Picture for today is my tower and antenna at sunset last night.<\/p>\n
[Today’s run:\u00a0 2 miles with the dog,\u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday: 5 miles with the Boardtown runners]<\/p>\n
One of the aspects of ham radio that I have not very much explored is space weather.<\/p>\n
You might find that phrase “space weather” kind of strange.\u00a0 I do.\u00a0 Are there clouds and wind in space?\u00a0 In a radio context most of the weather in space is related to energy and particles which come to us from the sun.\u00a0 Also things like sunspots fall in this area.<\/p>\n
Radio signals go in more or less straight lines.\u00a0 Signals below a certain frequency\u00a0 (with longer wavelength) are turned back by the particles in our atmosphere and refract toward the earth.\u00a0 In this way a signal can be bounced between ground and sky and go clear around the globe.\u00a0 Our atmosphere is energized by energy that comes from the sun.\u00a0 So it has been established that which radio signals bounce (and which do not) is directly related to happenings on the sun.\u00a0 A few days ago there was a large solar flare, a discharge of stuff from the sun’s surface.\u00a0 If such a thing happens when the sun is pointed in our direction then we get a blast of energy. \u00a0 Over the course of a few days we receive light, then energized particles.\u00a0 Our atmosphere reacts and the nature of radio signal propagation changes.<\/p>\n
We had such an event, I believe it was on the 5th, and yesterday most of the usual radio activity down to about 10 Mhz was curtailed.\u00a0 There was a lot more noise and signals could not get through.<\/p>\n
This same effect causes Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.\u00a0 People were seeing Aurora lights down into the top rows of US states during the past few nights.<\/p>\n
But the radio spectrum is starting to calm down today and I am hearing signals again on the 14 mhz amateur radio band.<\/p>\n
As I said, I don’t know much about this area of radio exploration but I’m learning a bit.\u00a0 It is pretty amazing stuff.\u00a0 I find this little on-line write-up to be very helpful: Handyman’s Guide to Solar Activity and HF Propagation for the QRP’er<\/a><\/p>\n Picture for today is my tower and antenna at sunset last night.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/IMG00472-20110806-1959-700x525.jpg\" "\\"IMG00472-20110806-1959\\"")
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