Leaving aside the global warming/cooling debate for a moment... The British tabloid press completely misinterpreted Prof. Zharkova's presentation. It was a mathematical model that matched observed solar flux (and indirectly sunspots) better, offering some confirmation for the existing "dual dynamo" theory of solar cycles. However, the Zharkova paper says nothing at all about an ice age or any aspect of earth's weather or climate. The Zharkova team's work does predict very low activity sunspot cycles ahead. I think we have to allow for the possibility that the next solar cycle will be very weak. Buy those bigger lots for 160 meter antennas now, before demand goes up!
If solar cycle 25 tanks then galactic cosmic rays will swamp the D layer and make for poor night time 160 meter radio wave propagation conditions. That happened between solar cycle 23 and 24, very dismal conditions on 160 meters. I've been operating on 160 meters since 1989.
Forget bigger low-band antennas, because of this I'm increasing support and donations to ham HEO satellite projects! 73 de John - WØPV
I've found that in using digital modes such as JT65A and JT9 and simple dipoles I'm still able to make east-west contacts in summer and winter on the higher bands like 15, 12 and 10 meters, that are pretty much closed to SSB and even CW due to the declining radio wave propagation conditions. But these are not rag chew modes. If you want to rag chew you need to use PSK31, RTTY, MFSK16 and OLIVIA with MFSK16 and OLIVIA modes the best for varying band conditions. I've been on the digital modes since 2003 and am rarely on SSB and CW nowadays. Without the digital modes I probably would have gotten out of the hobby.
Thanks to Carl, K9LA, for another great presentation. You can view it at: http://wwrof.org/webinar-archive/solar-topics-where-were-headed/ I'm sometimes asked if these presentations can be used at radio club meetings. Absolutely! Thanks to WWROF for sponsoring another year of the Webinar program. 73 Ken K4ZW
