[TowerTalk] Sunspot Free - A New Grand Minimum ?? *%$^#

[N1BUG]

I'm covered either way. While I do enjoy the higher HF bands during
solar max, and wish I had been able to be on 6 meters early enough
to catch some real F2 there (not possible while neighbors were
insisting on watching channel 2 with OTA antennas in a very fringe
area), I also very much enjoy chasing DX on low bands. 160m really
comes alive at solar minimum! I have just as much fun with that at
solar minimum as I do high bands and solar maximum. It's the in
between years when neither is all that good that I wish we could
skip. Last winter I was busy concentrating on 2200 meters, surely
not a mainstream band but it was fun making the first three (and to
date, only) US to Europe QSOs on the band. With limited experience I
suggest there is evidence that LF improves greatly at solar minimum
also. I'm hoping the lull in solar activity continues through this
winter!

73,
Paul N1BUG



On 9/11/19 4:57 PM, Ken Bauer via TowerTalk wrote:
> Speaking of the Maunder Minimum, for those of you who are so
> inclined, there is an interesting juried paper published online
> in Nature
> 
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45584-3
> 
> arguing that we are entering the next “Grand Minimum” which
> should run from 2019 through 2055. Even if I outlive it, I
> certainly won’t be on the air :-(  That and K0CAT’s  very
> informative series of articles in Lenoir, NC ARC online
> newsletter beginning 6/2017, chronicling his adventures raising
> his tower and antennas, has dampened my enthusiasm for jumping
> right in to tackle my first tower, now that I’m past my
> mid-sixties. Will adopt a “wait and see” attitude and play with
> wire antennas in the tall firs for a few years and hope that
> cycle 25 is close to cycle 24 (hope NOAA is right) or (dare I
> hope) even better, rather than just staying where we are for the
> rest of my life. (See the Wikipedia article on Maunder Minimum
> which cites 19th century papers by Sporer stating from 1672 to
> 1699 there were a total of 50 sunspots observed in the twenty
> five years; 1,000x less that what would be normal for a 25 year
> period.)
> 
> What do you think guys? Say it ain’t so!
> 
> (Otherwise may have to focus on data modes with forward error
> correcting codes and operate below the noise level, or maybe get
> into VHF DXing, but have always loved the magic of HF and the
> Ionisphere)
> 
> 73, Ken WC6Y
> 
>> On Sep 11, 2019, at 6:16 AM, jimlux <jimlux at earthlink.net>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> On 9/11/19 6:05 AM, Don Havlicek wrote:
>>> There have been minor sunspot regions in the past year, but
>>> nothing sustaining. 73 Don N8DE Sent from my Verizon Motorola
>>> Smartphone On Sep 10, 2019 9:45 PM, john at kk9a.com wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Wow, what is the record?  I guess I haven't missed much
>>>> being QRT since the March WPX contest:)
>>>> 
>>>> John KK9A - PJ4R
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> The record? Probably the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1715
>> 
>> And as always, there's some discussion in the scientific
>> community about what constitutes a sunspot, what the
>> correlation between sunspot number (or Smoothed Sunspot number)
>> and solar activity is, etc.
>> 
>> The propagation models all take SSN as an input, but what
>> really affects the ionosphere is the intensity of the UV light
>> falling on it - unfortunatately, there were no orbiting
>> satellites to measure UV insolation nor any ionosondes back
>> then, so counting visible sunspots serve as a proxy for solar
>> activity.


-- 
Paul
N1BUG  2200m-70cm
FN55mf  ME  Piscataquis County
http://www.n1bug.com
http://www.aurorasentry.com