Like tropo--except it's AM!

[Howard Glazer]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ric Werme <ewerme@comcast.net>
To: Dan.Strassberg <dan.strassberg@att.net>
Cc: Boston Radio Interest <boston-radio-interest@rolinin.bostonradio.org>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2008 4:49 PM
Subject: Like tropo--except it's AM!


> Dan Strassberg pondered:
>
> > Last night and early this morning I picked up some AM stations I've
> > never heard in Arlington. ...
>
> > This is high-angle skywave, which suggests--I believe--that the
> > reflective layer of the ionosphere is unusually low overhead. I can
> > offer no explanation for that phemomenon. Maybe someone else can.
>
> Umm, I thought you were the local expert on all such matters.
>
> Solar activity is very, very low.  We've been in an extended minimum long
> enough now so that some people are wringing hands over the potential start
of
> Dalton or Maunder Minimum and global cooling.
>
> Cooling has started, but it may not be due to solar forcing.
>
> At any rate, it's a good time for propagation anomalies related to low
> solar activity.

I was just reading about this in Monitoring Times yesterday. Apparently
Solar Cycle 24 (the periodic increase in sunspot activity that leads to
enhanced propagation on higher frequencies) has been unusually slow to get
going, causing some to speculate that it may be a dud. The last time that
happened was in one of the planet's little cold snaps, so that's got the
climatologists as well as the shortwave geeks speculating. Although
"Monitoring Times" is written for shortwave geeks; the advice I remember
most from the article was "Don't buy that new 10-meter rig just yet!"

Howard