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Topband: Moonlight & K-sums

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Topband: Moonlight & K-sums
From: Bill Tippett <btippett@alum.mit.edu>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:35:03 -0400
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
        When conditions were very good last
week, someone mentioned to me the "moonlight"
theory of enhanced conditions, which has been
discussed here from time to time.  Seems like
we have an opportunity to test this theory since
moonlight peaked on October 17, and yet the K
index has varied quite a bit over the past week.

        Here's K-index data from the NOAA site:

http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/indices/dayind/

Date            K-Sum (of 3 hour indices)

11 Oct          10
12 Oct  01  <--exceptionally low!
13 Oct  08
14 Oct  05
15 Oct  03
16 Oct  15
17 Oct  20  <--full moon
18 Oct  11

        I'll not draw conclusions but
simply present the data for you to view
and compare with your own log data.
One interesting thing was that we had
some very early openings to Europe
last week.  On 14 Oct at 2201z, I had
a QSO with G3XGC almost 50 minutes
before my sunset, and I noticed similar
reports from many others.  I heard Geoff
even earlier before signals were strong
enough to make contact.

                        73,  Bill  W4ZV

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