NASA to host live Q&A on tracking our next Solar Cycle

If you love chasing DX, then you know our Sun goes through regular cycles of activity approximately every 11 years, and tracking these cycles is a key part of better understanding HF propagation and the Sun's impacts on human technology.

Join scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for a special episode of NASA Science Live on Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 3 p.m. EDT as they discuss predictions for the upcoming solar cycle. HAMs can send questions during the event using #AskNASA on Twitter or by leaving a comment in the chat section on Facebook.

NASA will also host a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) at 4 p.m. on Sept. 15, featuring several experts discussing the announcement and science of the solar cycle. Questions can be submitted to the event when it begins.

73!

 

This is my personal prognostication but I'm a professional pessimist and card carrying member of the Legion of Handwringers.

 

Not too worried about it. Hope it is better than your prediction.

 

It seems there is more hyper concern over sunspots today in the world of amateur radio than in past decades. It could be this is one of the impacts compromise antennas are having on the ham radio culture; and a reason for the popularity of digital weak signal modes.

 

If you like the high bands, solar flux is your friend and but if you're a forty meter cw or data op, not much changes. I do miss the high and around phone ask though with my ten meter mobile. But more flux also means more crowding and pileups particularly if the proposed ARRL gameplay is legally adopted.

 

It will be. Just how much better remains to be seen. I have been through a few solar minima now, but this one is the worst by far for plum stubbornness. Even when I was a teenager and time seemed to drag by in dog years, this has got that beat. Still, there's lots of DX to be had, just not anything very exciting lately. Regardless, DX IS!

 

I heard and worked a lot of EU on 20m past couple days during the WAE contest though nothing too rare or needed but it was nice to see the activity. I worked a bunch barefoot at 60-70W on SSB with no issues.

I am working on an amp repair but still not too difficult to be honest even barefoot. The lack of any DXpedition I need on my path to Honor roll combined with a lot of FT8 makes the excitement a whole lot less for me but this is a good time to get the shack and antennas prepped for whatever comes of the new solar cycle. I am putting up a second tower in next 18 months with the same antenna I had up before Mosley S33 with a 6m seven element above it and can't wait for SC25 to come. Even if it is poorer than SC24, it will still be a lot of fun. fourteen more to go to the lower end of DXCC Honor roll. I won't do any new ones on FT8 for honor roll though on low bands i do bend my own internal rules on no digi.

 

6m is my favorite. If we don't have a decent cycle, it might be a FT8 only band. Lol. May never see or hear another SSB or CW signal on that band again.

 

Those solar disks make my eyes go weird. ArgghhH!

 

You might find this better. I created it for a DX web page I had a couple of solar cycles ago.

 

Keith, I'm waiting for SC 25 and it can't be worse than it is now!!! Like you I need 13 more to get to Honor Roll. 327 confirmed and that was done with SC24. DX is what it is.
73 de AC5O Jeff

 

The "11 year solar cycle" actually lasts from 9-14 years. That is not the only cycle the sun goes through. Some last hundreds of years and others last a thousand years or longer.

These alleged scientists cannot accurately produce a hypothesis since somewhat intelligent humans have only been on Earth a few thousand of Earth's several billion year life.

As with climate change, polar reversals, the solar system and so much more, these scientists are rarely close to being accurate yet still reap large salaries. If anyone else failed at their job as much as these "scientists" do, we would be quickly terminated.

Instead of wasting time on their fabricated fiction, just get on the radio and be "radioactive" by any and all means. When HF is not cooperating, play around on VHF/UHF, build and install new antennas, rearrange the shack etc.

 

Most wait for the miracle of the sun, few operators worry about better antennas, look for a better reception, experiment!
Many QAP stations and few calling CQ or DX, at least in my area.
Excuse my English, I use a translator
73
good contacts

 

Sometimes reading reports of solar activity this and coronal ejection that I feel like an Etruscan priest might have, trying to make predictions based on the entrails of a sheep. (For those who care this is called haruspicy.) Still, nothing lasts forever and sooner or later Old Sol will come back. Let's hope it is sooner.