wheatley@inuxi.UUCP (Steven Wheatley) (03/04/86)
qst de k9eui hr propagation forecast bulletin nr 9 from arrl headquarters newington ct march 3, 1986 to all radio amateurs as you may have observed, conditions on 14, 21, 24 and 28 mhz have been running better than predicted by the monthly qst propagation charts much of the time since early february. if you copy solar flux information from wwv daily you know why. the solar flux reached 103, 30 points above the base figure used for the qst charts, on february 5 and it was at or above the base figure most of the time, except for a few days just after the middle of february. the solar flux is currently following its february curve almost exactly. it was up to 89 at bulletin time, high enough to make things hot for the arrl dx contest phone weekend, march 1 and 2. the first of two active areas of the sun, responsible for the february peak came around the east limb of the sun again march 2, still looking lively. the flux is running higher than would be expected from that one group, so the second may be contributing, as it did last month a few days before its actual appearance around the east edge of the solar disk. fast rising solar flux curves mean increased geomagnetic activity, and increasing absorbtion of signal energy, especially on high latitude paths. such conditions may be accompanied by increased signal levels and higher muf, on north south paths and other low latitude or transequatorial circuits. these effects were common during early february, even to the extent of 50 mhz openings to south america, and major auroral periods on 144, 220 and even 432 mhz. watch for more of the same around march 8 and 9. more conventional propagation is generally good just before and just after such disturbances. watch march 3 through 5 and 10 through 11. our lower frequencies should be working well around the middle of march and whenever the wwv k index is 2 or lower and the solar flux is in the low 70s or high 60s. american sunspot numbers for february 20 through 26 were between 0 and 6 with a mean of 2.6 ar