ZCZC AP03
QST de W1AW
Propagation Forecast Bulletin 3 ARLP003
From Tad Cook, K7VVV
Seattle, WA January 15, 1999
To all radio amateurs
SB PROP ARL ARLP003
ARLP003 Propagation de K7VVV
Solar activity was down over the past week. Average sunspot numbers were off 26 points and average solar flux was down nearly 40 points when compared to the previous week. We are now in the middle of the 28th month of solar cycle 23, and for the rest of this month activity should be up.
Solar flux bottomed out at 110.3 on last Sunday, but this weekend the predicted solar flux, Friday through Sunday, is 150, 160 and 170. Planetary A index for those three days is predicted to be 12, 9 and 9. Look for solar flux values to stay above 150 almost until the end of this month.
The last two days have had fairly active geomagnetic periods. This was probably due to a disappearing solar filament on January 9.
Scott Craig reported a couple of minor bugs in his solar plotting program, and the fix is in version 3.05 on his web page at http://edge.net/~scraig/sol.htm. One bug involves starting with very small data files, and the other is with taking data from these bulletins via Netscape.
ZL3TIC reported lots of activity on 6 meters on January 11 and 12, with many JA and VK calls worked. With the geomagnetic activity the past two days some North American hams reported working many 6 meter stations around the continent via aurora. N0VSB in Colorado worked a long list of Pacific Northwest 6 meter stations on Thursday.
Sunspot Numbers for January 7 through 13 were 125, 99, 70, 62, 46, 66 and 77 with a mean of 77.9. 10.7 cm flux was 115.1, 115.5, 114.8, 110.3, 111.9, 112.8 and 118.6, with a mean of 114.1, and estimated planetary A indices were 6, 14, 8, 4, 4, 6 and 28, with a mean of 10.