Spotless Sun
 

Heralding the approach of the next Solar Minimum in a couple of years time today we have a completely spotless Sun. We'll see more and more of these as time passes. Solar activity cycles have been in decline over last few decades leading to some observers predicting another 'Maunder Minimum' period such as experienced in the 17th Century.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

But that isn't to say the Sun is calm. Yesterday this ferocious and gigantic firestorm was observed on the solar rim.

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv...load_id=135421

There was a time when Sparks would be concerned about solar activity because it could send HF comms down the toilet. Modern comms systems are equally vulnerable to the Sun's tantrums.

Spectacular sight though.

I am in the satellite business in a way, as I run a cable-TV system and downlink the programming from geo-stationary satellites. My dish-farm has 12 antennæ at the moment. Twice a year, around the equinoces the sun falls directly in line with each satellite in the equatorial arc in turn, the solar radiation obliterating all signals for around 15-20 minutes. This lasts for 4 - 5 days.
Although this has been happening since satellites were first placed in earth orbit the average member of the public is unaware of the phenomenon and doesn't even hear about it unless they watch cable-TV between 1100 and 1500 local time at their location.
Obviously non-geo-stationary satellites are affected as well but as they travel at 17000MPH the solar interference is momentary and obviated by the FEC methods used in the transport of whatever type of signal they are relaying.
It is entirely possible that a prolonged solar event could cause a more significant interruption of satellite signals which might well have catastrophic consequences for certain applications.

I remember the solar cycle that peaked around 1968 wasn't much of a cycle, and it followed the strongest one of the 20th century. The next one was predicted to be even weaker, instead it rose quickly after the minimum in 1976, in 1977 I was hearing stations using 25 mhz. The cycle after that was nearly as good, peaking in 1989, then came one like the 1960s cycle, and it's been downhill since. It's hard to describe how good it was then, that it was hard to listen sometimes because EVERYTHING was coming in at once. Of course, there were lots of storms, too.

The current cycle has seen quite a large decline in maxima.

http://www.solen.info/solar/images/c...ent_cycles.png

Yes the good days of 22Mcs and I do remember using 25Mcs with those ships fitted or with synthesisers. Can always remember the conversations about the sun spot activity and
whether to run search points on 22Mcs or double up on 16Mcs.

Neville - Hawkey01

I think I only ever worked on 25 Megs once, and that was to a Scandinavian Station who favoured that band back in the day. For sure the high end of the HF spectrum was often greatly at the mercy of an active Sun.
But then the entire HF spectrum is at the mercy of Ra the Sun God in a bad mood. (I'm not in anyway religious, far from it .. but if I had to have a god to worship, old Sol would be a definite contender, very big, very powerful, and very .. very necessary to our existence. Godlike in anybody's book.) :D

As an electronic ingnoramus, can I ask if this is the problem that was flagged up about GPS accuracy some time ago? That was stated to be possible due to "Sun Activity". I did think an inactive Sun would be a problem.

Remember Dellinger Fade outs ?
Dire warnings from GKA

Another one I remember was 'Sporadic E.' Bands of hooligan electrons roaming about causing trouble ...:sweat:

The Sun gets colder and the little band of ham-bone operatives get the shivers when shooting noon on a chilly bridge wing. This affects their cocked hat size adversely. Similarly the hand shakes when trying to put the aerial plug back in the GPS. (Had there been Sparkie to do the job then it would have been done, shakes or no shakes, we're used to that problem).

Alcohol improves the shakes, providing you can un-sync it from normal environmental shaking. :p

For anyone having an interest in solar activity, whether from radio ham activities or professionally as with Naytikos, there is a useful source of info here ... http://www.solarham.net/ , one that I use regularly.
On the subject of Maunder minima and the like, there is an interesting article here ...
https://howtheatmosphereworks.wordpr...rface-climate/ if you have the patience to work through it !
Regards ... Chas

That solarham site is good. :thumb:

I'll also add this site which gives daily updates on space phenomena directly connected to the Earth (Solar activity, auroras, near misses etc etc):

http://www.spaceweather.com/

I will give that site a miss. I worry about too many things these days.

I'll bugger off to vhf/uhf amateur bands for a few years :) Way too much local noise around here for the lower HF bands.

I'll wake up for Bouvet Island though, supposedly active in early 2018.

40m (7 MHz) is still good in the late afternoon here.

Colossal explosion on the Sun observed a couple of days ago. Fortunately on the far side, so no particular effects to be observed on Earth.

Hell of a bang though.

http://www.spaceweather.com/images20...9uedg8p1d83vg1

DMR....talk all over the world from your local repeater... ;-)

vkdmr.info

Well proving not so spotless, one enormous sunspot and another developing like the clappers nearby, possible flares from these could give HF a hard time in days to come.

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Bob#17 fascinating mate. How would you know about a big bangy thing on the other side of Sol? Spring time here and 20 degrees, just sayin'like.

Ad Del boy would say .... "It's all done by statellite thingies..." :sweat:

Or maybe a small mirror on an extremely long selfie stick......:sweat:

I've never seen one of these ... but I have to tell you ... I really want to. Top of my bucket list.

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indiv...load_id=139555

Due to a gigantic hole in the Sun's Corona we are getting a fair old blast of Solar Wind, which is giving rise to some spectacular aurora's.

This one from a few days ago ….

https://www.newsflare.com//video/245...aurora-iceland