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Solar Alert - wind speeds of 800 km/s expected

Discussion in 'Amateur Radio News' started by VE7DXW, Dec 8, 2020.

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  1. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    That is interesting because the RF-Seismograph was indicating a band opening. When I listened here at the West Coast the noise was very loud. It was mostly covered by S9+ noise, especially during the first storm on Dec. 09. You have to to hand it the digital modes they sure can operate in the worst conditions and get info through!!!
    Thank you for the info... NOAA also canceled the G3 event. I guess we dodged another bullet!
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2020
  2. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    The storm warning has been rescinded..., but there was a M5.9 and M6.0 in the South Pacific releasing at 20:42 UTC and the stronger one 6 min after.
     
  3. W1PJE

    W1PJE Ham Member QRZ Page

    RBN reported extensive CW contacts on 75/80 meters through the period in question. Noise floor for CW is at least 10-15 dB worse than FT8. So band was good enough for that as well.
     
  4. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    The solar flux is not affected by this "cloud", but it fragments the ionosphere and without it, there will be no skip. Solar radiation is needed to rebuild the ionosphere, so the bands will be rough for a few days. The higher the SF, the faster the ionosphere will recover.
     
  5. W1PJE

    W1PJE Ham Member QRZ Page

    Solar EUV flux, which ionizes the upper atmosphere, has already returned to its nominal levels. This means that each day, the normal process of production and loss starts again as the sun rises. What has changed since the (very minor) storm input is a minor redistribution of electron density beyond what would have normally occurred at quiet times. This means that some HF propagation paths may be altered as the electron density local minima and maxima move around and as the system gradually relaxes back to pre-storm conditions.

    This process can take hours to days, and since this one was so weak, I would expect that within a day (barring more CME impacts), we would be back to routine propagation at this point of emergence (slow) from solar minimum.

    It's important to understand that solar flux variations do not directly fragment the ionosphere. Rather, the competition between production, loss, and transport (by ions, and by neutrals blowing the ions around) is the source of ionospheric storm-time variation and recovery.

    It's also important to emphasize that long path skip, caused by refraction of the HF signal as it encounters the plasma in the ionosphere, occurs even on the quietest of non-storm days. Indeed, if it didn't, then HF communications would not be useful a good deal of the time - and Marconi, etc. showed that over 110 years ago.
     
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  6. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    M5.9 152 km NW of Neiafu Tonga 2020-12-10 20:48 10.0

    M5.9 south of the Kermadec Islands 2020-12-10 20:42 97.79

    M4.9 36 km SE of Yilan Taiwan 2020-12-10 18:15 64.63

    M5.0 146 km E of Laikit (Dimembe) 2020-12-10 15:04 33.26

    M4.7 38 km NNE of Istok Russia 2020-12-10 14:20 10.0

    M4.6 156 km ENE of Laikit (Dimembe) 2020-12-10 14:07 85.66

    M6.1 25 km E of Yilan Taiwan 2020-12-10 13:19 73.17

    M4.5 104 km ESE of Iquique Chile 2020-12-10 13:05 115.15

    M4.5 213 km WSW of Adak Alaska 2020-12-10 12:51 10.0

    M5.4 south of the Fiji Islands 2020-12-10 11:41 578.69

    M4.9 63 km S of Hualien City Taiwan 2020-12-10 05:29 34.78

    M4.9 92 km SE of Sand Point Alaska 2020-12-10 01:37 29.63

    M4.5 69 km WNW of Vallenar Chile 2020-12-10 00:46 29.22

    and many more minor ones!
     
  7. W1YW

    W1YW Ham Member QRZ Page

    How do you NOT know that each earthquake caused the next one on your list?
     
  8. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    Thankfully we dodged the bullet... it is like doing a fire drill... if you are not ready for it and it really is the real thing it is going to be a lot more difficult to recover and to keep a clear head in the process!
     
  9. VE3VXO

    VE3VXO Guest

    Tin foil? You guys are not understanding this, forget the tinfoil, I was wondering when it would be safe to crawl out from behind the couch. Nerve wracking. That's the best place to be in case the roof collapses right? Man it was hard to keep the dogs back there all night though. Thank goodness we have a watchdog in the snow keeping a watchful eye on this issue to let us know when we should run for cover. Apparently there is an ancient fault line that runs through my area and I'm thinking since it has been dormant for so long, that's like playing the same one arm bandit for a long time right? You just know it's gonna pay soon, and I'm thinkin all it's gonna take is one of these solar events to trigger it off, and since it has been dormant for so long, prolly has a lot of pent up nastiness to unleash, so you just know it's gonna be the big one they have been warning us about. Plus don't forget all the fracking that is pissing off the bedrock. Next time we get one of these nasty CME's....who knows, but for sure there is a time bomb ticking beneath us. Oh well. There's nothing for it but just wait. Forget the ammo can, you need to put your radios in a vault that can survive a ton of rubble falling on it. I'm thinking of a go box with I-beam construction. Like those jacks that stop tanks. That's really the only way to protect your rig from what is comming, the tinfoil is just window dressing.
     
  10. W1PJE

    W1PJE Ham Member QRZ Page

    One more update: the storm was essentially a non-event. Peak electron density in the F2 layer today was completely within the normal range of variability for the past 5 days - plot of conditions over Boulder CO below, courtesy of NOAA/NCEI. (As this is written, the UT day has clocked over, so examine the red curve as that's the post-"storm" day.). So this one was a fizzle and an interesting forecast failure. But that does not mean storms are non-effective; just this one.
     

    Attached Files:

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  11. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    This is what Pt. Arguello recorded
    upload_2020-12-11_5-10-22.png
     
  12. W1PJE

    W1PJE Ham Member QRZ Page

    Yes, essentially the same - red line is completely within variability of the previous 5 days (green) = no storm effect. (Red has obvious outliers between 19 and 22 UTC.)
     
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  13. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    What do the spikes represent?
     
  14. W1PJE

    W1PJE Ham Member QRZ Page

    Ionograms are analyzed by software to extract things like f0F2, and these values then are piled up to make the time plot. The software is not perfect, although it does a very good job overall.

    Consider: each spike is only a single point on the graph. That immediately raises worries. Geophysical variability is governed by diffusion, transport, production, and loss equations, and numerical scales for variations are not even close to being that fast. If you went back and had a trained expert evaluate each individual ionogram through that period, they would be identified as measurement outliers. Without seeing the input ionograms, I think some kind of RFI came along and fooled the algorithm.

    Occam's razor points to these as instrumental artifacts, even without manually inspecting each ionogram. Port Arguello is station PA836 in the UM Lowell digisonde network, so they would give the final verdict if needed.
     
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  15. VE7DXW

    VE7DXW Ham Member QRZ Page

    Why was there no or only a weak solar storm:

    Spaceweather.com might have the answer. Turns out we were saved by the fact that the magnetic field that extended with the CME was pointed north. That amplified the earth magnetic field and deflected most of the particles around the planet.

    Check the website for more info...

    https://www.spaceweather.com/
     
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