News from the Sterling Park Amateur Radio Club (SPARC)

Hi,

We had a good meeting on Monday. Reviewed and updated the plan (see our web site (www.qsl.net/sterling) and follow the links).

There are a couple of issues to still be resolved:

We are missing an antenna. The Butternut vertical antenna from Jim, AF4MO, which we were goign to use for the HF RTTY station will not be available. We need another antenna. One option is to use the homebrew Inverted Vee that Don, K7CS, plans on assembling and putting up. If someone has another option, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Bill, WF1L, will apparently not be joining us. We were counting on him to generate the Additional Points for "Message Origination to Section Manager"(100 pts) and "Message Handling" (10 messages at 10 pts each for 100 Points). We need someone to generate this message traffic.

Otherwise all is coming along well. The chance of rain is down to 20 percent and the temperature is forecast to be 90 degrees during the day.

I found our scores from the past 3 field days and posted them on our web page. With some effort we should be able to surpass our ranking from last year.

*We set the Party Time for 6 PM on Saturday. Bring some food and drink and come out for some comaraderie. *

See you at antenna raising and see you all at Field Day.

73,
Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

Another month has gone bye and it has been busy. We held a successful awards ceremony at the Manassas Hamfest. I hope to post pictures in a few day. Plaques have been mailed to those who could not attend and the certificates should be mailed within a few days.

At our meeting on Monday, Dick, W2YE, and Bill, , KC4ATU, explain the "Operation of the Incoming QSL Buro." This is one of the major activities of the Club and Dick has always done an excellent job in managing the service. I am looking forward to learning more about the Buro.

Field Day is next weekend. I have posted a draft plan on our web site based upon the discussion at the last meeting. We will be a 3A station as we were last year. The major change is a party starting at around 6 PM - a time for all to get together.

The major outstanding issues are setting up an operator roster and devising a rainy weather plan.

The final piece of business is the election of officers for next year. The present officers were re-nominated. No other candidates were nominated. Anyone interested in serving should indicate their willingness and I am sure their enthusiasm will be rewarded.

See you at the meeting,
73,
Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

Updated the 2005 Activities Web Page with the presentation for the Jun 05 meeting. Go to www.qsl.net/sterling and follow link to Activities.

73,
Gordon, NQ4K

Hi,

I posted the next draft of the plan for Field Day to our web site (www.qsl.net/sterling). Follow the links to Field Day and then to 2005 Field Day.

73,
Gordon, NQ4K

Bill, KC4ATU, writes:

Copied this from a post to the QRP-L from Paul Harden. Paul works out at the BIG ARAY and does studies of the sun. Thought everyone would find this interesting.

Gang,
Firstly, if you haven't done so already, I suggest you go back a few hours on QRP-L and read Jim Duffey's post on FD propagation. Very well written and accurately detailed.

There have been several stating that conditions over the next few days will be almost identical to conditions on FD, due to the rotation of the sun. This is true, but a couple of corrections need to be pointed out.

The sun's rotation, in respect to the earth, is about 28 days. What is facing us today will reoccur 28 days from now. This is particular true about the solar flux. If you plot the solar flux on a daily basis, it will make a sinewave with a period of about 28 days. Right now, the solar flux is varying from about 85 (minimum on the 28 day sinewave) to about 110 (maximum). Today it is 91, with 100 expected over the next few days. So, somewhere around 90-100 is what we can expect for FD, about 28 days from now. Two weeks from now, it will be around the
85 minimum. For reasons not yet well understood, one side of the sun emits more energy than the other side, causing this variation over the 28 day solar rotation. So ... FD will occur about at the maximum of this next solar rotation maximum, or, it will be about as good as it's gonna get.

There have also been some comments about how the sun spots, flares and other features (I suppose meaning coronal holes) that are facing earth right now will also reappear for FD. This is NOT neccessarily true. A huge, organized and complex sunspot region that produces flares CAN survive 2-3 rotations of the sun. But, there are never any guarantees. And, it is far less likely in the solar minimum years than the active years.

Right now, sunspot region 767 is almost smack center in the sun. This means any flares it might produce (like 2 C-class and a M1.0 flares today) will produce CMEs that will impact earth 2-3 days later. Should it
survive 28 days, it *could* be a potential flare maker for FD. However, it would be unique to see such a small, unorganized active region survive to re-emerge in another 28 days.

Likewise, the solar disk right now has several threatening coronal holes. These are weak areas, or "tears" in the sun's surface that allows solar particles to escape to ride along with the solar wind. These particles don't really effect the solar wind speed, but it is a concentration of solar mass. When it hits earth (if the trajectory is right), the solar wind stays about the same, but there is a sudden increase in the solar particle density. It's like riding your bike down the road at 60 mph and riding into a swarm of mosquitos. Them tiny little buggers (read: particles) can hurt! The wind speed going down the road didn't change, just the particle density. A wall of particles from a coronal hole, or a sustained arrival of them (called a "coronal stream") can trigger a minor geomagnetic storm.

Moral of the story:
The SOLAR FLUX 28 days from now is fairly predictable. About 90-100.
SUN SPOTS appearing 28 days from now is fairly uncertain.
SOLAR FLARES occuring today, and reoccuring 28 days from now, is even less uncertain.
CORONAL HOLES persist for many days and their effects to the earth can be predicted days in advance, but not by 28 days in advance.

So ... WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
About a week before FD, look at the solar images or maps to see if there are any large, developing sunspots just emerging on the limb of the sun (that is, beginning to rotate towards the center of the sun). Keep an eye on these guys if they exist. They will be near the center of the sun for FD, and if they flare, we'll get hit.

MONDAY-TUESDAY BEFORE FD: See if there are any large coronal hole areas on the sun's surface near the center of the sun. If there are, it could present problems on 40M for FD.

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY BEFORE FD: THESE ARE THE TWO CRITICAL DAYS!!!
The average travel time after a flare before the shockwave hits earth is around 40-50 hours. Therefore, Thursday is the critical day. If a solar flare in the M-class (or X-class!) range occurs on thursday, AND if it is located near the center of the sun, the shockwave will arrive on planet earth about the time you sip your first cup of coffee saturday morning while erecting your antenna! Actually, no biggie unless you plan on starting out on 40M. If a solar flare occurs late thursday in the UTC day (or early friday UTC), the shockwave will hit earth around saturday evening. Now that would really suck for the worst scenario, as the geomagnetic storm would wipe out 40M/80M after 20M has pretty well shut down. That doesn't leave much to work for awhile. 2M anyone?

The same with a coronal hole. If a large coronal hole is near the center of the sun on wednesday-thursday, the particle arrival *could* trigger a minor geomagnetic storm to produce enhanced noise levels on 40/80M saturday night. However, generally, a coronal hole stream seldom triggers a very serious geomagnetic storm, and the duration is not a day or two like from a huge flare.

If a large flare, or coronal hole, appears on friday, FD will be over by the time it hits us.

Therefore, for a solar disturbance to effect FD, the timing, location on the sun, and intensity ALL have to be just right. Statistically, fairly low. We can't predict it TODAY, but we can all keep our eyes on it a few days before FD
(http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today or http://www.dxlc.com/solar

A few things to remember:
1) The MUF seldom drops below 10MHz at night. 40/80M are ALWAYS under the MUF, which is why they are ALWAYS open.
2) The solar flux effects the ionization of the D,E and F layers DURING THE DAY. This ionization determines the DAYTIME MUF and how reflective the E/F layers are.
3) Therefore, the solar flux has almost nothing to do with the conditions of the bands below the night time MUF. That is, the SF does NOT describe what the condition of 40/80M will be, but does on 20M and up.
4) A geomagnetic storm, as indicated by the 3-hourly K-index, effects the lower frequencies more than the higher frequencies. As a general rule of thumb, a minor geomagnetic storm produces bursty noise on 10MHz and BELOW (40/80M). The K-index is not much of an indicator of conditions on 20M and above.
5) Do not base ANY conditions on the A-Index. The A-Index is the 24 hour averages of the K-Index. In other words, the A-Index tells you what happened YESTERDAY, not today. If FD sucks on the lower bands, then
see what the A-Index was on saturday or sunday. It will tell you what the conditions WERE. For RAT NOW, check the K-Index.
6) If a solar flare occurs during FD daylight hours, it may cause strong bursty noise on ALL bands, an ignition noise sound above 10 MHz, or even an HF blackout. Yikes! FD is ruined. NO, NO, NO. A solar flare produces these effects ONLY FOR THE DURATION OF THE FLARE EVENT. This means 20-30 minutes. If this happens, tons of FD ops are going to pull the plug for awhile. As a QRPer, this is an ideal time to operate. You have 20-30 minutes of noise/blackout, but it recovers very quickly. Then, you and the few other smart guys have the whole
band to yourselves for awhile, until the QRO guys quit feeling sorry for themselves and figure it out. Seriously, if the bands go dead during FD during daylight hours, it doesn't last for long. Take a SHORT break, warm up the coffee cup, and wait for the bands to open back up. They recover quickly and you can make a bunch of good QRP
contacts before the big boys/high speed guys show up. This happened a couple of years ago, and many guys didn't realize until reading it monday on the internet that the blackout was temporary.
7) If an asteroid smacks into the earth thursday or friday, I would think the bands would be VERY quiet come saturday :-) Statistically, 2-3 QRPers are bound to survive. Hey, all 3 of us could be in the top 10 scorers!

Have a nice weekend everybody - all 3 days of it for most.

72, Paul NA5N