I learned a few things about the inner workings of the sun by reading this article:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17jun_jetstream.htm?list1061202

The sun has an internal “jet stream� that shifts latitude with the solar cycle. It’s been sluggish, but they’ve now seen it move back to where it should be headed (albeit a year or so late).

Look for sunspots and better HF radio propagation in the days ahead.

1. It’s a Cycle 23 spot… this means that Solar Cycle 23 has now lasted roughly 13 years.
2. It’s May 1st and we’ve already had 104 days without sunspots. 88% of 2009 has been without sunspots and now we get one but it’s from the last solar cycle? Odd.
3. Some (N4ZO) on the internet have claimed this could be the start of another Dalton Minimum (a period of drastic global cooling that could last 20+ years). OK – that could be a bit alarmist.

One thing is for certain… there is a lot to be learned about the sun. We haven’t even scratched the surface (so to speak) of solar propagation forecasting.

In case you don’t follow space weather conditions, August marked the first calendar month completed without a single sunspot since 1913.  This long streak of days without a sunspot made for some poor HF (high frequency radio) propagation conditions.  While it was certainly possible to work DX (make long distance contacts) using HF radio without sunspots – your probability of a successful “QSO” was greatly reduced.

The HamLinks Ham Radio Toolbar just updated its radio propagation data to show:

A:3 K:0 SF:67 SS:12

That “SS:12″ means a “sunspot number” of 12… This sunspot number value is a calculated number that takes into account several variables – but it does indicate that there is at least one spot on ole Sol.

It’s only one small spot – but it is an indication that cycle 24 is finally here. Some had argued that the cycle had already hit bottom, but it’s nice to see this particular run of sunspot-free days come to an end.

Whew! It’s about time.

. .

After several intermediate versions, some beta testing of this version by a number of ham radio operators, and a lot of help by Trevor, Propfire is once again working as expected.  Release 0.73.15 is now posted on my website and has been submitted for Firefox add-on review.

So, although I can’t guarantee that we’ll see more sunspots (sigh), at least Propfire is again compatible with Firefox.  

Thanks again to Trevor and the beta testers.

Next year’s contesting should bring much better propagation and the following years will see greater solar activity. I certainly hope that Cycle 24 is kind to ham radio.

HF ham radio enthusiasts are undoubtedly asking something similar of Sol. Hitting the bottom of the sunspot cycle trough between cycle 23 and cycle 24 has tested my patience a bit.  The lowband DXers are having some fun on 80 meters and 160 meters, but I’m still “lowband antenna” challenged. A new set of antennas (for 40-10 meters), a tower, etc. certainly help but without some decent HF radio propagation indices, breaking through to the E4 dxpedition to Bethlehem  just couldn’t happen.

At least we saw some sunspots in December though (at one point the sunspot number was in the mid-40s, but it has since dropped back to 0). That’s the best set of numbers we’ve had since June.  I’m hopeful that 2008 will launch sunspot cycle 24 leading to some great HF radio propagation conditions.

Anyway, the Propagation Status utility is (once again) updating with current HF radio propagation data. If you would like to show HF radio propagation data on your website, then check it out.  It’s free.

Likewise, I had to make a few updates to restore the DXpedition Map (interactive map showing upcoming ham radio DXpeditions).

More changes to come. I’ve recently updated my Ham Radio Product Review system. The improvements there are going to make this a much better way to review ham radio equipment. Stay tuned.

DXpedition Map
The first in line for an update was the DXpedition map. For some reason, this drew the attention of some lids http://www.eham.net/links/rating/10338 who took the opportunity to bash the page. Either they:

• haven’t figured out what the page was about (don’t know what a DXpedition is)
• don’t have Flash installed
• or genuinely have a problem with the page

If you have a problem getting this page to work, feel free to let me know and I’ll look into it. The place to discuss it is the DXpedition Map forum. Don’t bash it anonymously on the eham site and expect me to help.

Propfire, the Propagation Add-on for Firefox
Next in line came some much needed enhancements to Propfire. While Propfire has been out for awhile, there have been a few requests for changes. Within the past few revs, I’ve added:

• Polling frequency (5 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour). Some guys thought that checking every 5 minutes was too frequent (bandwidth?). Anyway, an option for 1 hour should answer that.
• Sunspot number (SSN)
• Mini-mode. To conserve statusbar real estate, you can use mini-mode which only shows the solar flux number. Hover your mouse over the solar flux value to get the popup display with A-Index, K-Index and SSN.
• Menu redesign. Ok – a confession, I wanted to have a slashed zero (Ø) in my callsign on the menu. Once I started redesigning the Propfire menu, I went ahead and made some other changes and added some links that might be useful to those interested in HF propagation.

I’m still needing to get back to the MobileLog 2 to DXKeeper interface.

PropagationStats should again be fully functional for those who put it on their websites. The new scheme periodically polls the NOAA site and generates a single text file which is then grabbed by the flash code in PropagationStats – making my ISP happy.
Doing a quick internet search, I did come across a few cool ham radio sites using Propstats:

• Bangladesh Amateur Radio League
• Magnolia DX Association
• S50U Ham Radio Site
• Flagler Emergency Communications Association (F.E.C.A.)
• Montana Amateur Radio Emergency Services
• N6AQ Amateur Radio Community
• Milpitas Amateur Radio and Electronic Society
• Del-DX
• KC5LK
• G3VRE Chippenham UK Club
• University of Mississippi ARC
• K6RF
• KTØY
• Motorola ARC
• EA1WX ARS Spain

That’s folks in at least 5 countries using this little flash program.

If you find more sites using it or want to use it yourself, shoot me an email or note it here.

73
Pat

http://www.n0hr.com

This is unfortunate and will cause me to think about another approach or scrapping the whole thing. Shame.