Sorry all. As a former EC of ARES, "EMCOMM" has chased more once willing volunteers away for emergency preparedness than I care to recall. To that end, we supposed to ready for pretty much any conditions in an emergency. At least, we WERE and the string of available and willing volunteers was encouraging for an EC and the EOCs that invited us onboard in an emergency
SFI high , in 90s, and QRZ says 30-20 good. Why then around 1600UTC I heard almost nothing on 20M, even FT8 was dead.
Can't tell if you are being snarky or actually don't understand the difference. Can you elaborate for us which it is and then maybe we can help you understand how the current solar conditions could affect an individuals personal emergency communications? Cheers
Often I don't find either A or K that useful when compared to on the air real conditions. When we had fadeouts and dead 20m and 40m a few nights ago the K was 2 or 3. K is every 3 hours but A seems kind of useless since it's just the last 24 hours average. Conditions vary greatly based on locations on earth but use a global averaging. What I found most interesting are the GOES X-Ray Flux 1-minute graphs which did seem to correlate closely to what I was hearing on the air.
I don't think one can rely on predictions anymore as all I have seen do not consider the earths weakening magnetic field. What I saw in past cycles just doesn't seem to translate to today either. It's weird and not like before. Being said we didn't have near the same curtain of manmade RFI we have today and location must play a role in it too. I am going to check out the 1 minute graphs as stated above now but still just rely on checking the bands as I go.
NASA and ESA both state the earth's magnetic field has decreased only 9% in the last 200 years. That's barely 1.4% in the last two Solar Cycles. I doubt it is having a major influence on RF propagation. No scientific reports have indicated such an effect.
I will post references as you like to cherry pick data to force your conclusions.... https://phys.org/news/2020-05-swarm-probes-weakening-earth-magnetic.html. Your not telling the whole story as usual so everyone just read this article. Lot more going on other then averages. I alerted to this issue when in certain parts of the world they have had to renumber runways. Been a constant for near a hundred years but in the past 20 the field has been shifting and accelerating. Would you question it if your amplifier lost 9% of its output? Maybe a fool would not. What most don't know or understand is this in relation to cosmic rays. As the field weakens it allows a much greater number of cosmic rays to penetrate. In relation to that is an increase in bit errors in computers. EASA had strong reason to believe that such bit errors where the cause of at least one crash and other failures on airbus aircraft which forced Airbus to change the error correction modes in the their software. Also been blamed on satellite errors and Scada systems. Could this also effect radio? I tend to think this should be explored. The field isn't just weakening it is accelerating. I said in our realm of radio these changes bear notice as its a part of radio propagation. To just poo poo it away is hubris.
MY cherry picking relates to the Average Magnetic Field of the entire Earth. YOUR cherry picking relates to the limited South Atlantic Anomaly. Which more accurately reflects the influences upon the entire earth's ionosphere? The SAA is a 'thin spot", a "pothole". It is not reflective of the earth's entire magnetic field strength. [EDIT] From the article we both reference: "Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average. 9% /200 yrs = .0045% per yr * 11 yr solar cycle = 0.495% decrease per solar cycle in magnetic field strength [edit] Note that N1IPU has not cited any statement from NASA or ESA or research report stating that ionospheric RF propagation is decreasing due to magnetic field changes. Bottom Line: The earth's average magnetic field and it's related effect upon the ionosphere is NOT collapsing at some dramatic rate. The South Atlantic Anomaly is not gobbling up DX propagation. "Back to our regular exaggeration and fear mongering on The Zed".
