Our Sun Dims After Storming: Solar Storm Forecast 05-23-2019

I am confused.. I appreciate the creativity of hosting these videos, and I acknowledge the vast education she has over my education, but come on, I have worked DX all week, including 2 meter morning openings, 6 meters is on fire, 10 meters is wide open.. But on this video we continue to push that radio propagation is poor? It's almost like people are capitalizing on "poor conditions" and giving people no hope..... What you may not understand, is if you tell someone the band conditions are poor, they will NOT turn on the radio..

 

This video is predicting conditions for the future. Yes, the solar storm that hit us provided a rare enhancement at the bottom of the cycle, but she is saying that enhancement is ending as the regions that provided the enhancement aren't visible from the Earth.

 

On the up side of this rather disappointing forcast there may be a silver lining around Field Day 2019. If the sun becomes more active as it comes back around the SFI may rise for that weekend activity. I received my novice in August of 67 and my general in February of 68 and HF was still pretty nice but hit rock bottom around 72. The summer of 77 it a nice again. After basic and itr at Came Pendleton I was shipped off to England for 2 years and managed to receive a British call. And state side propagation was outstanding. My neighbor was a ham and allowed me unlimited access to his equipment. I have seen several cycles bottom out but this cycle seems worse than all the predecessors. Now retired I live at 8100' in northern New Mexico on a mesa between mountain's. Worse area on earth in my opinion for HF. I typically see S3 levels on all bands but most signals are near that as well. CW, RTTY and PSK are my most enjoyment. Would like to see SSB come back to life. If life will give me 2 more solar peaks I'll expire a happy man.

 

Thanks for the great video!


Hex#01

 

Yup. She is a cutie!!

 

YZI - Knowingly or not, you backed up what Bonnie (KQ6XA) posted on 05/25 in response to this same article - the potential for Sporadic E propagation. But I think you also made a good point about setting expectations for bad conditions and how that can keep people off the air (or get people on it). For example...

CQ WW WPX CW Contest today. Dial up & down 20m CW band and tell me the band is "dead". HF conditions per N0NBH solar data at the time I'm posting this indicates 20m should be dead when right now it sounds just the opposite. So yeah - pack the band with every op capable of getting on the air and make it their mission in life to rack up as many contacts as possible, and I bet those dead bands will come alive...at least until the contest is over.

BTW - right now my station is kitchen table portable w/an old MP-1 on my backyard deck and my FT897 set-up on my kitchen table. Compromise set-up but still the bands are alive. Also too hot & muggy for field work today, so playing "pretend" indoors.

 

HUH?

 

Nice video, excellent pictures. Please know that we are at a solar minimum, it is an 11 year cycle. However, if you build it they will come. Get on the airwaves.

 

Lots of Dx out there. Like one author said look and ye shall find. 20 during the day, Roberto on 40 meters at night from Italy, 30 over sometimes.

 

I do agree with KJ4YZI (man, I always watch your videos on youtube):
the band are not totally dead, still usable even if I am using a compromise (vert) antenna, in a compromise location (my QTH is surrounded by mountains in the Alps).

With my vertical antenna and 100w rig this evening I worked Brasil, Puerto Rico,
Ghana, Algeria, Gibraltar, Bosnia, all contacts were made in CW.

20m, 40m, 30m, 17m were not at best conditions ("poor"
is fine) but just quite usable.

Hope that more Hams will turn on the radio, so we will find some people
answering to our calls. Otherwise we will make the bands desert, although
they are not dead.

Oh, and I really love Dr Tamitha Skov and her forecasts. She made me better
understand how the sun affects some phenomena on earth.

73 de IU2IJW,
Italy

 

Excellent! In 10 minutes I learned more about the sun spot index than the previous several years.

Well presented and very informative.= Thanks

 

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