AmateurRadio.com

courtesy: https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

This past weekend's CLE event was, as is so often the case, perfectly timed with the arrival of poor propagation in most parts of the world. This time around, it was particularly bad.

The 'Co-ordinated Listening Event' might more aptly be called the 'Cursed Listening Event' as once again the same large coronal hole (shown above) that has been present for several solar rotations seems to be more disruptive than ever. The subsequent higher than normal solar wind speeds causing widespread auroral conditions and elevated K indices have pretty much made a mess of MF and HF radio for the past several days.

courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

NDB-band recordings made with the Perseus SDR for the three-night event turned up very little activity other than a few strange hot-spots. Both 'OIN' in Kansas and 'CC' in California were strong on all three nights! Nothing from eastern Canada was heard and one of Alaska's strongest signals, 'ELF', was barely detected. Only the following few stations were logged:

23 08:00 341.0    ELF  Cold Bay, ALS
22 06:00 338.0    ZU   Whitecourt, AB, CAN
22 06:00 343.0    YZH  Slave Lake, AB, CAN
22 04:00 344.0    YC   Calgary, AB, CAN
22 12:00 338.0    RYN  Tucson, AZ, USA
22 04:00 344.0    XX   Abbotsford, BC, CAN
22 12:00 335.0    CC   Concord, CA, USA
22 10:00 344.0    FCH  Fresno, CA, USA
22 08:00 341.0    OIN  Oberlin, KS, USA
22 04:00 344.0    BKU  Baker, MT, USA
24 08:00 335.0    BK   Brookings, SD, USA
22 04:00 347.0    PA   Prince Albert, SK, CAN
22 08:00 338.0    K    Port Angeles, WA, USA
22 04:00 348.0    MNC  Shelton, WA, USA
22 05:00 341.0    DB   Burwash, YT, CAN

I suspect the this same coronal hole will be with us for several more rotations ... perhaps it's time fool Ol' Sol and stagger our CLE's 28-day cycle so it doesn't continue go sync-up with poor band conditions but somehow I think that Murphy might not be so easily duped!