UK Reproduction Update – October 4, 2024

RSGB

GB2RS News Team

In the first week of October, the 10m band started to show what it is capable of. With a solar flux index around 200 and calm geomagnetic conditions, DX was abundant.

Nick, VK9DX on Norfolk Island was on SSB all morning on Wednesday 2 October and only wanted to work G stations. This made him popular in Britain, but less so in other countries!

Vlad, 5H1WX, on Mafia Island, Tanzania, was another strong signal on the morning of the third. Meanwhile, the 3D2V Rotuma Island DXpedition near Fiji on the 10m band using FT4 was another win for many people.

The Kp index managed to stay low for the first half of the week, but there were warnings that a coronal mass ejection, attributed to the X7.1 solar flare on October 1, could disrupt things later in the week .

With a good spread of sunspots, mainly in the Sun’s southern hemisphere, there could be more outbursts in the coming days.

Scott Mcintosh, the solar physicist who predicted a busier-than-average Cycle 25, now wonders if we’ve passed solar maximum yet. The fact that there are now fewer sunspots in the Northern Hemisphere suggests that we may be past the peak, but only time will tell.

Meanwhile, NOAA predicts that the solar flux index could drop toward 200 next week. The Kp index is predicted to go to 4 this weekend. With four of the ten active sunspot groups classified as growing, we can expect further solar activity and geomagnetic disturbances over the next seven days.

VHF and higher:

The brief period of high pressure that arrived late last week is currently being pushed east towards Europe.

The coming week will be dominated by very unsettled conditions with a succession of deep lows near or across the country and one even containing the remnants of an old hurricane.

The result is that next week will bring copious amounts of wet and windy weather, so no Tropo for us, but there could be several areas of heavy rain for an attempt at rain scattering on the GHz bands.

We hope you have all checked your antennas after last week’s reminder as the winds can be quite testing in some areas.

Solar conditions have recently been disrupted by several eruptions, so as usual, keep an eye out for auroras in the fall. Finally, there are plenty of possibilities for meteor scattering beyond random meteor activity. Try researching one of the many meteor websites to see the full list of options.

For EME operators, the monthly declination is at its minimum on Wednesday. So it’s a good week to try out systems before the sun is too low in the sky to make meaningful solar noise measurements during the winter. Path losses are still high, but starting to drop.

If you’re lucky enough to have a clear low horizon you can make some contacts, but with a maximum moon high of just eight degrees on Wednesday, you’re in luck! Air noise on 144 MHz is generally high to moderate for the rest of the week.

(Mike Terry/BDXC)