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Winter 2005 Issue |
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The Solar Hits Keep Coming |
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At the beginning of November 2004 a series of
coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were observed coming from an active sunspot
on the sun, resulting in a buckshot effect that happened to be
Earth-directed. Indeed, even though we are on the downside of solar Cycle
23, with the overall sunspot count generally below 100 and the solar flux
below 150, solar events are still occurring!
As these events were Earth-directed, it was a
matter of two days before the amateur radio bands were impacted by the
subsequent geomagnetic activity. As expected, the impact of multiple CMEs
on the Earth’s geomagnetic field severely reduced HF activity. However,
VHFers rejoiced at the potential aurora activity, and they were not to be
disappointed. I was scheduled for a trip to Las Vegas with my XYL on November 8th, so I was busy packing, yet keeping an eye on the 6-meter chat page of DXer.info for any reports of aurora. When the reports started coming in, I took some time out to work stations on 6 meters from my location on Long Island, New York.
Signals on 6 meters were very strong, and I
was hearing stations farther west than I normally do during an aurora
opening. I was able to work KB8U in EN71 and NN9K in EN41, along with many
other grids closer to me. At times some of the signals from the 8 and 9
call areas of the U.S. seemed to exhibit traces of auroral-E and were
changing between aurora tones and auroral-E tones. Click here to return to Winter 2005 highlights Click here to subscribe to VHF _________________ © Copyright 2005, CQ Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced or republished, including posting to a website, in part or in whole, by any means, without the express written permission of the publisher, CQ Communications, Inc. Hyperlinks to this page are permitted.
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