Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2016 Jun 06 0156 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 30 May – 05 June 2016

Solar activity ranged from very low to low levels. Low activity was observed on 30 May with a pair of C1/Sf flares observed from Region 2550 (N15, L=114, class/area Cro/020 on 31 May). Very low levels were observed on 31 May and 01-05 Jun. Of note, the first spotless day since 17 Jul 2014 was observed on 03 Jun.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at high levels on 30 May – 04 Jun with moderate levels observed on 05 Jun.

Geomagnetic field activity ranged from quiet to minor storm (G1-Minor) levels. Quiet to active levels were observed on 30-31 May due to negative polarity coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) influence. During this time frame, wind speeds peaked at about 575 km/s early on 30 May while the Bz component of the interplanetary magnetic field reached a maximum southward of extent of -6 nT late on 31 May. Quiet conditions were observed on 01 Jun through midday on 05 Jun. Active to G1 storm levels were observed through the remainder of 05 Jun due to effects from another negative polarity CH HSS. Late on 05 Jun, wind speeds approached 650 km/s, total field reached 19 nT while the Bz component briefly hit a maximum southward extent of -15 nT.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 06 June – 02 July 2016

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels with C-class activity possible throughout the outlook period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be reach high levels on 07-09, 12-16, 26-30 Jun and 01 Jul. Normal to moderate levels are expected throughout the remainder of the outlook period.

Geomagnetic field activity is likely to reach G1 (Minor) levels on 06 Jun and 02 Jul with unsettled to active levels expected on 12-15, 17-18, 23-24 and 26-27 Jun, all due to the influence of multiple recurrent CH HSSs. Quiet to unsettled conditions are expected throughout the remainder of the outlook period under a nominal solar wind regime.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

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courtesy: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

A quick glance at Sunday's sun reveals a spotless environment, something we will likely be seeing more often in the years to come as the Solar Minimum arrives around 2020. The last minimum in 2009 saw a total of 260 days of spotless suns and long periods of very little geomagnetic activity.


Incredibly, during the minimum in the 28 year period between 1672 and 1699 there were 50 sunspots total. That's not a week or a month but two 11 year cycles worth. The normal expectation would be 40,000 - 50,000 spots within a 28-year period.

But the present, apparently quiet-looking sun, is not all as it appears as a look at today's satellite data and magnetometer readings indicate we are in the midst of a pretty good disturbance, driving the planetary K-index to level 5.

courtesy: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

The source of the disturbance, as is often the case when the sun is not flaring, is a coronal hole stream ... CH738 to be precise, rotating into a geoeffective position once again after causing a similar disturbance to our geomagnetic field one month ago on its previous rotation. The large hole is the dark region approaching the right limb.

courtesy: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

Back in the early 30's when amateurs and professionals were starting to draw links between radio propagation and sunspot activity, there must have been a lot of head-scratching when propagation disturbances arose from apparently quiet-looking suns, similar to what is happening at present.

With the vast array of solar instrumentation available to us online, much of the mystery involving propagation has been removed, making the tracking and even the predicting of geomagnetic activity, very much easier nowadays.

Kiruna Magnetometer: http://www.irf.se/maggraphs/

From my location on the west coast of North America, my main 6m interest over the past several summer seasons has been focused on the short-lived and exciting sporadic-e openings over the pole to Europe ... but today's sun is not helping. Most of these fleeting openings seem to require undisturbed fields in the polar regions ... geomagnetic quiet. Once CH738 rotates out of view, hopefully the polar activity will subside and maybe, just maybe, the magical 6m polar path to Europe will tease us once again.

The July 8th, 2014 magic - West Coast to Europe on 6m

Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

It's our post-Hamvention episode and it's packed with great information. We start off with a look at hams in the news, special event stations for all Canadian operators, the legalities and procedures for proper third-party operation. Then we move into a comparison of Linux live update procedures and the latest news about Raspberry Pi Zero boards. Then we take a tour of the JT9 and JT65 digital modes using WSJT-X. And there's so much more. Thanks for listening!

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

The Elecraft KX2 made a big splash with QRP enthusiasts at the Dayton Hamvention this year. HamRadio360 had some good coverage of the product introduction. Basically, the KX2 is a shrunken version of the KX3, covering the HF bands 80m through 10m.

There were rumors circulating that Yaesu would introduce a replacement for the FT-817ND, but that turned out to not be true. It is a good rumor because the original FT-817 was introduced way back in 2001 (according to Wikipedia). Also, Chris Wilson NØCSW was actively soliciting inputs for an 817 replacement at the Central States VHF Conference last summer.

A while back, I did a comparison of the FT-817 and the KX3 (big brother to the KX2). I evaluated the two radios from a VHF/UHF point of view. The FT-817 is the only portable single-radio solution for 50 MHz, 144 MHz and 432 MHz. The KX3 includes 50 MHz standard and 144 MHz is an option. The KX2 leaves out the VHF bands completely to achieve a smaller size.

What’s Next for the FT-817?

Its always fun to speculate on what might be coming in new gear. I expect Yaesu will maintain its position as the QRP transceiver that covers HF/VHF/UHF. It has a long history of delivering cost-effective “do everything” radios. We can look to recent product introductions from Yaesu to get a hint of what might be coming.

The FT-2DR, FT-400DR and FT-991 have all adopted larger touch-screen displays so we can probably expect that for the 817 replacement. However, this will challenge the existing form factor…you can’t just drop a larger display into the existing 817 design. The three newer radios include the System Fusion C4FM digital mode…at this point, I don’t think Yaesu would introduce a VHF/UHF radio without it.

Which raises another question: will the new radio also include a GPS receiver? This capability is a good complement to the C4FM mode in a portable radio. The FT-991 requires you to enter your location manually, which the FT-2DR and FT-400DR use a built-in GPS. But it adds circuitry and complexity so I am going to guess they will leave that out.

I am expecting (hoping?) Yaesu will improve the battery life of the transceiver. (Receive standby current is spec’d at 450 mA.)  Even if they don’t improve the current drain, newer battery technology could be used to improve operating time. Also, depending on the form factor changes, it may be wise to dedicate more space for a physically larger battery.

Yaesu will probably improve the overall receiver performance, including advanced DSP features. Many 817 users have complained about the lack of coverage of 162 MHz weather radio in the US. On the transmit side, a little more output power would be nice…maybe match the KX3’s 10 watts on HF. Yaesu could really make the VHF crowd happy (in the US) if they included the 222 MHz band.

Take One Tablet

The radio will surely have a computer I/O port with USB being the most flexible choice. There is an opportunity to innovate a bit here by coupling the radio with Android and iOS tablets. I could see a really nice app that handles logging, CW, PSK31, RTTY, bandscope, and other advanced features. This could take the pressure off having a larger display and loading tons of features into the radio. The most convenient I/O would be wireless, most likely Bluetooth or maybe WiFi.  Many of the SOTA and QRP operators already take along a smartphone or tablet for logging and other tasks, so it would be a good fit to that market. The key to this idea is careful human factors design and tight integration with the radio. Do I expect this from Yaesu? Not really. So surprise me and knock my socks off.

Those are my thoughts. Your turn.

73, Bob KØNR

The post How About an Updated FT-817? appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The test setup

I was out today once again with my portable operations but this time there was no on air time it was time to test and decide. I went out with my MFJ antenna analyzer, mobile whip antennas and various lengths of counter poise. I wanted to see where my 20m mobile whip antenna was resonant and using the MFJ analyzer was the easiest way of doing this. The counter poise for 20m I started with was 17.5 feet long and the SWR was not showing it was resonant in the CW portion of the band but in the SSB section. So I found I have to lengthen the counter poise to 30 feet to get the SWR to 1.2:1 in the CW portion of 20m. This got me to thinking if the mobile whip was the way to go, I did have these antennas hanging around and I wanted to give them a go to see what results I would get. They are still very useful to me when I operate portable mobile from the car and they preform very well in that situation. I wanted to try the whip  antenna as I felt it would be a very small footprint of an antenna but with a counter poise of 30 feet the footprint is larger than I would like. From most of my blog reading about portable trail operation, NPOTA operations and just plan old out in the park for the day operation hands down most of the time the antenna of choice was one of LNR's par end fed antenna's.   I have looked over the antennas at LNR Precisions site and not sure yet which antenna to get, I am leaning toward the EF-20 as it's not as long (33') as say the other models. I'm really not going to use 40m and I figure (but not sure) I can use the Elecraft KX3's tuner to operate 15 and 10M?? Any feedback about this antenna or others would be appreciated.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.