagnetic conditions on 1
and 2 December. There is a chance for additional M-class solar
flares through 2 December and a slight chance for much stronger
X-class flares.

The WSA-Enlil model shows the 29 November solar flare and associated
CME. Earth is the yellow dot."

https://go.nasa.gov/2VxzXDH

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for November 26 through December 2, 2020 were 43,
60, 67, 84, 62, 46, and 41, with a mean of 57.6. 10.7 cm flux was
105.8, 106.3, 109.6, 116.3, 109.4, 104.1, and 104.9, with a mean of
108.1. Estimated planetary A indices were 7, 8, 10, 6, 8, 2, and 4,
with a mean of 6.4. Middle latitude A index was 5, 7, 9, 6, 6, 2,
and 4, with a mean of 5.6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP050
ARLP050 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP50
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 50 ARLP050
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA December 11, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP050
ARLP050 Propagation de K7RA

Solar activity quieted this week, with average daily sunspot number
declining from 57.6 to 28.9, and average daily solar flux softening
from 108.1 to 91.9. On December 8 to 10, the sunspot number was 11
on each day, which is the minimum non-zero sunspot number.

Sunspot group 2786 gave us some great activity, but is about to
rotate off our sun's visible surface. But a look at https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov on Thursday night shows some magnetic
complexity about to became geo-effective from the sun's southern
hemisphere, which could mean more great conditions.

Average daily planetary A index went from 6.4 to 4.4, and average
daily middle latitude A index went from 5.6 to 3.1.

Predicted solar flux for the next 45 days is 82 on December 11 and
12, 84 on December 13 and 14, 80 on December 15 to 18, 92 on
December 19 to 24, 94 on December 25 to 28, 96, 94 and 92 on
December 29 to 31, 90 on January 1, 2021 to January 4, 88 on January
5 to 7, 86 on January 8 to 11, then 84, 85 and 88 on January 12 to
14, 92 on January 15 to 20, and 94 on January 21 to 24.

The forecast for planetary A index shows 12, 8, and 8 on December 11
to 13, 5 on December 14 to 18, then 20 and 8 on December 19 and 20,
5 on December 21 and 22, then 8, 10 and 8 on December 23 to 25, 5 on
December 26 through January 5, 2021, then 10 and 8 on January 6 to
7, 5 on January 8 to 13, then 12, 20 and 8 on January 14 to 16, 5 on
January 17 and 18, then 8, 10 and 8 on January 19 to 21, and 5 on
January 22 to 24.

You can get daily updates of these numbers, usually after 2120 UTC,
from ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/forecasts/45DF/ .

A coronal mass ejection on December 7 was expected to spark a
geomagnetic storm on December 10 and 11, which is why the planetary
A index was predicted at 40, 25, 8 and 8 on December 10 to 13. But
this was revised to the forecast of December 10 shown above.

Check https://bit.ly/2KbZsI7 for a story from Minnesota Public Radio
on what happened, and how we missed the storm.

The ARRL 10 meter contest is this weekend, much anticipated because
of recent increased solar activity. I was concerned about the
forecast from earlier in the week, but now it looks like good
conditions are expected. Around this time each December, there is
possible sporadic-E activity, and enhancement from the Geminids
meteor shower. This year the shower does not peak til the day after
the contest, December 14. But it is already underway.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period December 11, 2020 to
January 5, 2021 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: December 13, (29,) January 12, 14
Quiet to unsettled on: December 14 to 16, 21, January 5
Quiet to active on: December 12, 17 and 18, 22 and 23, 26, 30
Unsettled to active: December (11, 24,) 25 and 26, (27,) 31,
(January 3)
Active to disturbed: December 19 (-20,) 28

Solar wind will intensify on: December (11, 19,) 20 to 22, (23,) 27
(28 and 29, January 5)

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Max White, M0VNG shared this article about the European Space
Agency's Solar Orbiter: https://bit.ly/342Qvbd

Tony Dixon, G4CJC compiles a weekly ten meter report. See https://bit.ly/3oIxGlC for the most recent offering.

Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW and her latest forecast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgB8JxYcQFE

Another article about that optimistic Cycle 25 forecast:

https://bit.ly/37ZqKtI

Big sunspots:

https://bit.ly/374XEK6

Great images showing transition of sunspot group 2786:

https://skyandtelescope.org/online-gallery/transition-of-sunspot-ar2786/

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for December 3 through 9, 2020 were 40, 38, 42, 25,
35, 11, and 11, with a mean of 28.9. 10.7 cm flux was 102.9, 95.8,
99.9, 90.9, 89.5, 82.4, and 82.1, with a mean of 91.9. Estimated
planetary A indices were 3, 2, 5, 6, 3, 5, and 7, with a mean of
4.4. Middle latitude A index was 1, 1, 4, 4, 2, 4, and 6, with a
mean of 3.1.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP051
ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP51
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 51 ARLP051
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA December 18, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP051
ARLP051 Propagation de K7RA

Solar activity declined recently, with weekly average daily sunspot
numbers reported in this bulletin slipping from 57.6 to 28.9 and
then 17.4 over this past week.

Solar flux averages also slipped from 108.1 in bulletin ARLP049 to
91.9 in ARLP050 to 82.1 over the most recent week.

The latest solar flux prediction also appears soft. Solar flux is
expected to peak at 86 on December 26-28, hit a low at 82 on January
1-10, then peak again at 86 on January 21-24.

Predicted values over the next 45 days are 82 on December 18-24, 83
on December 25, 86 on December 26-28, then 85, 84 and 83 on December
29-31, 82 on January 1, 2021 through January 10, then 83, 83 and 84
on January 11-13, 85 on January 14-20, 86 on January 21-24, then 85,
84 and 83 on January 25-27, and 82 on January 28-31.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on December 18-20, then 12 on
December 21, 8 on December 22-25, 5 on December 26, 2020 through
January 4, 2021, then 10 on January 5-6, 5 on January 7-12, 8 on
January 13, 5 on January 14-16, then 10, 12 and 10 on January 17-19,
8 on January 20-21, and 5 on January 22-31.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period December 18, 2020 to
January 12, 2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: December 28, January 4, 12
quiet to unsettled on: December 23, 29, 31, January 1, 3-4
quiet to active on: December 18, 24-27, 30, January 6, 8, 10-11
unsettled to active: December 19, 22, January 2, 5, 7, 9
active to disturbed: December 20-21

"Solar wind will intensify on: December (20,) 21 (-23, 25,) 27, (28-29,) (January 1-3, 7-8).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

I noticed after last weekend's ARRL 10 Meter Contest, K7RL claimed
an impressive score of 379,680. Then I checked his page on QRZ.com.
Not only is he surrounded by salt water on an island in Puget Sound,
but check out that amazing collection of steel and aluminum in the
air!

He commented to the Western Washington DX Club email list, "That was
much more fun than expected. Every contest has that moment when an
interesting mult calls in, or you hit a great opening. My moment was
being called by ZD7BG on SSB.

"When the big openings hit both days, you had to be ready to step on
the gas and run like crazy because it could end just as quickly.
There was always some activity, it was mostly a matter of volume and
signal strength. Some signals lasted seconds, if even that, while
others were there almost all weekend like KV0Q and K0RF."

Another impressive effort, but on a much different scale, was
K6ARK's solo SOTA operation:

https://bit.ly/2WrB0FK

The National Science Foundation on a strong Solar Cycle 25:

https://bit.ly/2LL6hkP

Celebrating the return of sunspots in New Zealand:

https://bit.ly/3haNICl

Because this bulletin posts on Fridays, you might think we would
skip the next two issues, which are due on December 25 and January
1. But we won't. Expect both issues on both Fridays. But you won't
see a bulletin preview in the ARRL Letter, which due to the holidays
is suspended until Thursday January 7, 2021.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net.

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for December 10 through 16, 2020 were 11, 11, 24,
14, 25, 25, and 12, with a mean of 17.4. 10.7 cm flux was 81.5,
83.3, 81.8, 80.6, 83, 82.9, and 81.9, with a mean of 82.1. Estimated
planetary A indices were 8, 7, 4, 5, 3, 3, and 3, with a mean of
4.7. Middle latitude A index was 6, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, and 3, with a
mean of 3.3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP052
ARLP052 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP52
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 52 ARLP052
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA December 28, 2020
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP052
ARLP052 Propagation de K7RA

Merry Christmas.

Sunspots went missing last Friday and Saturday, but large new
sunspot group 2794 appeared on Sunday, December 21, and on Wednesday Spaceweather.com reported new sunspot group 2795 emerging over our
Sun's southeastern limb.

This disappearance depressed the average weekly sunspot number,
which went from 17.4 last week to 10.3 this week, ending on
Wednesday, December 23. Our reporting week runs from Thursday
through Wednesday.

In spite of lower sunspot numbers, the average daily solar flux
increased slightly from 82.1 to 82.8.

Average daily planetary A index increased from 4.7 to 7.3, and
average daily middle latitude A index went from 3.3 to 6. These are
still low numbers, indicating quiet geomagnetic conditions, so 160
meter propagation remains good, also aided by lower seasonal
atmospheric noise as winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 88 on December 25 to
30, 86 on December 31, 84 on January 1 to 6, 82 on January 7 to 12,
84 on January 13 to 20, and 86 on January 21 to 23.

Predicted geomagnetic indicators for the same period has planetary A
index at 15 and 8 on December 25 and 26, 5 on December 27 through
January 4, 10 on January 5 and 6, 5 on January 7 to 12, 8 on January
13, 5 on January 14 to 16, then 12, 8 and 18 on January 17 to 19,
then 15, 10, 8 and 3 on January 20 and 23.

The OK1HH geomagnetic activity forecast for the period December 25,
2020 til January 19, 2021:

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: January 4, 12 to 14
Quiet to unsettled on: December 28 to 31, January 1 to 3, 15
Quiet to active on: December 25 to 27, January 6, 8, 10 and 11, 16
Unsettled to active: January 2, 5, 7, 9, 17, 19
Active to disturbed: January 18

Solar wind will intensify on: December (25,) 27 (28 and 29,)
(January 1 to 3, 7 and 9, 18,) 19

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes is lower again, as there are
ambiguous and changing indications.

I wish you a blessed Christmas, positive thinking and negative
tests."

Steve, NN4X reported working a VK and a ZL via 15 meter long path
around 1915 UTC on December 23 using FT8. NN4X is in Florida,
southeast of Orlando. His antenna (two stacked 6 element Yagis) is
highly directional, so he has no doubt this was long path. He was
also heard at 3D2 and KH6. He writes, "I've been a ham since 1977,
and this stuff never gets boring."

Check out his impressive array of antennas listed on his QRZ.com
page. He sent a pskreporter screenshot showing he was copied all
over the world, except Asia.

Jeff, N8II wrote on December 19:

"Today, we had 2 contests. The RAC and 9A CW (Croatia, everybody
works everybody). 15 was a bit marginal into western Canada, but I
worked MB, SK, AB, and BC plus several VE3's on backscatter. 15
meters was open to Southern and Central EU at the 1400 UTC 9A CW
start, but with few loud signals. By 1500 UTC most activity
disappeared. 20 meter signals were loud from both eastern and
western Canada and Europe, with the band starting to close around
1615 UTC. My last EU QSOs were with Geoff, GM8OFQ in the Orkney
Islands (S9+10db) and Tom G1IZQ (S9 with QSB) just after 1700 UTC.

Signals from EU have been weaker and openings much shorter on 15
meters in general this past week due to the drop in solar activity.
One day I had a QSO with a loud Norwegian who was S9 around 1400
UTC, but in general most signals have been from southern EU.

Our sunsets are already later here by 3 minutes, but sunrises will
get later until about December 31 due to the elliptical orbit of the
Earth, so openings to the East will get later."

Tamitha Skov's latest: https://bit.ly/3aIEWKq

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for December 17 through 23, 2020 were 12, 0, 0, 11,
11, 11, and 27, with a mean of 10.3. 10.7 cm flux was 81.6, 80.5,
81.7, 83.8, 79.6, 85.8, and 86.4, with a mean of 82.8. Estimated
planetary A indices were 2, 3, 5, 4, 12, 13, and 12, with a mean of
7.3. Middle latitude A index was 2, 2, 4, 4, 8, 11, and 11, with a
mean of 6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP001
ARLP001 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP01
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 1 ARLP001
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 2, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP001
ARLP001 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot cycle 25 is progressing normally, and with the new year my
outlook is optimistic. Solar minimum occurred only a bit more than
a year ago (December 2019) and now we see very few days with no
sunspots.

Average daily sunspot number over this past week was 27.1, and a
week ago the average was just 10.3. Average daily solar flux rose
from 82.8 to 86.4.

Predicted solar flux over the next 30 days is 81 and 80 on January 1
and 2, 79 on January 3 and 4, 78 on January 5 to 8, then jumping to
84 on January 9 to 14, then 85, 86 and 87 on January 15 to 17, 88 on
January 18 to 28, 87 on January 29 and 86 on January 30. It then
dips to 84 on February 1 to 10.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on January 1 and 2, 8 and 5 on
January 3 and 4, 8 on January 5 to 7, 5 on January 8 to 17, 10 on
January 18 to 20, 8 on January 21, 5 on January 22 to 24, 10 on
January 25, and 5 on January 26 to 30.

Both the current sunspot groups (2794 and 2795) are about to slip
across the sun's western horizon.

When I check https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ for any possible coming
activity, I don't see anything obvious, but do not be surprised if
new activity appears soon, perhaps before mid-January along with the
predicted higher flux values.

From OK1HH:

"Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 1 to 26, 2021

Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: January 1, 3, 13 and 14
Quiet to unsettled on: January 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 16, 21, 25
and 26
Quiet to active on: January 5 to 7, 9, 11, 17, 22 and 23
Unsettled to active: January 20, 24
Active to disturbed: January 18 and 19

Solar wind will intensify on: (January 1 to 3, 7 to 9, 19 and 20,)
21 and 22, (23, 25 and 26)

Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- The predictability of changes is lower again, as there are
ambiguous and changing indications.

Wishing Happy New Year, positive thinking and negative tests.

F. K. Janda, OK1HH from Czech Propagation Interested Group compiling
these geomagnetic activity weekly forecasts since January 1978".

Ted Leaf, K6HI of Kona, Hawaii sent this, another optimistic report
on new cycle 25:

https://bit.ly/2XdqaUd

More on the NCAR prediction and the solar clock:

https://bit.ly/2MkHVyt

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for December 24 through 30, 2020 were 25, 30, 31,
26, 26, 26, and 26, with a mean of 27.1. 10.7 cm flux was 87.4,
87.7, 87.9, 87.8, 87.2, 84.2, and 82.8, with a mean of 86.4.
Estimated planetary A indices were 10, 5, 4, 6, 7, 7, and 9, with a
mean of 6.9. Middle latitude A index was 7, 4, 3, 4, 6, 5, and 6,
with a mean of 5.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP002
ARLP002 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP02
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 2 ARLP002
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 8, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP002
ARLP002 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots disappeared after January 2, so the average daily sunspot
number dropped from 27.1 last week to 10 for this reporting week,
December 31 through January 6.

As a result, average daily solar flux declined as well, from 86.4 to
78.6.

Geomagnetic indicators remain quiet, with planetary A index changing
from 6.9 to 5.1, and middle latitude numbers from 5 to 4.

This decline was unexpected, and of course we would rather see more
and more sunspots as Solar Cycle 25 progresses, but this is normal. We
expect much variability in any sunspot cycle.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days looks depressed, far
different from the high 80s we saw around Christmas. Solar flux is
expected at 74 on January 8-15, 80 on January 16, 82 on January
17-27, 80 on January 28-31, and 78 on February 1-6. Flux values may
rise to 82 around mid-February.

Planetary A index is predicted at 5 on January 8-9, 8 on January
10-11, 5 on January 12-16, 10 on January 17-20, 5 on January 21-24,
8 on January 25-26, 5 on January 27-31, then 10, 10 and 8 on
February 1-3, and 5 on February 4-5. A index may rise to 10 by
mid-February.

This prediction, prepared by the US Air Force, is updated daily,
usually after 2120 UTC, and can be found at, ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/forecasts/45DF/ .

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 8 to February
3, 2021 from OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,

quiet on: January 10, 12-14, 22, 30-31

quiet to unsettled on: January 11, 23, 27-29, February 1

quiet to active on: January 8, 15-16, 21, 24-26

unsettled to active: January 9, 17, 19-20, February 3

active to disturbed: January 18, February 2

Solar wind will intensify on: (January 8-9, 15-17, 19-20,) 21 (- 22,
(23, 25-26,) February 2-3.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. The predictability of changes is lower again, as there are ambiguous and
changing indications. Including rapidly emerging and disappearing
narrow bands of solar coronal holes."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for December 31, 2020 through January 6, 2021 were
25, 23, 22, 0, 0, 0, and 0, with a mean of 10. 10.7 cm flux was
81.2, 80.4, 81.5, 80.4, 77.6, 75.1, and 74.1, with a mean of 78.6.
Estimated planetary A indices were 3, 4, 2, 2, 3, 11, and 11, with a
mean of 5.1. Middle latitude A index was 2, 3, 1, 1, 3, 9, and 9,
with a mean of 4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP003
ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP03
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 15, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP003
ARLP003 Propagation de K7RA

What happened? Solar Cycle 25 seemed well underway, but no new
sunspots emerged since last year prior to Christmas, on December 23,
2020 to be exact. The last time any sunspot was visible was on
January 2. On January 14, Spaceweather.com posted, "Welcome back,
solar minimum."

Average daily solar flux declined from 78.6 to 73.8. Geomagnetic A
index remained quiet.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 74, 74 and 75 on
January 15-17, 80 on January 18-21, then 78 on January 22-27, 77 on
January 28-31, 75 on February 1-6, and 74 on February 7-13. Flux is
expected to peak at 78 again after February 14.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on January 15-16, then 10, 12, 10
and 8 on January 17-20, 5 on January 21-24, 8 on January 25-26, 5 on
January 27-31, 10 on February 1-2, 5 on February 3-12 and 10 on
February 13.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 15 to February
10, 2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH:

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: January 22, 28-30, February 4, 10
quiet to unsettled on: January 23, 25, 27, February 5-6, 9
quiet to active on: January 15-16, 21, 24, 26, 31, February 1, 3
unsettled to active: January 17-20, February 2, 7-8
active to disturbed: none predicted

"Solar wind will intensify on January (19-20,) 21, (25-27, 31)
February (1,) 2-3.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.

"The predictability of changes is lower again, as there are
ambiguous and changing indications."

Peering at STEREO spacecraft images via
https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ I see a bright spot due to cross a few
days from now, so perhaps that indicates a new sunspot over the
solar horizon. But I have been fooled by bright spots on STEREO in
the past which did not emerge as sunspots.

Jon Jones, N0JK reports E-skip on 6 meters:

"Sporadic-E on 50 MHz dropped off after the first week of January.
There was a sporadic-E opening I found January 10 with K8TB (EN72)
in on FT8 at 1937 UTC.

"On January 14 a rare and unusual opening on 6 meters occurred
between New England, VE1 and Europe. DK8NW and DK1MAX were spotted
at 1415 UTC by WW1L (FN54). HA2NP was spotted by VE1P UTC (FN85) at
1436 UTC. VE1PZ was spotted by OH6MW at 1430 UTC calling CQ on
50.313 MHz FT8.

"Propagation mode unclear but probably multi-hop sporadic-E. Solar
flux only 73, unlikely to be F2."

A few days ago Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, posted this video:

https://youtu.be/x07w9xAqCSw .

K9LA gave an excellent presentation on propagation for the Madison
DX Club on Tuesday, and the video will appear here shortly:

http://www.madisondxclub.org/MDXC_Programs.html

Until then, you can also watch a November presentation on Solar
Cycle 25 by Dr. Douglas Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather
Prediction Center via that same link.

More speculation about Solar Cycle 25:

https://www.universetoday.com/149468/will-solar-cycle-25-dazzle-or- fizzle-in-2021/

(above URL all on one line)

WB8VLC in Salem, Oregon (CN84lv) sent an extensive listing of DX
worked over the past few months, none of it using FT8, just SSB and
CW. Recently on January 10 using a home made Moxon antenna at 24
feet on 17 meters he worked TZ4AM on CW in Mali at 1903 UTC with 599
signals both ways, and a few minutes earlier at 1857 UTC on SSB he
worked V51WH in Namibia, with S9 signals which persisted for 2
hours.

Back in late November on 10 meter FM he worked Brazil, Costa Rica
and Jamaica.

He wrote, "I like to promote the upper bands 10 and 12 meters to
show that they are open more often than one would think."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for January 7 through 13, 2021 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 74.6, 75.2, 74.2, 73.1,
73.2, 72.8, and 73.2, with a mean of 73.8. Estimated planetary A
indices were 6, 2, 3, 3, 14, 9, and 4, with a mean of 5.9. Middle
latitude A index was 4, 1, 2, 3, 10, 8, and 3, with a mean of 4.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP004
ARLP004 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP04
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 4 ARLP004
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 22, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP004
ARLP004 Propagation de K7RA

We just witnessed twelve consecutive days with no sunspots, which
many of us found a bit unsettling. But fortunately Solar Cycle 25
activity returned with new sunspot 2796 on January 15. Instead of
moving from the east across the solar horizon, it emerged in the
southern hemisphere, just west of center.

Currently we are seeing sunspot regions 2797 and 2798, which emerged
in the southeast, and looking at images from the STEREO spacecraft,
I see another bright spot on the horizon.

Average daily sunspot number increased from 0 last week to 14.7
in this reporting period, January 14-20.

Average daily solar flux rose from 73.8 to 76.1, and geomagnetic
indicators sank to very quiet levels. Average daily planetary A
index dropped from 5.9 to 4, and average daily middle latitude A
index from 4.4 to 3.

The outlook for the next month looks good. Predicted daily solar
flux for the next 30 days is 80 on January 22-28, 75 on January 29
to February 3, 76 from February 4-10, 77 from February 11-17, and 76
on February 18-20.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on January 22-26, 8 on January
27-28, 5 on January 29-31, 10 on February 1-2, 5 on February 3-13,
then 10, 10, 12 and 10 on February 14-17, and 5 on February 18-20.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 22 to February
17, 2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: January 22, 28-30, February 4, 10
quiet to unsettled on: January 23, 27, February 5-6, 9-13, 17
quiet to active on: January 24-26, 31, February 1, 3, 7, 14-16
unsettled to active: February 2, 8
active to disturbed: none

"Solar wind will intensify on: January (25-27, 31,) February (1,)
2-3, (4, 8-10, 15-16).

"- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.

"- Now the predictability of changes is much lower than before, as
there are very ambiguous indications.

"- This forecast was made on the 21st day, the 21st year of the 21st
century and is valid since 21:21 UTC."

Ken, N4SO in Grand Bay, Alabama reports good results running 1-watt
and an inverted vee on 80 meter CW. On January 15 at 0730 UTC he
worked V31MA in Belize. He is having fun late nights on 30 meters
running FT8 and making worldwide contacts.

Check https://bit.ly/39SXS75 for the recent propagation talk by K9LA
at the Madison DX Club.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for January 14 through 20, 2021 were 0, 13, 15, 23,
13, 14, and 25, with a mean of 14.7. 10.7 cm flux was 73.6, 73.4,
77.7, 77.2, 75.3, 78.1, and 77.2, with a mean of 76.1. Estimated
planetary A indices were 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 6, and 6, with a mean of 4.
Middle latitude A index was 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 6, and 5, with a mean of
3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP005
ARLP005 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP05
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 5 ARLP005
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA January 29, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP005
ARLP005 Propagation de K7RA

Solar activity increased this week. We saw no spotless days, and
the average daily sunspot number rose from 14.7 to 28.1. Average daily
solar flux was up from 76.1 to 77.2.

Average daily planetary A index rose from 4 to 9.4 due to a minor
geomagnetic storm on Monday. On that day Alaska's High Latitude
College A index was 33.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 76, 75, 74 and 74 on
January 29 Through February 1, then 72, 70, 70 and 72 on February
2-5, 76 on February 6-10, 77 on February 11-20, 76 on February
21-24, 75 on February 25-27.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 5 and 8 on January 29-31, then 18,
12 and 8 on February 1-3, 5 on February 4-6, 10 on February 7-8, 5
on February 9-19, then 8, 12 and 12 on February 20-22, and 5 on
February 23-27.

Even after a nice stretch of days with sunspots, 10.7 cm solar flux
seems weak. Last week and this week we reported average daily solar
flux of 73.8 and 78.6. But toward the end of 2020, the three
bulletins reporting data from November 19 through December 9 had
average daily solar flux at 90.1, 108.1 and 91.9.

On Thursday Spaceweather.com reported a sunspot number of 26 and
showed an image of two active regions on the Sun, 2800 and 2797, but
NOAA SESC showed a sunspot number of 0 for the same day, reported
at, ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/DSD.txt .

Perhaps this will be corrected after this bulletin is released. That
DSD.txt file is the only source used for sunspot numbers reported in
this bulletin.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period January 29 to February
24, 2021 from F.K Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: January 29-31, February 4, 10, (24)
quiet to unsettled on: February 5-6, 9-13, 17, 19
quiet to active on: February 1, 3, 7, 14-16, 18, 20, 22-23
unsettled to active: February (2, 8, 21)
active to disturbed: none predicted

"Solar wind will intensify on January (31,) February (1,) 2-3, (4,
8-10, 15-17, 20-21,) 22-24, (25).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement. The predictability of changes remains low, as indicators are ambiguous."

An article about tree rings as an indicator of historical solar
activity can be found online at:

https://bit.ly/2YorDYf

This weekend is the CW portion of the CQ 160 meter contest.
Geomagnetic activity is quite low, which is a favorable indication
for 160 meters. See https://www.cq160.com/ for rules.

Imagine, if you will, the worst possible solar flare, maybe worse
than the infamous Carrington Event, the one that made aurora visible
all the way down to the equator and set fire to telegraph offices.
Some smart people have done just that. Try not to scare yourself:

https://bit.ly/3t3TxXv

Check out last weekend's Propagation Summit:

https://bit.ly/3r0G6Wv

Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, has a new mini-course:

https://bit.ly/36mbgj4

KA3JAW enjoys monitoring the FM broadcast band and the 11 meter band
for E-skip. He reported from Pennsylvania:

"Nothing heard on the FM band, but Monday, January 25th was a great
radio day for both single-hop and double-hop sporadic-E (Es) on 11
meters.

"The spectacular event started early in the morning, 6:45 AM (1145
UTC) till late afternoon - 4:54 PM (2154 UTC).

"It all began with reception of short-hop Es into southern Maine at 7
AM. Signal was 20dB over S9 at a range of 300+ miles.

"At 2 PM, double-hop Es western stations were heard, AZ, CA, UT, WA
and Alberta, Canada.

"And if that was not enough, I was hearing west coast stations
calling out to HI.

"Around 3:45 PM, western states, southern Texas (Houston, San
Antonio, Waco) along with Florida (Tampa) were heard.

"Twenty-one states, two Canadian and one Mexican station were heard:

"AL, AZ, CA, CT, FL, GA, IA, IN, KY, LA, ME, MI, MS, NC, OH, SC, TN,
TX, UT, VA, and WA.

"In Canada: Ontario, Alberta.

"In Mexico: Tijuana."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for January 21 through 27, 2021 were 26, 39, 34, 23,
26, 23, and 26, with a mean of 28.1. 10.7 cm flux was 77.6, 78.2,
77.9, 77.6, 77.1, 75.7, and 76.3, with a mean of 77.2. Estimated
planetary A indices were 3, 4, 5, 5, 17, 21, and 11, with a mean of
9.4. Middle latitude A index was 2, 3, 3, 4, 14, 9, and 9, with a
mean of 6.3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP006
ARLP006 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP06
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 6 ARLP006
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA February 5, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP006
ARLP006 Propagation de K7RA

We just witnessed five days in a row with zero sunspots, but on
February 2 a small sunspot group (2801) appeared on our Sun's
northwest limb. It soon rotated off the Sun's visible area, and on
Thursday the sunspot number was back to 0.

We will probably see a few more days with no sunspots, but a return
after February 11 is possible when increased solar flux is forecast.

Average daily sunspot numbers declined from 28.1 reported in last
week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP005 to 3.3 this week.
Average daily solar flux dropped three points from 77.2 to 74.2.

Average daily planetary A index went from 9.4 to 6.7.

Solar flux over the next 30 days is predicted at 74 on February
5-11, 76 on February 12-16, 78 on February 17-22, 76 on February
23-25, 74 on February 26, 73 on February 27 through March 1, and 72
on March 2-7.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 8, 16 and 10 on February 5-8, then
8 on February 9-10, 5 on February 11-20, then 20, 16 and 12 on
February 21-23, 5 on February 24-27, then 18, 12 and 8 on February
28 through March 2, 5 on March 3-5, and 10 on March 6-7. A coronal
hole may return on March 20-21 causing a rising A index.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period February 5 to March 2,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: February 18-19, 26-27
quiet to unsettled on: February 5-6, 9-13, 17, 24-25
quiet to active on: February 7-8, 14-16, 20, 23, 28
unsettled to active: February 21-22, March 1-2
active to disturbed: nothing predicted

"Solar wind will intensify on: February (8-10, 15-17, 20-22,) 23-24,
(25-28).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains low, as indications remain
ambiguous."

N0JK reported, "Had some sporadic-E on 50 MHz the evening of
February 1 (February 2 UTC). XE2TT (DL44) on 50.313 MHz, 0205 UTC. I
was on Saturday night for a couple of hours January 31 UTC for the
CQ 160 M CW contest. Band noisy due to snow and high winds in
eastern Kansas. Made over 50 contacts with 5 watts and a rain gutter
antenna."

More from Jon the next day:

"Some sporadic-E on 6 Meters February 2, 3 and 4. Es is rare in
February. I worked WA2VJL (EL16) on 50.313 MHz FT8 from my mobile
set up on the 2nd. See below.

"N0LL (EM09) is back on 6 Meters after repairing storm damage to his
antenna. On February 3 Larry worked XE2ML on 6 Meters. VK3OER in
Australia spotted K0TPP in Missouri! Possible sporadic-E-TEP across
the Pacific Ocean.

"XE2ML 21/02/04 0010Z 50313.0 EM09<ES>DL74 N0LL
N0LL 21/02/04 0009Z 50313.0 DL74QB EM09 TNX qso 7 XE2ML

"Had some Es when I checked from my car at work. Decoded XE2OR,
N7WB/p, K0JY, and XE2ML.

"N7WB/P 21/02/03 2354Z 50313.0 EM28IX ES DM51BI N0JK

"VK3OER spotted K0TPP!

"K0TPP 21/02/04 0036Z 50313.0 -16 CQ K0TPP correct! VK3OER"

In response to last week's bulletin and the subject of super-huge
solar flares, Jon commented: "The VHF community is ready. Bring it
on!"

Article about solar magnetic waves and corona composition:

https://bit.ly/3pRz5Hv

The latest report from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://bit.ly/39P9r0o

An audio tour of the Sunspot, New Mexico solar observatory:

https://bit.ly/39QVAGS

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for January 28 through February 3, 2021 were 0, 0,
0, 0, 0, 12, and 11, with a mean of 3.3. 10.7 cm flux was 75.6,
75.5, 73.7, 73.4, 73.7, 72.9, and 74.3, with a mean of 74.2.
Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 3, 2, 1, 5, 17, and 14, with a
mean of 6.7. Middle latitude A index was 3, 2, 2, 0, 4, 11, and 10,
with a mean of 4.6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP007
ARLP007 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP07
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 7 ARLP007
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA February 12, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP007
ARLP007 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots are gone, with none seen since February 2 and 3. So there
were no sunspots from January 28 through February 1, then again none
after February 3.

Spaceweather.com reported on Wednesday a small proto-sunspot
struggling to form, but by Thursday it was gone.

They also report 57% of the days so far in 2021 are spotless. This
is the same as the percentage of spotless days in all of 2020.

Average daily solar flux was 72.8 over this reporting week, with
last week's average at 74.2. Average planetary A index increased
from 6.7 to 7.7, and average daily middle latitude A index rose from
4.6 to 6. These are still low, quiet numbers, quite favorable for
conditions on 80 and 160 meters, particularly during winter.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 75 on February 12-19,
78 on February 20-22, 76 on February 23-25, 74 on February 26, 73 on
February 27 through March 1, 72 on March 2-7, 74 on March 8-10, and
76 on March 11-13.

Flux values may rise to 78 again after the middle of March, just
before Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, which occurs on
March 20.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on February 12-14, then 22 and 14
on February 15-16, 5 on February 17-20, then 20, 16 and 12 on
February 21-23, 5 on February 24-28, then 18 and 14 on March 1-2, 5
on March 3-4, then 8, 20 and 10 on March 5-7, and 5 on March 8-13.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period February 12 to March 9,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: February 12, 18-19, 25-27, March 5, 8-9.
quiet to unsettled on: February 13, 17, 24, March 3-4, 7.
quiet to active on: February 14-16, 20, 23, 28, March 6.
unsettled to active: February 21-22, March 1-2.
active to disturbed: none predicted.

"Solar wind will intensify on: February (15-17, 21-22,) 23-24,
(25-26,) March 2-4.

"-Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
-Predictability of changes remains low, as there are very ambiguous indications."

Thank you to Jon Jones, N0JK for this info on personal space weather
stations and a network tying them together:

https://bit.ly/3aZPpje

https://bit.ly/2MYSk3B

Jon, who is in Eastern Kansas (EM28) also reported 6 meter
sporadic-E activity:

"Major 6 Meter Es opening across North America February 7-8 UTC. Es
first spotted around 1430 UTC and lasted until 0440 UTC.

"From Kansas had Texas in on Es around 1620 UTC.

"Later XE2ML (DL74) and XE2JS (DL78) at 2220 UTC.

"New Zealand was copied by stations in New England and W5LDA (EM15)
in Oklahoma was received by ZL1RS on 3 FT8 sequences."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for February 4 through 10, 2021 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 73.9, 72.8, 72.5, 73.2,
73.6, 70, and 73.7, with a mean of 72.8. Estimated planetary A
indices were 7, 6, 7, 21, 6, 4, and 3, with a mean of 7.7. Middle
latitude A index was 7, 3, 4, 18, 6, 3, and 1, with a mean of 6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP008
ARLP008 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP08
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 8 ARLP008
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA February 19, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP008
ARLP008 Propagation de K7RA

A period of 0 sunspots ran from February 4-17, but Wednesday evening
while viewing the STEREO spacecraft image at
https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov I saw a very bright area on our Sun's
northeast horizon. Shortly after, Spaceweather.com reported, "A new
active region is hiding just behind the Sun's northeastern limb. It
might be a sunspot."

They called our attention to this image:

https://bit.ly/2NgREqr

The next day, February 18 two new sunspot regions appeared in our
Sun's northern hemisphere, numbered 2802 and 2803. Region 2802
should soon rotate off the visible solar disc, and 2803 is the
region just now crossing the eastern solar horizon.

Spaceweather.com warns us to expect a minor geomagnetic storm on
February 21, triggered by a solar wind stream.

Average daily solar flux this week dropped from 72.8 to 72.

Average daily planetary A index was unchanged from last week at 7.7.

Reported cracks in Earth's magnetic field on Tuesday allowed solar
wind to pour in, sparking aurora around the Arctic Circle. Alaska's
College A index jumped to 45 (a high number), after the K index hit
seven at 0600 and 0900 UTC. This is from a single magnetometer near
Fairbanks.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 71 on February 19-21,
70 on February 22-26, then 73, 74, and 73 on February 27 through
March 1, then 74 on March 2-3, 73 on March 4-6, then 74, 70 and 74
on March 7-9, then 76, 72 and 71 on March 10-12, and 72 on March
13-20. Flux values may rise to 76 again on March 23-24.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 8, 18, 12 and 10 on February
19-23, 5 on February 24-28, then 18, 15 and 8 on March 1-3, 5 on
March 4-5, 15 on March 6, 5 on March 7-11, then 18, 10, 8 and 8 on
March 12-15, and 5 on March 16-19, then 18, 15 and 12 on March
20-22.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period February 19 to March
16, 2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: February 19, 25-27, March 5, 9-11, 14
quiet to unsettled on: February 20, 24, March 4, 7-8, 13, 16
quiet to active on: February 21, 23, 28, March 2-3, 12
unsettled to active: February 22, March 1, (6, 15)
active to disturbed: none predicted

"Solar wind will intensify on: February (21,) 22-24, (25,) March
(1,) 2-4, (5-8, 12-15).

"- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains low, as indicators are ambiguous."

Jeff Hartley, N8II in West Virginia (FM19cj) sent this report last
week:

"Sporadic-E is slow to end for the Winter season. On Sunday February
7, we had Es to New England and to W/SW starting around 1915 UTC
lasting until around 2145 UTC into VT. In the VT QSO Party NS1DX
operating K2LE with big antennas was S9+20dB at one point around
2100 UTC on 15M SSB. I worked about 7 VT QSOs total on 15M and added
several on 20M which did not open from here until the Es. NX3A in VA
about 60 miles farther from VT made 5 VT contacts on 10M. I listened
on 10, nothing to VT when I checked.

"F2 was definitely improved over a year ago into both MN and BC for
their parties. On the 6th, British Columbia was booming in to WV the
entire afternoon on 20M and there was an opening 1800-2000 UTC on 15
with good signals at the peak. Sunday was poorer, but still better
than 2019 on 20.

"MN stations on 20 were loud most of the day on the 7th from
1445-2215 UTC.

"Most days it is possible to work EU on 15M, but openings are short
and most weak. MM5AJN/m near Aberdeen in NE Scotland was about S5 on
15M SSB on the 10th at 1415 UTC. Today, the 12th, I worked a V51 in
Namibia and TZ4AM in Mali was S9 on 15 CW; Senegal was heard as
well. I made one QSO with the Milan, Italy area on 15 CW and a DJ5
station in Stuttgart, Germany on SSB."

Dr. Tamitha Skov's latest video from a few days ago:

https://youtu.be/BvWnL23vTIg

This weekend is the CW portion of the ARRL International DX Contest.
See https://contests.arrl.org/dxcw/ for rules.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for February 11 through 17, 2021 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
0, and 0, with a mean of 0. 10.7 cm flux was 75.8, 72.1, 71.3, 71.4,
69.6, 71.5, and 72.4, with a mean of 72. Estimated planetary A
indices were 4, 5, 13, 4, 5, 15, and 8, with a mean of 7.7. Middle
latitude A index was 2, 4, 10, 3, 3, 11, and 6, with a mean of 5.6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP009
ARLP009 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP09
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 9 ARLP009
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA February 26, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP009
ARLP009 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots have returned, and solar activity increased every day in
this reporting week. Thursday evening, Spaceweather.com reported
that in a single day, sunspot group AR2804 has doubled in size.

The total sunspot area was 200 millionths of a solar hemisphere, a
level not seen since the end of last year. It actually took two days
to double, Tuesday through Thursday covering 100, 150 and then 200.

Average daily sunspot number increased from 0 to 19.6, while average
daily solar flux rose from 72 to 75.7. Geomagnetic activity was also
higher, with average daily planetary A index increasing from 7.7 to
16, and average daily mid-latitude A index rose from 5.6 to 12.4.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 80 on February 26-28,
78 on March 1, 74 on March 2-5, 73 on March 5-6, then 74, 70, 74 and
76 on March 7-10, then 72, 71, 72 and 70 on March 11-14, then 71,
72, 71, 73, 76 and 75 on March 15-20, 72 on March 21-22, 76 on March
23-24, then 74 and 73 on March 25-26, then 74 and 73 again on March
27-28.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on February 26 through March 1,
then 18 and 12 on March 2-3, then 10, 8 and 15 on March 4-6, 5 on
March 7-11, then 15, 10 and 5 on March 12-14, then 15, 5, 8 and 18
on March 15-18, 20 on March 19-20, then 10 and 8 on March 21-22, and
5 on March 23-27.

Check this out, something called "Automated Solar Activity
Prediction:"

http://spaceweather.inf.brad.ac.uk/asap/

While this looks interesting, so far I have been unable to download
any data more recent than 2009 or 2011.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period February 26 until March
23, 2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH and the Czech Propagation Interest
Group, compiling these geomagnetic activity weekly forecasts since
January 1978.

"Geomagnetic field will be
quiet on: March 9-10, 14
quiet to unsettled on: February 26-27, March 4-5, 13, 16-17, 20
quiet to active on: (February 28,) March 2-3, 7-8, 11, 15, 18-19, 21-23 unsettled to active: March (1,) 6, 12
active to disturbed: nothing expected

"Solar wind will intensify on: February 28, March 1-3, (4-9, 12,)
13, (14, 16-22).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
Predictability of changes remains low, as there are very ambiguous indications."

Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, posted this new video a few days ago:

https://youtu.be/bNxuOtBMN2s

Forbes magazine describes recent space weather as "spicy:"

https://bit.ly/2NJKYBj

Prediction from a few days back, with interesting graphics:

https://bit.ly/37OtJFI

British tabloid describes a solar "Canyon Of Fire," but you need to
page through a lot of other stuff to read the whole article:

https://bit.ly/3qWQcYY

Ken Brown, N4SO (EM50tk) wrote on February 19:

"One measure of propagation is to call CQ at a very low power on CW
and look for returns on Reverse Beacon Network. This was done with
the K2 power control knob ALL the way down, and on an Elecraft W1
power meter reading 100 mW on the lowest scale. Several CQs were
called.

"KD7YZ responded with a single spot. Location: GREENUP, KY (EM88ll).
QRPp 100 mW
Mode: CW
Band: 30m
Response from KD7YZ
Date and Time of test: 18 wpm 1747z 14 Feb"

This weekend is the CQ 160 Meter SSB Contest:

https://www.cq160.com

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins.

Sunspot numbers for February 18 through 24, 2021 were 12, 12, 12,
11, 26, 31, and 33, with a mean of 19.6. 10.7 cm flux was 71.1,
72.9, 76.4, 75.3, 75.9, 78.1, and 80.5, with a mean of 75.7.
Estimated planetary A indices were 5, 17, 20, 20, 17, 12, and 21,
with a mean of 16. Middle latitude A index was 2, 13, 15, 18, 13,
10, and 16, with a mean of 12.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP010
ARLP010 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP10
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 10 ARLP010
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA March 5, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP010
ARLP010 Propagation de K7RA

We saw one day (Monday) with no sunspots during this week, so
average daily sunspot numbers declined slightly from 19.6 to 18.9.
Two new sunspot groups (2806 and 2807) appeared on the following
day.

Average daily solar flux remained about the same, increasing
slightly during the reporting week (February 25 through March 3)
from 75.7 to 76.7.

Average daily planetary A index softened slightly from 16 to 14.7,
and the middle latitude average went from 12.4 to 10.4. Geomagnetic
indicators remained somewhat active due to persistent solar wind.
The most active day was Monday, when Alaska's High Latitude College
A index reached 34.

Spaceweather.com reported a G2 class geomagnetic storm on Monday,
aided by a significant crack in Earth's magnetic field. Although
activity was otherwise moderate this week, the March 1 event was the
largest storm since a G3 event 94 weeks earlier, on May 14, 2019.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 80 on March 5, 78 on
March 6, 78 on March 7-9, 72 on March 10-11, then 71, 72, 70, 71, 72
and 71 on March 12-17, then 73, 76, 75, 76, 78 and 81 on March
18-23, then 80 on March 24 and 25, then 79, 78 and 73 on March
26-28, 74 on March 29-30, 73 on March 31 through April 1, and 74 on
April 2-3.

Predicted planetary A index is 10, 20 and 15 on March 5-7, 10 on
March 8-9, then 8, 5, 15, 10 and 5 on March 10-14, then 15, 8, 5 and
18 on March 15-18, 20 on March 19-20, then 18, 12, and 8 on March
21-23, 5 on March 24-27, then 20, 15 and 10 on March 28-30, 5 on
March 31 and April 1, then 12 on April 2, and 5 on April 3-7.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period March 5-30, 2021 from
OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: March 9-10, 14, (26-27)
quiet to unsettled on: March 5, 16-17, 25
quiet to active on: March 7-8, 11, 13, 15, 20-24
unsettled to active: March 12, 29
active to disturbed: March 6, 18-19, 28, 30

"Solar wind will intensify on: March (5-9, 12-14, 16-22, 27,) 28-29.

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains low."

W6MVT reports a surprising 10 meter opening to South America on the
same Tuesday when sunspots re-appeared.

"It never hurts to turn on 10 meters or check the spots on DXMaps or
your favorite spotter. I saw some action and was pleased I was at
the radio. On March 2 around 2130 UTC 10 meter SSB was alive with
South American stations and a good path to those of us in Southern
California. With 100w and a rotatable dipole only up 20 feet I was
able to log LU4DJB, PU2LUC, PY2EX, PY5QW, PU2SDX and PY4NY in rapid
succession, all with good reports both ways. Things faded out around
2200 UTC, but I was glad I caught it. W6MVT."

Larry, K8MU sent this article concerning a space plasma hurricane:

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-space-hurricane.html

Don't miss Larry's page on QRZ.com, showing lines and arrows with
humorous text about his modest station, complete with steerable
ground plane and incoming QSL receptacle.

This is from an email exchange with Frank Donovan, W3LPL regarding
"Total Sunspot Area" which is shown daily along with SFI and SSN
(Sunspot Number) in this table:

ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/DSD.txt

(SFI is 10.7 cm solar flux, uHem (micro-Hem) is solar
micro-hemispheres, and EUV is extreme ultra-violet radiation.)

"Here are some additional insights regarding total sunspot area.

"SFI and total sunspot area are well correlated with each other and
with EUV flux at the wavelengths that ionize the F2 region.

"Daily sunspot number is not well correlated because tiny sunspots
greatly affect it but they have no effect on HF propagation. I
usually ignore daily sunspot numbers unless total micro-Hem exceeds
200.

"Today is a classic case with daily SISLO sunspot number of 30 but
total sunspot area is under 100 micro-Hem and SFI is stuck at 75.

"Roughly 100 micro-Hem elevates the SFI into the mid 70s, but has
only a minor effect on HF propagation.

"200 micro-Hem roughly corresponds to SFI of 80 and usually improves
17 and 15 meter propagation. But the normal daily variability of F2
MUFs is not well correlated to SFIs of about 80 and often swamps out
the expected improvements from SFI of 80.

"HF MUFs increase more consistently when the SFI approaches 90. You
may recall active region 12786 area was as high as 1000 micro-Hem
last November and the SFI was above 100 for nine days. It greatly
improved 15 meter propagation during the CQWW CW DX Contest and
there was significant 10 meter DX propagation too. Daily sunspot
number varied wildly from 40 to 94 during this period mostly because
there were also three smaller active regions at during the period
when 12786 was by far the most significant contributor to SFI
greater than 100.

"The rough equivalencies are:

"uHem SFI
100 75
200 80
400 90
600 100
800 110
1000 120
1200 130
1400 140
1500 150
1600 160
1800 170
2000 180"

This weekend is the ARRL International SSB DX Contest. See http://www.arrl.org/arrl-dx for details.

NASA video of solar flare from Science Times:

https://bit.ly/3re3WP7

A recent video forecast from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/j1rSS9iVsK4

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for February 25 through March 3, 2021 were 31, 16,
14, 13, 0, 28, and 30, with a mean of 18.9. 10.7 cm flux was 80.1,
80.1, 79.2, 77.7, 71, 74.7, and 74.2, with a mean of 76.7. Estimated
planetary A indices were 13, 11, 4, 6, 26, 20, and 23, with a mean
of 14.7. Middle latitude A index was 13, 8, 3, 4, 16, 14, and 15,
with a mean of 10.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP011
ARLP011 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP11
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 11 ARLP011
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA March 12, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP011
ARLP011 Propagation de K7RA

Although solar activity remains low, lately as a sunspot rotates to
the west off the visible solar disc a new one emerges in the east.
Sunspot group 2807 recently moved over the Sun's western horizon,
but on March 9 new sunspot group 2808 moved across the eastern
horizon, and a newer group (2809) has now emerged just south of the
center of the solar disc. This brought the daily sunspot number
higher from 11 on Wednesday to 23 on Thursday, March 11.

Recent sunspot activity and solar flux still seem soft when compared
to activity toward the end of 2020.

In Propagation Forecast Bulletins ARLP048, 049, and 050 in 2020,
(covering November 19 through December 9), average sunspot numbers
were 27.9, 57.6 and 28.9 and average daily solar flux was 90.1,
108.1 and 91.9. For the past three weeks overall average daily
sunspot numbers were 19 (the two weeks prior to that had no
sunspots) and average daily solar flux was 77.1.

We can't do anything except to wait and watch, but we can look
forward to the Vernal Equinox next week on Saturday, March 20. Like
the Autumnal Equinox in the Fall, this is always a positive
influence on HF propagation when the northern and southern
hemispheres are bathed in approximately equal amounts of solar
radiation. You can count on it.

Average daily sunspot numbers this week hardly changed, from 18.9
last week to 18.4.

Average daily solar flux shifted marginally higher from 76.7 to
78.9.

Solar wind has slackened, so average daily planetary A index went
from 14.7 to 7.6, and the middle latitude numbers changed from 10.4
to 6.1.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 78 on March 12-19, then
75, 76, 78 and 81 on March 20-23, 80 on March 24-25, then 78 and 76
on March 26-27, then 75 on March 28 through April 1, then 78 on
April 2-3, and 70, 74, 76, 72, 71, 72 and 70 on April 4-10. After
April 18, solar flux may rise again above 80, then back to 75 by
April 24.

Predicted planetary A index is 12, 20 and 10 on March 12-14, 5 on
March 15-17, 12 on March 18-19, then 20, 18, 12 and 8 on March
20-23, 5 on March 24-27, then 25, 20, 20 and 10 on March 28-31, then
5, 15 and 8 on April 1-3, 5 on April 4-7, then 18, 12, 5 and 15 on
April 8-11. A recurring coronal hole may rotate into a geo-effective
position on April 15-16 and another around April 24-25, raising the
planetary A index again to around 20-25.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period March 12 to April 6,
2021 from F.K Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: March 17, (26-27,) April 1, 6
quiet to unsettled on: March 12-13, 16, 25, April 3-5
quiet to active on: March 21-24, 31
unsettled to active: March 14-15, 18, 29 April 2
active to disturbed: March 19-20, 28, 30

"Solar wind will intensify on: March (12-14, 18-19,) 20-23, (27,)
28-31, April (1-2).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
Predictability of changes remains very low, as there are ambiguous indications."

Dennis, K7BV, reported:

"March 7, while checking the bands for DX, I went to 15m FT8 about
1650z. The strongest signal by a huge margin was S79KW (LI75rj
Seychelles) at +27 dB! After a quick contact, I moved to a clear
frequency to CQ. Almost immediately 4S6RSP at -8 dB strong called.
A few minutes later VU2AMW at -1 dB called. I also noticed YC5YZ
calling CQ. Nothing else heard from the region but S79KW remained
strong well after this brief 15 meters opening to Southern and
Southeast Asia."

Unfortunately the averages at the end of this bulletin sometimes
change from the preview in Thursday's ARRL Letter. This is my fault
and happens from time to time. Thanks so much to Don Wright, AA2F,
who catches these every time, and makes sure the correct averages
appear in Friday's bulletin.

Aurora season in Colorado:

https://bit.ly/3esaFkV

David Moore sent this from Science News: "The aurora's very high
altitude booster."

https://bit.ly/3rGk2RS

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for March 4 through 10, 2021 were 32, 14, 23, 14,
12, 23, and 11, with a mean of 18.4. 10.7 cm flux was 81.4, 73.2,
77, 77.5, 79.9, 83.7, and 79.4, with a mean of 78.9. Estimated
planetary A indices were 11, 5, 16, 10, 6, 3, and 2, with a mean of
7.6. Middle latitude A index was 11, 5, 11, 7, 5, 2, and 2, with a
mean of 6.1.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP012
ARLP012 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP12
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 12 ARLP012
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA March 19, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP012
ARLP012 Propagation de K7RA

Average daily sunspot numbers this week rose just a little, from
18.4 to 19, and average daily solar flux changed from 78.9 to 78.1.
Solar activity remains low.

Note the vernal equinox, (the first day of spring in the Northern
Hemisphere) occurs at 0937 UTC on Saturday, March 20. Both the
Southern and Northern hemispheres will be bathed in approximately
equal amounts of solar radiation, which has a positive effect of HF propagation.

On March 17 and 18, the daily sunspot number was only 12 on both
days, but the total sunspot area rose from 50 to 200
micro-hemispheres. Sunspot area was last at this level on February
25. You can see daily sunspot area along with sunspot numbers and
solar flux at ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/indices/DSD.txt .

Average daily planetary A index rose from 7.6 to 10.3, and average
daily middle-latitude A index increased from 6.1 to 7.3. Solar wind
on March 14 drove the planetary A index to 25, and Alaska's College
A index was 37.

On Wednesday March 17 Spaceweather.com warned that minor geomagnetic
unrest is expected on March 18, due to a co-rotating interactive
region that will disturb our magnetic field. "CIRs are transition
zones between fast and slow-moving solar wind streams. Plasma piles
up in these regions, creating shock-like density gradients that
often do a good job sparking auroras."

On March 18 Spaceweather.com reported, "NOAA forecasters say that a
minor G1-class geomagnetic storm is likely on March 20 and 21 when a
stream of high-speed solar wind hits Earth's magnetic field. The
gaseous material is flowing faster than 600 km/s from a southern
hole in the sun's atmosphere."

The latest forecast from the US Air Force Space Weather Squadron
predicts solar flux at 72 on March 19 to 21, 70 on March 22 to 26,
76 on March 27, 75 on March 28 through April 1, 78 on April 2 and 3,
then 70, 74, 76 and 72 on April 4 to 7, 71, 72 and 70 on April 8 to
10, 71, 72 and 71 on April 11 to 13, then 73, 76, 75 and 76 on April
14 to 16. Solar flux is expected to hit a high of 81 on April 19.

Predicted planetary A index is 12, 24, 20, 15, 12, 8 and 10 on March
19 to 25, 5 on March 26 to 27, 25 on March 28, 20 on March 29 to 30,
then 10, 5, 15 and 8 on March 31 through April 3, 5 on April 4 to 7,
then 15, 18, 20, and 15 on April 8 to 11, then 8, 5 and 8 on April
12 to 14, and 20 on April 15 and 16 and 18 on April 17. The A index
may peak at 25 again on April 24.

More about the Air Force and space weather: https://bit.ly/30Zrzzv

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period March 19 to April 13,
2021 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: March (27,) April 1, 4, 6, 12
Quiet to unsettled on: March 25 and 26, April 3, 5, 7
Quiet to active on: March 22 to 24, 31, April 13
Unsettled to active: March 21, April 2, 8 and 9, 11
Active to disturbed: March (19 and 20,) 28 to 30, April 10

Solar wind will intensify on: March (19,) 20 to 22, (23, 27,) 28
and 29, (30, April 1 and 2, (3 to 5, 8,) 9 and 10, (11)

Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
Predictability of changes remains very low, as indicators remain
ambiguous."

At 2358 UTC on March 17 Australia's Space Weather Services sent this
alert:

"A large Southern Polar coronal hole with low latitude extensions
will become geoeffective with the CIR possibly arriving from late on
UT day 19 March, causing unsettled to active conditions. The HSS
from the coronal hole is expected to follow on UT day 20 March,
causing active conditions with the possibility of a G1 minor storm.
Active conditions are expected to continue on 21 March, Auroras may
be visible from Tasmania at night on 19-20 March."

Dave Bono, K6OAK in Fremont, California reports:

"On Monday March 15th just before 1900 UTC 6 and 10 meters were
dead, but I noticed a few signals on 12M FT8, one being a fairly
strong signal from VP8NO in the Falklands. After a few attempts I
was able to make contact and received a respectable -10 report. I
was running 50 watts into a ground mounted vertical antenna. Not
bad for a few minutes in the shack."

Mike, KA3JAW in Easton, PA (FN20jq) reports six meter activity:

On March 13 at 1627 UTC six meter sporadic-e began to appear on FT8
50.313 MHz with stations from the central states of IL, MO, KY, NE,
IA and KS for over 3.5 hours from the first Es cloud formation.

1659 UTC heard VO1SIX in Newfoundland, Canada (GN27jd) at 1090 miles
coming in from 065 degrees azimuth from a second Es cloud formation.

1830 UTC Es starts to spread out directly west into the central
states of NE, IA and KS.

The farthest distance came from KQ0P (EM19wf) at 1109 miles, 271
degrees azimuth with a signal of -6 dB while the radio power output
was 15 watts using a half wave dipole at 6 feet above ground.

Remembering the 1989 Quebec event:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002278

This article on solar activity has some interesting links:

https://bit.ly/3s2BksC

Historic sunspot activity going way, way back:

https://bit.ly/2QjJyP4

VA7JW gives an overview of the Dominion Radio Astrophysical
Observatory at Penticton which supplies us with solar flux data:

http://archive.nsarc.ca/hf/drao_solar.pdf

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for March 11 through 17, 2021 were 23, 15, 12, 24,
24, 23, and 12, with a mean of 19. 10.7 cm flux was 78.2, 76.9,
81.1, 78, 74.8, 79.2, and 78.2, with a mean of 78.1. Estimated
planetary A indices were 4, 12, 17, 25, 7, 4, and 3, with a mean of
10.3. Middle latitude A index was 3, 9, 13, 17, 5, 2, and 2, with a
mean of 7.3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP013
ARLP013 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP13
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 13 ARLP013
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA March 26, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP013
ARLP013 Propagation de K7RA

On March 21 and 22 two new sunspot groups, 2811 and 2812 appeared.
Average daily sunspot number this week faded a bit from 19 to 17.9,
but average daily solar flux went from 78.1 to 78.6. Neither change
is significant.

We haven't seen a day with no sunspots since March 1, so that brings
the percentage of spotless days so far this year to 38%, down from
57% last year and 77% in 2019.

Geomagnetic activity was steady throughout this week, with average
daily planetary A index rising from 10.3 to 13.3, and average middle
latitude A index from 7.3 to 10.4.

But geomagnetic conditions were disturbed at higher latitudes.
Alaska's College A index, measured near Fairbanks, was 40 and 45 on
March 20-21. This was reflected in a report from N6QEK/KL7 in North
Pole, Alaska (a town southeast of Fairbanks, not at the north pole)
who wrote, "HF frequencies here in the interior of Alaska were wiped
out for the BARTG RTTY contest. FT-8 signals were almost
non-existent as well."

Saturday was the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and
Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, positive indications for HF
propagation.

Predicted solar flux over the next month is 80 on March 26-27, 75 on
March 28-31, then 70 on April 1-2, 80 and 81 on April 3-4, 82 on
April 5-7, 81 on April 8, 80 on April 9-10, then 78 and 76 on April
11-12, 75 on April 13-14, 76 on April 15, 77 on April 16-17, 76 on
April 18-20, 77 on April 21, and 78 on April 22-28. Solar flux is
expected to peak at 82 on May 2-4.

Predicted planetary A index is 8 on March 26, 5 on March 27, 25 on
March 28, 20 on March 29-30, then 12 on March 31, then 8 on April
1-3, 5 on April 4-7, then 15, 18 and 20 on April 8-10, 5 on April
11-15, then 25, 22, 20, 15 and 8 on April 16-20, and 5 on April
21-23, then 25 on April 24 and 20 on April 25-26.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period March 26 to April 20,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: April 1, 6-7, 12-13
quiet to unsettled on: March 26-27, 31, April 5, 14, 18
quiet to active on: April 2-4, 15, 20
unsettled to active: March 29, April 8, 11, 19
active to disturbed: March 28, 30, April 9-10, 16-17

"Solar wind will intensify on: March (28,) 29-30, (31,) April 2-3,
(4-6, 8-9,) 10-11, (12, 16-17,) 18-19, (20).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains very low, as there are irregular
and ambiguous indications."

Jon Jones, N0JK, wrote on March 22:

"More on the March 13, 2021 sporadic-E opening. The month of March
has the LOWEST occurrence of sporadic-E propagation of any month of
the year. Thus, I consider any sporadic-E on 6 Meters in March
noteworthy.

"There was some afternoon TEP (trans-equatorial propagation) on 6
meters between Florida and South America March 21. Stations such as
W4AS, KD4ESV, KV4HV, in Florida worked CX and LU stations around
2100z. K0GU (DN70) in Colorado spotted LU9FVS, perhaps a sporadic-E
to TEP link. The K index was 5, indicating 'storm' geomagnetic field conditions."

This article mentions solar cycle predictions, and they mentioned
predicted "peak rates of more than 200 sunspots at a time." But
they may have made a common error, confusing the daily sunspot
number with the actual number of sunspots, two very different
numbers (as can be seen here):

https://stardate.org/radio/program/2021-03-22

To review, to calculate the sunspot number, we count a value of 10
for each sunspot group, then add a value of one for each sunspot
within those groups.

I noticed something strange about the NOAA SESC reported solar flux
of 79 on March 23. They get the solar flux values from the
Penticton, British Columbia Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory
noon reading, which is also my source (see https://bit.ly/3vZSz02 ).
NOAA rounds off these values to the nearest whole number, which
should have been 82.

Now that it is March 2021, I will pause to reflect. The FCC issued
my Novice license (WN7CSK) on March 23, 1965 when I was 12 years
old. When the ticket finally arrived, I was very, very excited.

I asked my mother to hang her bright red sweater in the dining room
window when any envelope from the FCC arrived so I could see it from
my school bus. When I saw mom's sweater, I leaped from my seat, and
ran to the front of the bus, whooping and hollering. This only
confirmed for my schoolmates what they already knew, that I really
was crazy. Fifty-six years later, this vivid memory lingers.

It was 30 years ago (this week?) that I began writing this bulletin
when there was a sudden increase in solar flux that I felt was
noteworthy. But ARRL had just announced in an ARRL bulletin that Ed
Tilton, W1HDQ who authored this propagation bulletin was ill, so it
was suspended for the time being.

I fell into writing the bulletin when I called ARRL HQ because I
thought they should put out a bulletin with this solar news. The man
I spoke with wondered who might write this, so I offered. Then the
next week they asked for another bulletin.

I also called W1HDQ, who at that time was living in Florida. His
wife answered the phone, but said he was too ill to talk on the
phone. She asked what I was calling about, and when I told her the
solar flux value, she replied, "Oh he'll want to hear about this!"
and I spoke with Ed briefly, who seemed excited by the news.

Unfortunately, W1HDQ never recovered, so I kept writing the ARRL
Propagation Bulletin. I have since been unable to learn when he
began writing it. I recall copying the bulletin from W1AW on 20
meter CW in 1966, but before that? Nobody seems to know. I wish I
had asked Ed about this when we spoke.

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for March 18 through 24, 2021 were 12, 14, 12, 12,
23, 26, and 26, with a mean of 17.9. 10.7 cm flux was 73.4, 73.5,
80.3, 77.1, 80.4, 81.8, and 83.6, with a mean of 78.6. Estimated
planetary A indices were 4, 6, 29, 24, 8, 11, and 11, with a mean of
13.3. Middle latitude A index was 4, 6, 20, 17, 6, 9, and 11, with a
mean of 10.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.13-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP014
ARLP014 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP14
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 14 ARLP014
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA April 2, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP014
ARLP014 Propagation de K7RA

Average daily sunspot numbers declined this week from 17.9 to 11.9.
Why? Because on the final two days of the March 25-31 reporting week
sunspots disappeared. That's right. We're back to the blank Sun
again, unfortunately.

Spaceweather.com reported on Wednesday that we may soon see a
potential sunspot currently on the far side of our Sun. They
presented this image:

https://bit.ly/39vq54y

Average daily solar flux dropped from 78.6 to 77.4. Geomagnetic
indicators softened as well, with average daily planetary A index
declining from 13.3 to 8.9, and middle latitude A index from 10.4 to
7.7.

Predicted solar flux over the next month does not look promising,
with values way down in the seventies, although this forecast
improved some over the past couple of days. Expect 10.7 cm flux at
73 on April 2-3, 71 on April 4-9, 73 on April 10-13, 74 on April
14-16, 76 on April 17-24, 75 on April 25-27, then 74 and 73 April
28-29, and 72 on April 30 through May 5.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on April 2-5, 8 on April 6-7, then
5, 10 and 20 on April 8-10, then 5 on April 11-15, then 20 and 18 on
April 16-17, 8 on April 18-19, 5 on April 20-21, 8 on April 22-24,
12 on April 25, 8 on April 26-27, 5 on April 28-30, then 8 on May
1-2, 5 on May 3-4 and 12 on May 5-7.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period April 2 to 27, 2021
from OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: April 12-13, 24-26
quiet to unsettled on: April 5, 14, 23
quiet to active on: April (2-7, 15, 20-22, 27)
unsettled to active: April (8, 11, 18-19)
active to disturbed: April (9-10,) 16-17

"Solar wind will intensify on: April 3, (4-5, 8-9,) 10-11, (12,
16-17,) 18, (19-22, 27).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains very low, as there are ambiguous
and quickly changing indications."

Here is an article from "The Irish Times" about space weather and
the sinking of the Titanic:

https://bit.ly/3fB9joK

NN4X reported a 15 meter long path opening to Asia: "Nice opening to
Asia here in Central Florida on the morning of 4/1/2021.

"On FT8, I worked BA7LP, YD7ACD, BG7PHA, and VR2VLY, and heard 9V1PL
and BD7LMA.

"It was very concentrated - note no JA/HL/DU. Typically, I've been
seeing more YBs than anything on 15M LP, but certainly not today.

"Anyway, it's all great fun, and I thought I'd pass it along!"

Many years ago we reported in this bulletin results JQ2UOZ was
getting running 1/2 watt using simple wire antennas on his apartment
balcony. Check out his blog:

https://jq2uoz.blogspot.com

Another blast from the past on flares and CMEs:

https://bit.ly/2QP6c1R

An article in "The Conversation" about predicting space weather:

https://bit.ly/2PrlTMt

An article about why we are still hearing about that Carrington
Event - even after all these years - can be found here:

https://bit.ly/3uimA9Q

AL7LO has a collection of his favorite ARRL Propagation Forecast
Bulletins, and he shared this one recently from 8 years ago:

http://www.arrl.org/w1aw-bulletins-archive/ARLP001/2013

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for March 25 through 31, 2021 were 24, 24, 11, 11,
13, 0, and 0, with a mean of 11.9. 10.7 cm flux was 78.8, 79.6,
80.4, 75.1, 74.4, 79.5, and 73.8, with a mean of 77.4. Estimated
planetary A indices were 18, 12, 9, 6, 4, 3, and 10, with a mean of
8.9. Middle latitude A index was 18, 11, 7, 4, 3, 4, and 7, with a
mean of 7.7.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP015
ARLP015 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP15
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 15 ARLP015
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA April 9, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP015
ARLP015 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspots were only visible on four days over the current reporting
week, on April 3-6. And now on Friday morning there are still no
sunspots.

As a result, average daily sunspot number declined from 11.9 last
week to 6.4 currently. Average daily solar flux also dropped from
77.4 to 73.4. On Thursday the daily solar flux was 74, just above
the average for the previous seven days, 73.4. The Sun remained
blank.

Average daily planetary A index declined from 8.9 to 6.6, and
average mid-latitude A index slipped from 7.7 to 5.6.

Predicted solar flux for the next month is 74 on April 9-15, 72 on
April 16-20, 74 on April 21-26, 73 on April 27 through May 1, 72 on
May 2-5, 70 on May 6-10, and 71 on May 11-12. 74 is not a high 10.7
cm flux value, but it should be there on May 18 and beyond.

Predicted planetary A index is 5, 10 and 8 on April 9-11, 5 on April
12-13, then 8 on April 14-15, 15 and 18 on April 16-17, 8 on April
18-19, 5 on April 20-21, 8 on April 22-24, 5 on April 25 through May
1, 8 on May 2-4, and 5 on May 5-12.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period April 9 to May 4, 2021
from F.K. Janda, OK1HH:

"Geomagnetic field will be,
quiet on: April 25, May 1-3
quiet to unsettled on: April 18, 20, 22, 26, 28-30
quiet to active on: April 19, 23-24, 27
unsettled to active: April (9-11,) 17, 21-22
active to disturbed: April 16, May 4

"Solar wind will intensify on: April (9-11, 16,) 18-19, (21-22, then irregularly between April 23-May 1,) May 3-4.

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Predictability of changes remains very low, as there
are a lack of indications and contradictions between them."

Des, ND3L wrote: "I was off the air for 28 years. Got back on a year
ago. I'm in the process of inputting my old logs into QRZ.COM
logbook. Back in 1989 I had a stretch of 11 pages of all 10 meter
contacts with 25 contacts per page! Found 5 new countries that I
never had confirmed. Operators were still around and had old logs
and confirmed. Took me from 284 to 289 confirmed in 1 week!

"In early 1989 daily sunspot numbers ranged from 134 to 161. We
didn't know we had it so good!"

Ken Brown, N4SO on Alabama's Gulf Coast reports on 17 meter FT8 on
March 28, he worked ZD8HZ on Ascension Island at 2117 UTC, over a
distance of 5,509 miles.

Later from 2207-2345 UTC he worked "JA5AQC, JR7VHZ, JG1SRB, JR1FYS,
JR7TEQ, JL1UXH, JA2KVD, JA1JAN, JA0MRW, JA3FQO, JA3PCQ, JO1LVZ,
JA3APV, JA2QXP, and on the 29th and 30th worked a total of ten more
Japanese, some call signs repeated from the 28th."

WB8VLC in Salem, Oregon is seeing consistent 10 meter activity,
which is a nice surprise considering the very low solar activity and
probably too early in the year for e-skip.

He reported: "As usual 10 meters has been open here in NW Oregon
pretty much every week to South America, but the interesting
openings were 2 weekends in March when E51JD in Rarotonga South Cook
Islands has been in on 10 meter SSB along with KH6ZM on RTTY and the
usual South Americans." (KH6ZM is on the Hawaii Big Island).

JQ2UOZ wrote:

"Hi, Tad-san, K7RA. Thank you very much for mentioning me in the
latest bulletin.

"By the way, I have found a very interesting article about the solar
cycle: 'Gradual onset of the Maunder Minimum revealed by
high-precision carbon-14 analyses.' Scientific Reports volume 11,
Article number: 5482 (2021):
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84830-5 ."

The author describes in the Abstract, "Here we show that the 11-year
solar cycles were significantly lengthened before the onset of the
Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 CE) based on unprecedentedly
high-precision data of carbon-14 content in tree rings. It implies
that flow speed in the convection zone is an essential parameter to
determine long-term solar activity variations. We find that a 16
year-long cycle had occurred three solar cycles before the onset of
prolonged sunspot disappearance, suggesting a longer-than-expected
preparatory period for the grand minimum. As the Sun has shown a
tendency of cycle lengthening since Solar Cycle 23 (1996-2008 CE),
the behavior of Solar Cycle 25 can be critically important to the
later solar activity. I hope to have active Solar Cycle 25."

Some of you may find this article interesting:

https://bit.ly/3uzqFWZ

A recent video update from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW:

https://youtu.be/pwRcJ-YcVzk

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for April 1 through 7, 2021 were 0, 0, 12, 11, 11,
11, and 0, with a mean of 6.4. 10.7 cm flux was 77.9, 72.1, 72.8,
70, 71.9, 73.6, and 75.7, with a mean of 73.4. Estimated planetary A
indices were 8, 6, 4, 3, 5, 3, and 17, with a mean of 6.6 Middle
latitude A index was 8, 4, 2, 2, 5, 3, and 15, with a mean of 5.6.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP016
ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP16
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 16 ARLP016
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA April 16, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP016
ARLP016 Propagation de K7RA

On April 12 new sunspot group AR2814 appeared following five days of
no sunspots at all. Daily sunspot numbers on the following four days
were 16, 16, 17 and 22 bringing the average daily sunspot number for
this reporting week (April 8-14) to 7, from 6.4 last week. The April
15 sunspot number of 22 was not included in this average. So far in
2021, 39% of the days had no sunspots.

Geomagnetic indicators were quiet, with average daily planetary A
index declining slightly from 6.6 to 5.1. Likewise, middle latitude
A index changed from 5.6 to 4.1.

On April 14 Spaceweather.com reported a high speed stream of solar
wind from a hole in the Sun's southern hemisphere. This could
produce a minor geomagnetic storm on April 17.

At 2338 UTC on April 14 and again at 0239 UTC on April 16, the
Australian Space Forecast Centre issued a Geomagnetic Disturbance
Warning: Geomagnetic activity is expected to increase to Active
levels with a chance of an isolated minor storm period from late 16
April due to coronal hole effects. The April 16 warning said to
expect the effects to continue through Sunday, April 18.

Predicted solar flux is 74 on April 16-19, 72 on April 20-21, 70 on
April 22-23, 75 on April 24 through May 8, and 72 on May 9-17, and
75 on May 18 through the end of the month.

Predicted planetary A index is 18, 20 and 16 on April 16-18, then
12, 8, 5 and 10 on April 19-22, 8 on April 23-24, 5 on April 25-26,
then 10 and 8 on April 27-28, 5 on April 29 through May 3, 15 on May
4, 5 on May 5-7, 8 on May 8, 5 on May 9-10, 8 on May 11-12, 5 on May
13, 20 on May 14, 8 on May 15-16 and 5 on May 17-18.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period April 16 to May 11,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH, who has compiled this weekly bulletin
since January 1978.

"Geomagnetic field will be
quiet on: April 25, May 1-3, 5
quiet to unsettled on: April 26, 28-30, May 6-11
quiet to active on: April 19-20, 23-24
unsettled to active: April 21-22, 27
active to disturbed: April 16-17, (18,) May 4

"Solar wind will intensify on: April (16-17,) 18-19, (21-22, then
irregularly between April 23-May 1,) May 3-5, (6-7, 10-11).

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Jon Jones, N0JK reported on April 15: "Stations in New England
spotted CE2SV and CE3SX FF46 on 50.313 MHz FT8 ~ 2200z April 13.
Likely a sporadic-E link to TEP.

"AC4TO EM70 Florida reported 18 DX contacts in 10 DXCC countries
April 13. Solar flux was up at 83."

Steve Sacco, NN4X reported:

"Here in Florida, we saw late-afternoon opening into Europe on both
10M and 12M.

"Looking west on 10M FT8, I noticed ZL3IO completing a QSO with
CT1ENI, and then calling EA5RW. Note that it's the middle of the
night in EU at 2034Z!"

Don't miss this truly remarkable presentation by Frank Donovan,
W3LPL to the Central Arizona DX Association on "HF Ionospheric
Propagation":

https://youtu.be/4-pBa3Eyxsk

"Universe Today" has an article on Galileo sunspot drawings and an
application of artificial intelligence:

https://bit.ly/3dZHGmw

Here is the April 14 report and forecast from Dr. Tamitha Skov,
WX6SWW.

https://youtu.be/Tti4AZUa458

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for April 8 through 14, 2021 were 0, 0, 0, 0, 16,
16, and 17, with a mean of 7. 10.7 cm flux was 74, 77.8, 70.4, 72.9,
82.8, 72.8, and 74.4, with a mean of 75. Estimated planetary A
indices were 5, 3, 5, 6, 5, 5, and 7, with a mean of 5.1. Middle
latitude A index was 3, 2, 3, 5, 4, 5, and 7, with a mean of 4.1.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP017
ARLP017 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP17
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 17 ARLP017
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA April 23, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP017
ARLP017 Propagation de K7RA

Four new sunspots emerged this week, and were visible every day.

And in this week's bulletin a large amount of useful material from
W3LPL.

Spaceweather.com issued a warning on April 22: "A CME is heading for
Earth and it could spark a geomagnetic storm when it arrives on
April 25th. NOAA forecasters say moderately strong G2-class storms
are possible, which means auroras could dip into northern-tier US
states from Maine to Washington."

Average daily sunspot number surged from 7 to 35.1, while average
daily solar flux increased from 75 to 78.

Due to seemingly constant solar wind, average planetary A index rose
from 5.1 to 16.4, and average daily middle latitude A index went
from 4.1 to 13.

Predicted solar flux is 84 on April 23-24, 82 on April 25-27, 80 on
April 28, 78 on April 29-30, 68 on May 1-2, 78 on May 3, 72 on May
4-9, 75 on May 10-15, 78 on May 16, 75 on May 17-18, 72 on May 19,
70 on May 20-23 and 68 on May 24-29.

Predicted planetary A index is 10, 8, 25 and 12 on April 23-26, 5 on
April 27 through May 3, 15 on May 4, 5 again on May 5-7, 8 on May 8,
5 on May 9-10, then 8, 12, 20, 30, 15, 12 and 8 on May 11-17, 5 on
May 18-19, then 8, 12 and 5 on May 20-22.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period April 23 to May 18,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: May 1-3, 5, 18
quiet to unsettled on: April 28-30, May 6-11, 17
quiet to active on: April 26, May 12
unsettled to active: April 27, May 16, 18
active to disturbed: April 23, (24-25,) May (4,) 13-14, (15)

"Solar wind will intensify on: April 23-25, (then irregularly
between April 26-May 1), May 3-5, (6-7, 10-11, 16,) 17-18, (18).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Contradictory indications significantly reduce the accuracy of the
forecast."

Frank Donovan, W3LPL wrote:

"The significant increase in Solar Cycle 25 activity we've long
anticipated may have begun on April 19th. As a result 30 and 20
meter night time propagation and 17 and 15 meter daytime propagation
is likely to be enhanced through at least April 26th.

"The solar flux index (SFI) is likely to remain at 85 or higher
through at least April 26th due to two active regions containing a
total of 16 sunspots:

"http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/images/SDO/SDO_HMIIF_1024.jpg

"Two additional active solar regions on the far side of the Sun are
expected to rotate into view later this week possibly increasing the
SFI and extending enhanced propagation through at least late April:

"https://www.solarham.net/farside.htm

"See my article in May QST: 'What to Expect During the Rising Years
of Solar Cycle 25.'"

Frank also wrote that new sunspots are fading faster than he hoped,
but the steady trend of increasing sunspots should soon sustain the
solar flux above 80.

Frank then sent this additional useful content:

"Long distance propagation forecast for Thursday and Friday, April
22-23 from Frank Donovan, W3LPL.

"My propagation forecast derived from today's NOAA/SWPC web pages is
published five days a week (M-F) in the Daily DX.

"Propagation at low and mid-latitudes is likely to be normal through
Friday. Propagation crossing the auroral oval and polar regions is
likely to be mostly normal with below normal intervals through
Friday.

"Today's latest planetary Kp Index, updated every three hours:

"https://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/planetary-k-index.gif

"N0NBH's current HF Band Conditions, updated regularly:

"http://www.hamqsl.com/solar.html

"The solar flux index (SFI) is likely to be about 78 through Friday.

"Three active regions containing a total of 17 mostly tiny sunspots
are having minimal effects on HF propagation.

"We are exiting the most disturbed weeks of the March-April
geomagnetic storm season when the Earth is passing through the part
of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) with the most frequent,
longest duration southward oriented IMF. Approximately twice as many
brief minor and moderate geomagnetic storms occur during March and
April compared to the quieter IMF during June and July. Brief minor
to moderate geomagnetic storms may be triggered with little warning
when the IMF rotates to a southward orientation and persists for
several hours coincident with the effects of Earth directed coronal
hole high speed streams and coronal mass ejection (CME) enhancements
in the solar wind.

"160 and 80 meter short path propagation from North America to VK/ZL
is likely to be normal through Friday. 80 and 40 meter short path
propagation to south Asia is likely to be mostly normal at about
0030Z Friday. 80 and 40 meter short path propagation from North
America to east Asia after about 0900Z is likely to be mostly normal
with below normal intervals through Friday.

"30 meter propagation through the auroral ovals and across polar
regions is likely to be mostly normal with below normal intervals
through Friday. 30 meter propagation is always significantly
degraded within a few hours of local noon because of E-region
blanketing of long distance F2 propagation. 30 meter night time
propagation is likely to improve slightly through Friday due to
solar flux index of 78.

"20 meter daytime and evening propagation through the auroral ovals
and across polar regions is likely to be mostly normal with below
normal intervals through Friday. 20 meter northern trans-polar
propagation within a few hours of sunrise and sunset will steadily
improve with gradually increasing electron density in the polar F2
region through June. 20 meter night time long distance propagation
in the northern hemisphere is likely to improve slightly through
Friday due to solar flux index of 78.

"17 and 15 meter daytime long distance propagation in the northern
hemisphere is likely to improve slightly through Friday due to solar
flux of 78. 12 and 10 meter daytime long distance propagation is
likely to be mostly unreliable and limited to propagation from North
America to Southern Africa, South Atlantic, South America and South
Pacific regions.

"Geomagnetic disturbances caused by coronal hole high speed streams
are likely to remain mostly brief, minor and less frequent through
at least late 2021. The north-south (Bz) component of the IMF plays
a crucial role in triggering brief minor to moderate geomagnetic
storms when it persists in a southward orientation (-Bz) with
enhanced field strength for several hours coincident with the
effects of Earth directed coronal hole high speed stream or CME
enhancements in the solar wind.

"IMF field strength, solar wind speed near Earth and geomagnetic
activity are likely to be at close to background levels through
Friday with a possible enhancement late Friday due to coronal hole
high speed stream effects. There is a slight possibility that an
M-Class solar flare may cause a brief sudden ionospheric disturbance
and short-wave fadeout on the Sun facing side of the Earth late
Thursday.

"Geomagnetic storms and Earth directed CMEs strong enough to affect
HF propagation are not likely through Friday.

"Mid latitude northern hemisphere sunset is now 32 minutes later and
daylength is 81 minutes longer than it was on the March 20th.

"Daylength is increasing by two minutes per day which is steadily
lengthening the duration of common daylight between distant
locations in the northern hemisphere. Solar elevation in the
northern polar region is increasing about three degrees per week,
steadily improving 20 meter northern trans-polar propagation through
June.

"Today's Penticton 10.7 cm solar flux index updated at 1700Z, 2000Z
and 2300Z daily:

"https://bit.ly/2Qq0jIH

"Today's three-day GFZ Planetary K Index forecast updated every
three hours:

"https://bit.ly/3noJqdH

"Today's SIDC Daily Bulletin on Solar and Geomagnetic Activity
updated at 1230Z daily:

"http://sidc.oma.be/products/meu/

"Today's SWPC Solar Activity Forecast Discussion updated at 0030Z
and 1230Z daily:

"https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/forecast-discussion

"Today's Australian Space Forecast Centre Summary and Forecast
updated at 2330Z daily:

"https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/Space_Weather/1/1

"Perhaps the most useful HF propagation pages for DXers can be found
at: http://dx.qsl.net/propagation and http://www.solarham.net

"The April 2021 NASA solar flux index forecast for Solar Cycle 25
has been published, mostly advancing the date for solar maximum to
2024. The SFI represented by the 50% percentile (green line) is
similar to Solar Cycle 24. A double peaked solar cycle -- similar to
recent Solar Cycles 23 and 24 -- could delay solar maximum by a year
or more:

"https://go.nasa.gov/2RYl2DW

"Slightly updated wording to W3LPL's May QST article, unconstrained
by QST page limits and reflecting NASA's predicted solar maximum in
2024:

"If the SFI persists below 90 through December 2021, then
propagation should improve gradually until a solar maximum weaker
than Cycle 24's arrives in 2024.

"If the SFI persists above 110 through December 2021, then
propagation should improve rapidly until a solar maximum similar to
Cycle 24's arrives in 2024.

"If the SFI persists above 125 through December 2021, then
propagation is likely to improve more rapidly until a solar maximum
stronger than Cycle 24's arrives in 2024.

"Don't forget to vote for your favorite May QST article here:

"http://www.arrl.org/cover-plaque-poll ."

N4SO recommends an article in the March-April QEX, "The onset of
Solar Cycle 25 and the MGII Index," by VE6TL.

Jon Jones, N0JK reported an April 20 TEP opening to South America on
6 meters, and sent a long list of stations copied from 2022-2023
UTC, and this report:

"CE6CGX copied me. 10 watts, 1/4 wave whip. Jon N0JK EM28 KS.

"Rx at Tue, 20 Apr 2021 20:25:01 GMT
From N0JK by CE6CGX Loc FF31qp
Frequency: 50.314.248 MHz (6m), FT8, -6dB
Distance: 8846 km bearing 162 deg"

On April 19 Jon reported that VP8EME in the Falkland Islands was
heard on 6 meters by KE8FD and K1TOL around 1800 UTC. "Looks like
the Summer sporadic-E season has begun."

KA3JAW of Easton, PA reported a long 6 meter opening on April 19,
1435 to 1706 UTC. "Best DX range was with N5DG (EM20AB) Hempstead,
Texas at 1,374 miles."

And from Cuba:

"Hi, CO7WT, Pavel Milanes here from Camaguey Cuba, FL11bj.

"I like to report a huge opening of 6m band in Saturday
17/April/2020.

"I was calibrating my homebrew 6m transverter to get access to the
magic band (Noise generator, SDR, NanoVNA) and out of the blue a
digital signal came up for a few seconds on my SDR screen.

"Weird, no antenna is connected, just coax from the tests, then
there it is, a mental calculation spotted the 18.313 MHz, aka 50.313
(32.000 MHz XTAL... That's FT8!) a local ham, I think at first,
connected my antenna (Cushcraft 3 el 6m yagi) and boom!

"Loud signals from North America and some ones from LU and CE on the
side/back of the yagi, Sadly TX side of the transverter is not ready yet.

"I put some pictures on twitter, I will link them here:

"https://twitter.com/co7wt/status/1383490344231202827

"https://twitter.com/co7wt/status/1383526601367818244

"I spotted at least 3 beacons, one from W4 and the other was too
unstable to decode properly as they came and go... see the pictures,
some of the ones calling on FT8 has signals dancing up and down in a
pattern of a few minutes.

"I think on sporadic-E as this is the season."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for April 15 through 21, 2021 were 22, 44, 28, 15,
36, 54, and 47, with a mean of 35.1. 10.7 cm flux was 72, 76.5,
75.3, 78.1, 85.9, 80, and 78, with a mean of 78. Estimated planetary
A indices were 13, 19, 29, 16, 18, 13, and 7, with a mean of 16.4.
Middle latitude A index was 11, 15, 20, 13, 15, 10, and 7, with a
mean of 13.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP020
ARLP020 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP20
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 20 ARLP020
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA May 14, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP020
ARLP020 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot activity returned last Friday, and has held steady since.
Average daily sunspot numbers rose from 11.9 to 21.1, and average
daily solar flux was up 2.1 points to 74.3 for the reporting week
ending May 12.

Geomagnetic activity was quiet until Wednesday when the planetary A
index went to 41, as the result of a CME that blasted out of the Sun
on May 9. It was not expected to be very strong, but when it struck
on May 12 it sparked a G3 class geomagnetic storm, the strongest in
the current solar cycle.

The planetary A index rose to 41, far above an average of 3.8 on the
previous six days. The average daily planetary A index for the week
(May 6-12) was 9.1 and average middle-latitude A index was 7.4.

Predicted solar flux over the next month is 75 on May 14-19, 70 on
May 20-21, then 72, 80, and 79 on May 22-24, then 78, 77 and 73 on
May 25-27, 72 on May 28-30, 70 on May 31 and June 1, 71 and 75 on
June 2-3, 76 on June 4-5, 74 on June 6-7, 75 on June 8-9, 77 on June
10, and 79 on June 11-13.

Note in the 45-day forecast that solar flux of 84 predicted for June
15 seems to be an outlier:

ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/forecasts/45DF/051345DF.txt

Odd that predicted solar flux would shift from 78 to 84 to 77. But
we saw a similar prediction recently for that same value a week into
the future, but any trace of it here seems to have disappeared down
the memory hole:

ftp://ftp.swpc.noaa.gov/pub/forecasts/45DF/

There seems to be some problem accessing FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) lately on some web browsers. It gradually disappeared from
Microsoft Edge, then Firefox, then Chrome. I discovered that
although I keep the Windows OS updated, the old Internet Explorer
still exists on my PC, and it does not block FTP.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on May 14-16, then 15, 12, 8, 5 and
8 on May 17-21, 5 on May 22 through June 5, then 8, 5 and 8 on June
6-8, then 8, 5, 12, 18, and 15 and on June 9-13.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 14 to June 8, 2021
from F.K. Janda, OK1HH of the Czech Propagation Interested Group,
compiling this geomagnetic activity weekly forecasts since January
1978.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: May 19, 25-26, (27-31)
quiet to unsettled on: May 21, 24, 31, June 1-8
quiet to active on: May (14-16, 18, 20-23)
unsettled to active: May (17)
active to disturbed: none

"Solar wind will intensify on: May (16,) 17-18, (21-25,) 28-30."

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Contradictory indications significantly reduce the accuracy of the
forecast."

Jon Jones, N0JK EM28 Kansas wrote: "6m Es to W6 May 14 to Silicon
Valley. Worked AH0U and N5KO both CM97. They are in the sporadic-E
'doughnut' between single and double hop Es."

Ken Brown, N4SO checks this graph of the EISN each day and "compares
it with propagation on 30 and 17 meters. Of interest are stations in
China, Japan, Korea, and Asiatic Russia propagated at 6000 miles
plus."

http://www.sidc.be/silso/eisnplot

The estimated international sunspot number (EISN) is a daily value
obtained by a simple average over available sunspot counts from 85
worldwide observers in the SILSO network.

Also see:

https://bit.ly/3tNY1kh

Ken also reported:

"W1AW Schedule on CW, 18.0975 MHz, 7 PM Code Bulletin, May 11, W1AW
signals are 40 dB over S9, so I called CQ QRP.

"Power set to all the way down on the Elecraft K2. Low setting reads
.1 and W1 power meter reads the lowest power at 100 mW. 0049 UTC
QRPp 18.076 MHz 100 mW.

"W3UA N4SO/QRP 18076.1 CW CQ 16 dB 22 wpm 0048z 11 May
KM3T N4SO/QRP 18076.0 CW CQ 4 dB 22 wpm 0047z 11 May

"and at 0126 UTC K7QO 18.077 MHz 3 watts QRP.

"May 11, FT8 mode, 10.136 MHz.

"Long string of Japanese worked starting with a CQ from JA6VZ at
0745 UTC.

"Stations worked/confirmed at 0931 UTC with JE1VTZ and extends to
1114 UTC with JA2KVD, and JM1FHL with over 26 worked.

"Strongest stations were JE0ART at -3 dB and JA1IOA at +5 dB. Both
of these are very strong and rare for a roughly 7000 mile path.

"Several times (1011 UTC and 1028 UTC) the Band Activity was listing
a complete string of Japanese call signs busy with a contact or
calling CQ. My activity screen will list about 24 call signs.

"The Reverse Beacon Network.

"At the same time period I checked RBN 10 meters and found this for
the very early time of 1043 UTC.

"KC0VKN K4SE 28038.2 CW CQ 1 dB 7 wpm 1043z 11 May

"Locations are Tennessee (K4SE) and Oxford, Iowa. (KC0VKN)"

Thanks to the the ARRL Contest Update for the following:

Check this link for a reference on sporadic-E propagation:

https://bit.ly/3y7HZoU

See http://www.arrl.org/the-arrl-contest-update

Then check this for an interesting sporadic-E real time online tool:

http://www.propquest.co.uk/map.php

Two recent reports from the Space Weather Woman, Dr. Tamitha Skov,
WX6SWW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjiAIMDXEFk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTSG2Jqzntw

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for May 6 through 12, 2021 were 0, 15, 17, 18, 36,
31 and 31, with a mean of 21.1. 10.7 cm flux was 70.8, 74.5, 71.6,
75.9, 76.5, 76.1, and 74.7, with a mean of 74.3. Estimated planetary
A indices were 4, 3, 3, 4, 6, 3, and 41, with a mean of 9.1. Middle
latitude A index was 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 4, and 25, with a mean of 7.4.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP021
ARLP021 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP21
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 21 ARLP021
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA May 21, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP021
ARLP021 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot activity continues this week, although the average daily
sunspot numbers and solar flux have not really changed since last
week's report. This was not expected, because on the first day of
the reporting week in last week's Propagation Forecast Bulletin
ARLP020 there was no sunspot activity.

Average daily sunspot number hardly changed, from 21.1 to 20.3, and
average daily solar flux went from 74.3 to 74.2. I am surprised that
solar flux still remains below 80, since April 20.

Geomagnetic indicators were quiet, but values were slightly lower.

Average daily planetary A index changed from 9.1 to 6.6, and average
daily middle latitude A index went from 7.4 to 6.3.

Predicted solar flux for the next 30 days is 72 on May 21-27, 73 on
May 28, 75 on May 29-31, 77 on June 1, 78 on June 2-12, then 73, 77
and 77 on June 13-15, and 75 on June 16-27.

Predicted planetary A index is 10 and 8 on May 21-22, 5 on May 23
through June 10, then 8, 5, 10 and 8 on June 11-14, then 5, 10 and 8
on June 15-17, and 5 on June 18-30 and beyond.

Yesterday on Thursday planetary A index rose dramatically due to
increasing solar wind. The STEREO web site at
https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ has been a good indicator of
approaching sunspot activity about to rotate over the Sun's eastern
horizon, and currently on early Friday I can see a bright active
region about to become geo-effective.

OK1HH sends his geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 21
to June 15, 2021.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: May 25-26, (27-31,) June 9-10, 12-13
quiet to unsettled on: May 24, June 1-8
quiet to active on: May (21-23, June 11, 14)
unsettled to active: (June 15)
active to disturbed: none

"Solar wind will intensify on: May (21-25,) 28-30, June (7,) 9,
(14-15).

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Contradictory indications significantly reduce the accuracy of the
forecast."

WB6VRN spotted a new location for the NOAA solar cycle progression
page, https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression and
notes the site is interactive.

K1HTV reported, "On 17 meters during the late afternoon on May 18,
2021, I completed WAC (Worked All Continents), using the FT8 mode,
in 11 minutes. Around 3:15 AM EDT the next morning, after awaking
from a restless sleep and while still horizontally polarized, I
turned on my Android phone. I connected to my shack computer and its
3 video monitors using the VNC app.

"At that early hour (0715 UTC) here at my VA QTH, I found 17 Meters
was already open to Europe. I switched down to 30 Meter FT8 and
proceeded to work some DX. To my amazement, I was able to make FT8
contacts with all continents to complete WAC (Worked All Continents)
in 6 minutes even! Below is the K1HTV log for those contacts, which
may be a world record for WAC in the shortest time, at least for the
FT8 mode.

"30M FT8 WAC (Worked All Continents in 6:00 minutes

"OC - VK4PN - 2021-0519 07:25:00 started 1st QSO
EU - F2YT - 2021-0519 07:26:30 send 73 to end 2nd QSO
AF - EA8AT - 2021-0519 07:27:45 sent 73 to end 3rd QSO
AS - JH1CCN - 2021-0519 07:28:30 sent 73 to end 4th QSO
NA - CO8LY - 2021-0519 07:29:30 sent 73 to end 5th QSO
SA - CE3ALY - 2021-0919 07:31:00 sent 73 to end 6th QSO and complete WAC

"All QSOs were made while running 75 Watts to the 30M trap dipole of
an A3WS antenna."

N4SO reports:

"I often listen to 28 MHz propagation beacons starting with VE3TEN
on 28.175 MHz, http://www.oarc.net/photos/ve3ten/ve3ten.html ending
at 28.300 MHz. I also have about ten 28 MHz beacons in the log from
0000-0100 UTC.

"From the HF Beacon Reflector and WJ5O for May 20 Evening 'GREYLINE'
my location.

"From 00:25-00:30Z, 20 May 2021 I can hear/identify ten 10-meter
beacon signals into EM71as.

"28.2025 KA3BWP STAFFORD, VIRGINIA 1074 km 667 miles
28.208 WN2A/AK2F BUDD LAKE , NEW JERSEY 1424 km 885 miles
28.216 K3FX NEPTUNE CITY, NEW JERSEY 1424 km 885 miles
28.2313 N3TVV JIM THORPE, PENNSYLVANIA 1364 km 848 miles
28.2327 N2MH WEST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY 1449 km 869 miles
28.236 W8YT MARTINSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA 1112 km 691 miles
28.246 KG2GL NUTLEY, NEW JERSEY 1144 km 715 miles
28.269 AA1TT CLAREMONT, NEW HAMPSHIRE 1763 km 1095 miles
28.2865 WB0BIN SABIN, MINNESOTA 1900 km 1181 miles
28.296 W3APL LAUREL, MARYLAND 1172 km 733 miles

"73 Bill WJ5O.

"Ken N4SO, EM50
Southern Alabama"

Jeff Hartley, N8II reported on Thursday:

"Hi Tad,

"The sporadic-E season has gotten off to a great start. Just in the
past 2 days, there were 3 sporadic-E 28 MHz openings into Europe! On
the 18th, I saw a spot for F4DSD in France on 10M SSB. We worked,
but just barely; after a struggle to copy my call, he gave me a 3x3
report at 2016 UTC. Hearing nothing else, I QSY'ed down to 15M CW
and worked GW3TMP in Wales and EA8TL in Canary Islands. Then I
managed to catch Hugh, EI2HI in Ireland and we exchanged 4x2
reports.

"The morning of the 19th featured a fairly widespread but weak
opening to EU on 10M.

"My first EU QSO was at 1410 UTC with ON7HJA in Belgium on SSB. Then
I heard Gyuri, HA5JI in Hungary who was the loudest of the opening,
S7 when we worked, then later near the end at 1433 UTC S5. Also
worked F8DGY and Germany on CW. I finally got back to the radio at
2015 UTC and quickly found DK7LX in Germany on 10M CW who was S7. As
we finished, Ron SP8ARY was calling me; we moved up and made a QSO;
he was my first 10M Polish QSO in my log started January 2017.

"Next I called a CW CQ once and was rewarded with a string of EU
callers from Germany, England, Czech Rep., Serbia, France, OZ4VW,
first Danish op in my 10M log (new band slot), Netherlands and 2
more Poles including SQ1921PS. many were rather weak.

"I then switched to SSB to find stronger signals as the opening
improved. Ady, G6AD in England was S6 and Karel, ON2KP was S8.
3Z1921PS, Poland was a new SSB band slot as was 5P1B, Denmark 6
minutes later. Of course, I found Ian, MM0TFU in Scotland about S7
who always seems to be there when 10M opens to NA. Calling CQ on
SSB, I worked a long string of EU stations with few if any CQs
needed to log the next station.

"The majority were in western EU, only one weak Italian. Additional
SSB countries logged were France, Netherlands, Northern Ireland,
Germany, and Austria. I made many QSOs with England. After 2128Z, I
searched out stations and found Nick, LZ3ND in Bulgaria who was
peaking over S9, no wonder with his 4 stacked 7 element Yagis! Also
worked LZ5DD. PI4DX also with stacked 6 element Yagis was S9.

"My last SSB QSO before dinner at 2158 UTC was S52WW, Slovenia for a
new band slot. Returning at 2238 UTC, I found Tom, 9A2AJ, Croatia on
CW (new slot), OA4DX, Peru on 12M CW for new slot, and Gordon,
MM0GPZ who was S7-8 on 10M SSB, S7 on 12M (my antenna only 2 el
Yagi), and a solid S9 on 15M. Despite the great conditions on 15M,
there was very little SSB or CW activity. My last 10M QSO was
EI7HBB, Ireland on SSB at 2318 UTC, a very long opening. I made in
total 64 10M QSOs with Europe.

"73, Jeff N8II"

Wow, Jeff!

Russ W4NI reports from Nashville:

"The solar storm on 12 May 2021 was not too bad. Despite K=7 at both
1200 and 1500 UTC, I was able to work DK, EA, LZ, 9A, on 20 CW from
Tennessee."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for May 13 through 19, 2021 were 24, 24, 24, 11, 11,
24 and 24, with a mean of 20.3. 10.7 cm flux was 74.7, 70.9, 73.3,
73.2, 74.8, 76.4, and 75.9, with a mean of 74.2. Estimated planetary
A indices were 7, 4, 8, 5, 6, 10, and 6, with a mean of 6.6. Middle
latitude A index was 7, 4, 8, 4, 6, 10, and 5, with a mean of 6.3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33)

Daryl wrote:
ZCZC AP32

QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 32 ARLP032
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA August 7, 2020

Okay, maybe this is just my NNTP reader going crazy or a misconfigured
board or something, but this year-old report is showing as new/unread...
is that supposed to happen?
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: Final Zone BBS - finalzone.ddns.net (618:250/27)

Nkeck72 wrote to Daryl Stout <=-

Okay, maybe this is just my NNTP reader going crazy or a misconfigured board or something, but this year-old report is showing as
new/unread... is that supposed to happen?

Daryl's system may have barfed and sent out an old message. Nothing to be worried about unless it starts happening a lot. I'll talk to Daryl.

Later,
Sean

... WinErr 01F: Reserved for future mistakes of our developers.
--- MultiMail/Linux
* Origin: Outpost BBS * Micronet World HQ (618:618/1)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP022
ARLP022 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP22
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 22 ARLP022
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA May 28, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP022
ARLP022 Propagation de K7RA

The 10.7 cm solar flux rose this week, and on Wednesday May 26 it
reached 88, the highest since December 7, 2020, when it was 89.5.

The next day the 2300 UTC flux value was 94.2.

The official flux value is always the local noon reading at Canada's
Dominion Radio Astrophysical Research Facility (see
https://bit.ly/3fpiAiS ) in Penticton, British Columbia, 177 miles
northeast of my Seattle QTH. You can see the thrice daily readings
at https://bit.ly/3hT1hsk .

Average daily solar flux rose this week to 77.8 from last week's
average of 74.2, while the average daily sunspot number increased
from 20.3 to 24.9.

I hope this signals a return to the enhanced activity and HF
conditions we saw at the end of 2020, and a resumption of solar
cycle 25's upward climb.

Predicted solar flux over the next month is 83, 81, 80 and 76 on May
28 to 31, 72 on June 1 to 3, 73 on June 4, 74 on June 5 to 10, 75 on
June 11, 77 on June 12 to 15, 79 on June 16 to 23, and 76 on June 24
to 29.

Predicted planetary A index is 10, 5, 8, 5 and 8 on May 28 through
June 1, then 5 on June 2 and beyond, possibly into mid-July.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period May 28 til June 22,
2021 from F. K. Janda, OK1HH.

"Geomagnetic field will be
Quiet on: May (30 and 31,) June 9 and 10, 12 and 13
Quiet to unsettled on: June 1 to 8, 17 to 20
Quiet to active on: May 28 and 29, June 11, 14 to 16, 21 and 22
Unsettled to active: Nothing predicted
Active to disturbed: Nothing predicted

Solar wind will intensify on May 28 to 30, June (7,) 9, (14 and 15,
17 to 19, 22)

Remarks:
- The increased geomagnetic activity on May 26-27 was due to solar
flares with CME on May 22. Therefore, it could not be predicted last
time, ie on May 20.
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.
- Accuracy of the forecast remains lower."

Jon Jones N0JK reports from Kansas:

"The summer 2021 sporadic E season is off to a strong start. Here
in Kansas I had Europe in on 6 Meters May 19. DK1MAX peaked to -3
dB with audible tones at 1540z. Earliest I have had Europe on 6
Meter Es.

May 26 Hawaii to the Midwest on 6 Meters. KF0M (EM17) in Wichita,
KS had KH6CJJ on Maui up to -4 dB around 2000z. The Hawaiians were
in over an hour."

The mode was FT8.

"Hi Tad --

Quite a surprise for the solar flux to jump up into the 80s and then
the 90s today (Thursday).

I was trying out a modified small HF loop (homebrew) on my kayak in
the Mokelumne River in Northern California today and wasn't getting
out very well. Then I thought I'd give 17m SSB a final try before
packing up my gear. Transmitter power was 12 watts.

Heard two VKs coming in loud and clear, and managed to catch VK2CPC,
Les, just as he finished a QSO. He gave me a 3-3 report and managed
to get my call sign correct. Fortunately my kayak was in such a
position that the loop was aimed toward Australia.

And, my buddy caught two bass. Good day for both of us.

bil paul, KD6JUI
Dixon CA"

Michael May, WB8VLC in Oregon reported:

"Another weird week of non ham activity on 10 meters to report along
with lots of 6 meter activity.

The most interesting thing heard on 10 meters was not ham contacts.
It was non ham intruders heard this past Sunday while tuning around
10 meters looking for beacons when I came across some North Korean
fishing boats operating on 28.175 and 28.275 MHZ FM mode.

This was at 2120 UTC May 22, 2021 and the signals were in for the
next 2 hours. The attached recording is condensed from over a 2
hour period. (email K7RA for a 836 KB MP3 copy.)

A co-worker listened to the recording and said it sounds like a
North Korean dialect and after more research we found that they are
most likely squid fishing boats around the Asiatic Russian coast
north of Japan and east of mainland Asiatic Russia, where these
boats are typically found.

The signals peak on my 4 el 10 meter OWA at 330 degrees.

I have not heard these signals in over 9 years which leads me to
think that a 10 meter FM path to Japan is possible, research on
these boats indicates only 25 watts of FM carrier with 102 inch
whips.

No real interesting 10 meter ham contacts to list as the North
Korean fishing boats is certainly enough for my 10 meter listing.

6 meters was my best band over the past 2 weeks for real ham to ham
QSOs and here are some of the interesting ones.

All of the 6 meter SSB contacts were well over S9 both ways and the
QSOs lasted for over 45 minutes each, real rag chews.

On 6 meters SSB/FT8/CW I use my K3S to a 6 element high gain Yagi on
the same boom as my 4 elements for 10 meters and 500 watts from a
home made LDMOS amplifier.

On 6 meter FM I use the Hygain V-6R stacked 5/8th wave, 25 foot long
co-linear vertical and 110 watts with a GE Orion FM land mobile
transceiver.

6 meter contacts, all times/dates UTC:

2021-05-18 0327 KH6HI 50.313 FT8 BL01xi
2021-05-19 0420 VE8CK 50.313 FT8 DP22TK
2021-05-22 0241 W5WTX 50.090 CW DM95cc
2021-05-23 1859 VE3WN 50.313 FT8 FN03ht
2021-05-24 0035 W0VTT 50.098 CW EN33xx
2021-05-24 0120 TI2ALF 50.313 FT8 EJ79xv
2021-05-26 0229 KG4HOT 50.180 SSB FM07pt
2021-05-26 0232 KD4AA 50.180 SSB FM17ur
2021-05-26 0243 WB7PMP 50.180 SSB EM95pu
2021-05-26 0335 KA6NLS/rptr 51.940 FM DM35cd Kingman, AZ
2021-05-26 1525 VA3IKE 50.313 FT8 EN82qb"

N1API reported last week: "I suppose by now you have heard of the 6
meter opening on May 19. I was fortunate to work a total of 59
stations on FT8. The most amazing thing was that band was still
open into Europe at 10 PM Local which would be 2 AM or later in
Europe depending on how deep the opening was. Stations from the US
were also seen. The next morning at daybreak had signals from Spain
and Italy on 6 meters. I can't remember seeing conditions like this
before."

N4SO reports: "In the weird category, my signal was picked up on
Pskreporter in Ukraine. The notation, a one and ONLY, reads as
follows:

Rx at Monday, 17 May 2021 18:08 GMT
From N4SO BY UX0ZAB Loc KN66au15
Frequency 28.074.741 MHz (10m) FT8 -13DB
Distance 9552 km bearing 36 degrees

The map location shows Ukraine. At that time, I was transmitting,
both calling CQ, and working mostly USA. UX0ZAB, is a monitoring
station and we did not make a contact, other than his reception
report of my signal. I realize that UX0ZAB is not a Ukraine call
sign but they move around a lot."

Check this web site for synoptic map images:

https://nso.edu/data/nisp-data/synoptic-maps/

It has been a long time since we presented a link to an article
about the important work of astronomer Hisako Koyama:

https://youtu.be/LxM9PhcY_90

https://bit.ly/3uy4DDz

Thanks to K5FB for these links on long term solar flux prediction:

https://bit.ly/2TqQCef

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/abef6d

New solar telescope planned for Canary Islands:

https://bit.ly/3hZThWk

News from WX6SWW, Dr. Tamitha Skov, the Space Weather Woman:

https://youtu.be/qCtYMVjdMwM

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for May 20 through 26, 2021 were 13, 13, 19, 30, 29,
36, and 34, with a mean of 24.9. 10.7 cm flux was 72.3, 73.7, 75.6,
79, 72.7, 83.5, and 88, with a mean of 77.8. Estimated planetary A
indices were 24, 7, 5, 4, 4, 3, and 13, with a mean of 8.6. Middle
latitude A index was 17, 8, 5, 4, 2, 3, and 12, with a mean of 7.3.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP024
ARLP024 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP24
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 24 ARLP024
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA June 11, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP024
ARLP024 Propagation de K7RA

Sunspot activity has given us steady but modest increases over the
past three weeks, with average daily sunspot weekly averages rising
from 24.9 to 28 last week to 34.9 this week.

But oddly, average daily solar flux for the same three weeks was
77.8, then 77.8 again last week, and now 77.7 over the latest seven
day reporting period, remarkably unchanged week after week.

Average daily planetary A index went from 6.1 last week to 5.9 in
this week's report, and middle latitude A index was 6.3 and then
6.9.

Predicted solar flux over the next month is 75 on June 11-20, 80 on
June 13-17, 75 then 80, 82 and 77 on June 21-23, 76 on June 24 to
July 5, then 74, 74 and 75 on July 6-8, 74 on July 9-14 and 75 on
June 16-17.

Predicted planetary A index is 5 on June 11-13, 8 on June 14-15,
then 20 and 18 on June 16-17, 5 on June 18-25, 7 on June 26, 5 on
June 27 through July 4, then 15, 10 and 8 on July 5-7, 5 on July
8-12, 20 and 8 on July 13-14, and 5 after mid-July.

Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period June 11 til July 7,
2021 from F.K. Janda, OK1HH who has compiled these reports weekly
beginning in January, 1978.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: June 12-13, 18-20, 24, 27-28, July 1-2
quiet to unsettled on: June 11, 15, 17, 29-30, July 6
quiet to active on: June 11, 14, 17, 21, 25-26, July 3-4
unsettled to active: June 16, 22-23, July 5
active to disturbed: - none

"Solar wind will intensify on: June (11-13,) 17 (-18,) (22-24, 29,)
July (2,) 4-5.

"Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement."

Checking the STEREO mission at https://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov every
day we see more activity in store over the Sun's eastern horizon.
You will recognize it as intense white splotches

Watching 6 meters on pskreporter.info on Wednesday night at 10:50 PM
PDT (0550 UTC Thursday) I noticed an odd late night opening in
western North America. Showing many long distance FT8 contacts, some
had positive signal reports, above the noise. This is notable
because most reports on this web site show negative signal strengths
of -17 to -20 dB, but one stood out. It was a 609 mile +5 dB signal
report from K6VVP in San Francisco (CM87rs) to WA7DUH in Eastern
Washington state (DN06hg). Later I saw a 727 mile report from KA9UVY
(EM58mk in Illinois) to N3OUC (FN20fm in Pennsylvania) at 0632 UTC
but the signal report at only -10 dB. Both reports showed the
frequency as 50.314 MHz.

Of course, when FT8 signal reports are above 0, the same path should
be viable for other modes, such as CW and SSB.

Michael May, WA8VLC/7 in Salem, Oregon wrote:

"It's been 2 weeks since an update and aside from some FT8, SSB and
CW DX and stateside on 6 meters, including Trinidad and Hawaii on
50.313 and some Midwest and eastern US and Canada on 6 meter FT8,
SSB and CW mostly last week, still the most interesting and weird
things still occurred on 10 meters both ham and non ham activity.

"On May 31 on 29.62 MHz FM I found the KQ2H repeater in New York in
for several hours and I spent most of the day talking to several
hams all over the Eastern and Southeast US on this repeater which
never faded for the entire day.

"I actually took an hour break and went to 10 SSB and worked French
Guiana on 10 SSB and when I came back the 29.62 repeater was still
20 dB over S9, this was simply the best 10 meter activity I have
seen in years on FM.

"10 meter weirdness again non-ham stuff:

"Last nite on June 9th UTC time at 0330 to 0355, me and another
Salem ham, K6FIB, both heard on 3 different radios at 2 different
locations and different antennas several non-ham french speaking
stations coming thru my 10 meter remote base on 29.6 FM speaking to
another much weaker non-ham for 15 minutes.

"At this time I zeroed my 4 el 10 meter Yagi to a ~195 degree
heading which put them somewhere in the Eastern Pacific, but where?

"After some searching around on other 10 meter frequencies I heard
similar voices on 28.700 FM speaking a similar French dialect but
this time there were two of them readable and one that appeared to
be a base station who was much stronger and another one he was
chatting with that was much weaker but still readable.

"After listening to the 28.700 FM transmission for half an hour the
strong one identified saying 'Pape'ete radio' at 0355 UTC and
several minutes later they slowly faded out.

"This would put these transmissions in Pape'ete in French Polynesia
but most interesting is that again there were no FM hams on in that
region on 10 meters.

"In the past 30 years I have never heard a ham station from these
locations on FM so not surprising at all; however, there were South
Pacific hams in ZL on 28.074 FT8 and 10 meter CW at the same time.

"These stations, aside from French speaking, sounded like a standard
FM Land Mobile agency that one would hear on VHF. But I am now
discovering more of these weird non-ham signals between 26 and 39
MHz from non US locations."

[Great investigative work, Michael! Readers may recall in ARLP022
Michael reported hearing North Korean squid fishermen on 10-meter
FM. Quite the catch. -K7RA]

"My recent logs, times in UTC:

"2021-06-06 2011 KC7I/KH6 50.313 FT8 BL10
2021-06-06 1950 9Y4D 50.313 FT8 FK90gg 2021-06-03 0359 K7EME 50.155 SSB DM42jh 2021-06-03 0358 K7ZYP 50.155 SSB DM41KX 2021-06-03 0232 W7PMS 52.560 FM DM34tn Prescott, AZ 2021-06-01 0207 WB7PMP 50.145 SSB EM95pu 2021-06-01 0205 K9PPY 50.125 SSB EN51xx 2021-06-01 0128 WS9V 50.092 CW EM59DL
2021-06-01 0118 W3HKK 50.099 CW EN80qe 2021-06-01 0108 K9PPY 50.095 CW EN51xx 2021-06-01 0103 K9MRI 50.099 CW EN70iu
1708 WA8FGV 50.125 SSB EN82ig
1705 K1EAR 50.125 SSB DN84lc 2021-05-31 0110 VE2XK 50.313 FT8 FN07pj 2021-05-31 0100 VE4VT 50.313 FT8 EN19kt

"10 meters on the KQ2H FM repeater, 29.62 in NY state and French
Guiana on 10 SSB.

"2021-05-31 1952 KR1COP 29.620 FM FN21tr
2021-05-31 1952 W2GGI 29.620 FM EL96wk 2021-05-31 1949 KD2VQR 29.620 FM FN21ro 2021-05-31 1945 KD2SBO 29.620 FM FN21TO 2021-05-31 1933 KK4ANE 29.620 FM EL97RV 2021-05-31 1932 AA2EC 10m 29.620 FM FN32dg
2021-05-31 1915 FY5HB 10m 28.441 SSB GJ34WH"

Jon Jones, N0JK reported from Kansas EM28 on Saturday, June 5:

"Saw the East Coast had a big Es opening to Europe all afternoon
June 4. Nil out here.

"May 30 and 31 good here. On May 31 had JA8JEP (QN03) in at -14 dB
2238z 50.323 MHz FT8.

"Today (June 5) XE2X spotted 9K2OD on 50.323 MHz FT8 at 1335z. That
is remarkable.

"2021-06-05 13:35 XE2X (EL06VC) 50.323.0 FT8
9K2OD (LL49AI) 12,871 km Multihop Sp-E FT8 -06 TNX LOUD"

Check https://bit.ly/359URNG for a video of the huge antenna array
built for the former Soviet over the horizon HF radar, the Russian
Woodpecker, a constant annoyance for HF operators a few decades ago.
Quite impressive, though!

The web site for the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New
Mexico, is:

https://www.apo.nmsu.edu

The latest video from Dr. Tamitha Skov, WX6SWW, can be found at:

https://youtu.be/1zpoInkZ_gE

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and the ARRL Technical Information
Service web page 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for June 3 through 9, 2021 were 28, 30, 30, 42, 53,
34, and 27, with a mean of 34.9. 10.7 cm flux was 75.5, 77.1, 74.4,
77.4, 80.8, 79.9, and 78.6, with a mean of 77.7. Estimated planetary
A indices were 6, 5, 4, 5, 12, 5, and 4, with a mean of 5.9. Middle
latitude A index was 8, 4, 4, 6, 15, 7, and 4, with a mean of 6.9.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33)

SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP025
ARLP025 Propagation de K7RA

ZCZC AP25
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 25 ARLP025
From Tad Cook, K7RA
Seattle, WA June 18, 2021
To all radio amateurs

SB PROP ARL ARLP025
ARLP025 Propagation de K7RA

Solar activity was lower this week, with average daily sunspot
number declining from 34.9 last week to 13.9 this week. This average
was affected by the one day with no sunspots, Saturday, June 12

Average daily solar flux dropped from 77.7 to 75.2. The Penticton
observatory in British Columbia (the source for 10.7 cm solar flux)
did not report a noon reading on Wednesday, June 16, so we averaged
the morning (76.9 at 1700 UTC) and afternoon readings (77.1 at 2300
UTC) to come up with 77 as a reasonable approximation.

Normally the local noon reading (2000 UTC) is the official number
for the day. You can get the three daily readings direct from the
Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at, https://bit.ly/35u12fU .

On Thursday the noon flux reading was 85, higher than its been since
May 26, when it was 88.

Predicted solar flux for the near term is 75 on June 18-20, 80 on
June 21-25, 77 on June 26-28, 78 on June 29 through July 7, 79 on
July 8-10, 77 on July 11-13, 76 on July 14-16, 78 on July 17, 80 on
July 18-20, then 78 on July 21, and 77 on July 22-25.

Predicted planetary A index is 12 on June 18, 5 on June 19-25, 7 on
June 26, 5 on June 27 through July 4, then 15, 10 and 8 on July 5-7,
5 on July 8, then 8 on July 9-11, then 10, 12, 20 and 12 on July
12-15, and 5 on July 16-22, then 7 on July 23.

I am very excited about this forecast for the current solar cycle
25, in which we are now seeing only the early stages:

https://bit.ly/2U7xt17

Forbes Magazine is reporting this:

https://bit.ly/2UbEG0m

"Geomagnetic activity forecast for the period June 18-July 15, 2021.

"Geomagnetic field will be:
quiet on: June 20, 24, 27-28, July 1, 10, 15
quiet to unsettled on: June 18-19, July 11, 14
quiet to active on: June 21, 23, 25-26, 29-30, July 2, 6-9
unsettled to active: (June 22, July 3-5, 12-13)
active to disturbed: - nothing!

"Solar wind will intensify on: June (18-19,) 21, (22-24, 29,) 30,
July (2,) 3, 5, 10-11.

"Remarks:
- Parenthesis means lower probability of activity enhancement.

"F.K. Janda, OK1HH (from Czech Propagation Interested Group
compiling this geomagnetic activity weekly forecast since January
1978)."

"Hi Tad,

"On June 4th-5th there was a very good 10M sporadic-E opening to
Europe which started well before I started at 2200 UTC. Ian, MM0TFU
was first in the log on 10 SSB with 58 reports both ways. Andy,
LZ2HM was next on CW with a good signal; no other EU stations within
1000 KM were worked. Most all of my QSOs were with the UK and
Ireland; I worked all 4 major UK DXCC countries. EI6JK and EI3EIB
were both loud after 2400 UTC, last QSO was 0022 UTC with a total of
about 20 EU QSOs. Signal levels were very good from most stations.

"On June 11th 10M was open on Es to somewhere most of the day. At
1900 UTC stations from FL and the Gulf Coast were loud including K4D
on Dog Island, IOTA NA-085, in the Big Bend area of the Gulf. Around
2000 UTC, I worked MO, NE, and MI. Then at 2200 UTC three very loud
VE3 stations from North Central Ontario. AC2CZ/VE2 in Montreal, PQ
running 12W to a dipole was next. Starting 2347 UTC I worked KS, MI,
MN, and IL before 2 double hop Es contacts after 2400 UTC with N7WWH
near the coast of north OR and KM6YSS in Canyon County, ID. At 0027
UTC, XE1XR in central Mexico was S9+ and easily worked followed by
Luis, XE2B at 0036 UTC. All contacts were on SSB.

"The ARRL June VHF contest was the 12th into the early hours of the
14th which found some sporadic-E most of the time. On 6M SSB and CW,
I made 130 QSOs with my poor performing Yagi. The Es started around
2230 UTC with stations in TN and TX and northern FL. Sunday morning
the 13th, Es started with W0WP in IA Grid EN42 and spread to other
W0s followed by an intense opening to the S and SW with my closest
contact being Ed, K3DNE in EM94 SC. Many GA stations were very loud
as were many in FL and some in TX and OK. I also caught Nova Scotia
and Newfoundland. At 1546 UTC, I found EA8BPX in the Canary Islands,
grid IL18, and was able to get through. In the afternoon many local
stations on FT8 were working EU stations mostly in Spain, France,
and Portugal. I worked F4ARU in France at 1834 UTC on SSB. Late
around 0100 UTC, the band was still open well to EM19 (NQ0P as loud
as a nearby local), EM49, and EM18.

"Today, the 17th there was an opening to Spain on 10M at 1950 UTC to
EA7HZ and EA3AR. My noise level was very high. MM0TFU was reporting
hearing beacons near my QTH and farther up the East Coast at
2200-2300 UTC. At 0012 UTC on the 18th, I worked VP9KD in Bermuda
who was S9+ for a new band slot on 10M SSB.

"73, Jeff N8II."

If you would like to make a comment or have a tip for our readers,
please email the author at, k7ra@arrl.net .

For more information concerning shortwave radio propagation, see http://www.arrl.org/propagation and 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/.

Instructions for starting or ending email distribution of ARRL
bulletins are at http://arrl.org/bulletins .

Sunspot numbers for June 10 through 16, 2021 were 29, 13, 0, 22, 11,
11, and 11, with a mean of 13.9. 10.7 cm flux was 73.3, 77.3, 77.6,
68.9, 76.8, 75.5, and 77, with a mean of 75.2. Estimated planetary A
indices were 5, 10, 10, 7, 4, 17, and 14, with a mean of 9.6. Middle
latitude A index was 5, 11, 8, 7, 7, 15, and 15, with a mean of 9.7.
NNNN
/EX
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (618:250/33)