Propagation 1965--Propagation 1961et al

[WEAFNY@aol.com]

In early 1958 I was 13 years old and could not afford antenna rotors and deep 
fringe antennas when the "grand daddy" of solar cycles reached peak.  I still 
have the copy of Radio-Electronics magazine (March 1958) describing the 
phenomenon.  Most common was the E skip in previous cycles peaks as well as 
present.  But the magazine quoted QSLs of WCBS-TV (NY) being picked up in 
Portugal and an East Coast-West Coast skip.  This was an F skip, and at least 
at the time highly unusual. That summer a friend of mine was visiting a buddy 
of his in Wilkinsburg, PA just outside of Pittsburgh.  KDKA just a few miles 
away almost completely faded out. 

In spring 1961, I was a teenager living in Silver Spring, MD: some six miles 
from ch 4,5,7,9 and thirty-eight miles from ch 2, 10, 11.  All these stations 
were in or very close to "A" grade reception area.  It was a Saturday morning 
and there appeared to be a station coming in under Channel 2 in Baltimore 
which again was some 38 miles away and at max power.  I called a friend who 
had the same dx fantasies as I did.  He aimed his antenna toward the west and 
picked up the same station.  We determined it must be KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh 
some 280 miles toward the west.  We were shocked to hear the ID as "Channel 
2, Tulsa."  We telephoned the station and got hold of the engineer.  He asked 
us to make a tape (audio in those days) and send it to him.  As was the case 
in those days a wonderful QSL personal letter was sent.  All through that 
summer the minor flaring off the sun set off E skip after E skip.  We 
received QSLs from Tulsa, Omaha, Wichita, Temple, TX, Jackson, MS, Rapid 
City, SD, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Chicago, IL.  The general time frame for each 
of these was in the latter part of the day when the sun was setting.  This is 
when the sun does weird things to the atmosphere as anyone who has witnessed 
the "green flash" knows.  

In the summer of '95 I picked up FM stations in Louisiana from off the coast 
of Cape Hatteras.  The solar cycle (and there are more than one) continue to 
affect our communications and weather.  But so far the use of satellites has 
made the impact on communications much less than what it was.  Manmade global 
warming has at least in our minds overwhelmed the massive effect these cycles 
make on our weather.