ad7i@houxp.UUCP (12/07/83)
qst de ad7i hr propagation forecast bulletin nr 49 from arrl headquarters newington ct december 5, 1983 to all radio amateurs bt looking back at the first seven years of solar cycle 21 shows that the sun was active for a much longer period than earlier predictions had indicated. it also hit much higher peaks than all but two previous solar cycles for which reliable records are available. it is obvious that the pendulum has now swung the other way. the solar flux high for november was only 111 and the low was 80. the monthly average was 93. all three figures are the lowest recorded since august, 1977. what these figures mean in terms of propagation on our dx bands is shown clearly by conditions observed in the past week or so. nov. 28 to dec. 1 was mostly below average. dec. 2 to 4 was a period typical of quite favorable conditions, with the solar flux in the 90s and the k index consistently below 2. propagation in the northern hemisphere should be mostly between these two extremes during the colder months of 1984, at least. for the immediate future, dec. 5 to 16 will be mostly below normal. december 17 through 24 will be mostly above normal, with the muf depending on the solar flux level in this period. the flux is currently lower than the base figures used for the propagation charts in qst for november and december, so these charts will tend to be on the optimistic side. american sunspot numbers for november 24 through 30 were between 0 and 16 with a mean of 6.0 ar