AmateurRadio.com

courtesy: NOAA

Last weekend’s CLE240 saw mediocre propagation for North America and European listeners alike.





It seems that our monthly CLE schedule continues to be synced with the Sun’s monthly rotational period that has been regularly lining us up with the same massive coronal hole, elevating earth-directed solar wind speeds now for several months.

Several CLE participants in the USA commented on the lack of any propagation into BC, further fueling my long-held belief that BC seems particularly sensitive to any geomagnetic activity in the auroral zone to our north. The auroral activity always seems to dip further to the south here for some anomalous reason, as listeners just a few hundred miles to the south or southeast see far less absorption than is observed here.

With a few exceptions, the main effect of these conditions is to largely kill the normal east-west propagation path and just allow single-hop signals from the south or the SE/NW to dominate. Typically, the path to the Pacific is not affected and can often be enhanced.

As a side observation, this past weekend was also the CQWW 160m DX contest and, as one left-coaster commented, conditions were the “worst seen in 10 years”. One would expect to see much better conditions and a much quieter Sun at this point in the solar cycle!

With fingers crossed for better propagation during the next CLE, here is what was logged over the three-night listening event from my location here in BC’s Southern Gulf Islands using a Perseus SDR and an Inverted-L antenna resonated to 400 kHz:

26 05:00  385     QV            Yorkton, SK, CAN
26 07:00  385     OCC         Yakutat, ALS
26 09:00  385     MR           Pacific Grove, CA, USA
26 09:00  385     EHM         Cape Newenham, ALS
27 07:00  385     CPZ          Chaparrosa Ranch, TX, USA
26 07:00  386     SYF           St. Francis, KS, USA
26 09:00  386     HAU         Helena, MT, USA
26 06:00  388     OK           Preston, OK, USA
26 07:00  388     MM          Fort Mc Murray, AB, CAN
26 07:00  388     JW           Pigeon, AB, CAN
26 06:00  388     CDX         Somerset, KY, USA
26 06:00  389     YWB         Kelowna, BC, CAN
26 04:00  389     TW           Twin Falls, ID, USA
26 07:00  389     CSB          Cambridge, NE, USA
26 07:00  390     HBT          Sand Point, ALS
26 11:00  390     AES          Northway, ALS
26 04:00  391     TK            Telkwa, BC, CAN
26 11:00  391     GXD          Nacogdoches, TX, USA
26 07:00  391     EEF           Sisters Island, ALS
26 06:00  391     DDP          Dorado, PTR
26 09:00  392     ZFN           Tulita, NT, CAN
26 05:00  392     PNA           Wenz, WY, USA
26 05:00  392     ML            Charlevoix, QC, CAN
26 08:00  392     FMZ          Fairmont, NE, USA
26 10:00  393     UKS           Kosrae, FSM
26 04:00  394     RWO         Kodiak, ALS
26 07:00  394     DQ            Dawson Creek, BC, CAN
26 07:00  395     YL             Lynn Lake, MB, CAN
26 04:00  395     ULS           Ulysses, KS, USA
26 07:00  395     5V             Drumheller, AB, CAN
26 07:00  396     YPH           Inukjuak, QC, CAN
26 05:00  396     CRS          Corsicana, TX, USA
26 05:00  396     CMJ          Ketchikan, ALS
26 07:00  397     ZSS            Saskatoon, SK, CAN
27 12:00  397     SB             San Bernardino, CA, USA
26 10:00  398     YOD         Cold Lake, AB, CAN
26 06:00  398     3D            Cumberland House, SK, CAN
26 11:00  399     ZHD         Dryden, ON, CAN
26 11:00  399     SRI           Pribilof, ALS

A summary of results for all participants can be found here, at the ndblist info site.