Topband: Moonlight & K-sums

[Bill Tippett]

	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