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This livestream recording is from September 1, 2024 – the NW7US Radio Communications Channel Livestream.  We do this livestream every Sunday at 21:15 UTC.  Here is the link to the livestream from this past Sunday:

The livestream list is here:

https://www.youtube.com/@nw7us/streams

I hope to see you in our livestream live chat, during the next session on Sunday, at 21:15 UTC.  See you there!

As ham radio operators no matter what mode you operate one major contributing factor regarding success or failure is the Sun. Propagation reports can be found on the internet, some with cool pictures and others with just lines of data. Things such as solar flares, coronal mass ejection (CME), solar wind and the list goes on. Being able to look at propagation data and interpret it is beneficial. An understanding can help us realize that not all solar flares, CME and high solar wind can mean poor conditions. I found a great site that goes through many areas that make up a propagation report. At some points yes it can get into too much detail but overall I found it to be very informative.
Understanding propagation can be very interesting and also can help you understand the data that is shown.
Here is the LINK to a site that gives great information about propagation.

Here are some propagation sites: 

Solar Ham 

Current ham radio conditions 

Curious about what you can hear on shortwave ham radio? This video is a brief survey of the diverse world of communications on the shortwave spectrum. Expand your radio horizons and enhance your emergency communication preparedness by tuning in to the world of shortwave ham radio.

If you’ve started delving into radio communications beyond local stations and channels, like VHF and UHF, you’re in for a treat. Shortwave radio opens up a whole new realm of signals to explore, including emergency communications vital during natural disasters.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIVesUzNP2U[/embedyt]

Shortwave radio covers a range of radio frequencies from 3 kHz to 30 MHz. This spectrum is home to a diverse array of radio signals that cater to various communication needs, making it a hub of activity and connectivity.

Within these high frequencies, you can tune in to a multitude of transmissions, from transoceanic air traffic control communications to the chatter of ships navigating the vast seas. Imagine hearing the voices of fishermen, much like those on your favorite reality TV shows about high-seas fishing adventures, along with military communications and the vibrant world of amateur radio enthusiasts.

One of the remarkable features of high-frequency (HF) radio is its ability to propagate signals over long distances, transcending line-of-sight limitations. This means that HF radio enables communication between different regions and even continents, fostering connectivity across vast distances.

During times of crisis and natural disasters, shortwave frequencies become invaluable for emergency communications. When local infrastructure falters or is disrupted, shortwave radio serves as a vital lifeline, facilitating critical two-way communications in and out of disaster-stricken areas.

Explore the fascinating realm of shortwave radio, where distant voices blend with essential information, bridging gaps and connecting communities in times of need. Uncover the power of HF radio to transcend boundaries and provide lifelines when they are needed most.

In this video, I give you a glimpse of the voice and data transmissions I pick up on my high-frequency amateur radio transceiver (in this video, an Icom IC-7000). In later videos, I will dive deeper into specific types of HF communications, such as aeronautical trans-oceanic signals.

The last three years have been, well, challenging.

In 2021, I became ill with Covid.  That was rough, but I bounced back.  That bout with illness caused me to lose my job, though, because I was ill too long.  What is worse is because I was not hospitalized, I did not fall under the protections of “disability,” and had to step down from my employment at that time.  After I recovered, I found employment.

In 2022, I again fell ill to a second Covid.  That illness was significantly worse!  I nearly WAS hospitalized, but I resisted this, and hung on by a thread. I made it through, though the illness lasted a lot longer the second time around. Because I was ill for about five months, I again had to step down from employment.  This second Covid was the worst illness I have ever experienced, physically, emotionally, and financially.  I am thankful for my friends and family that were very supportive.

After I recovered, I found employment in late 2022.  It took a while for my health to stabilize, but the new job leadership has been supportive.  I have been happily working at this new job since late 2022.

But, the challenge to recover was high.  I sought answers.

In December 2022, I was diagnosed with Primary Hyperparathyroidism.  Sure enough, the many tests I endured confirmed that I had more than one tumor in at least two of my four parathyroid glands (we each have four of them, because we’re given redundancy for this critical body part).

We each have four parathyroid glands. They are on the back side of the thyroid. The regulate the body’s calcium. Calcium is critical to all body functions and health.

I had surgery at the end of February 2023 to remove these tumor-riddled glands.  The surgeon, once in my neck, found that THREE of my four glands were tumorous!  He removed the three.  I now have just one parathyroid gland.

Recovery has gone well.  My health is improving nicely.  It is like a switch was flipped, and I no longer have some of the debilitating symptoms like brain fog, extreme fatigue, and an out-of-control metabolism.  I have a stable function of the remaining parathyroid gland, and that is supporting the proper function of the rest of my body.  It is amazing how the whole body relies on these four glands for running correctly!

All of these challenges of the last few years caused enough distraction that my YouTube channel, and my writing, here, as well as other hobby activities, suffered my absence.  Now that I am getting back on my feet with my health, and because my job continues nicely, I am beginning to spend some energy and time on these hobby areas.  I plan on creating and releasing a few series on amateur radio, radio propagation, and space weather, on my YouTube channel.  If you are already a subscriber, you probably saw my latest video where I announce that I am, indeed, back:

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhL8CKbLkZY[/embedyt]

If there are topics that you would like me to cover in the new educational videos I am planning and will create, please let me know with a comment to this post, or, look my email address up on my profile at QRZdotCom.  I will do my best to answer your questions and cover amateur radio and space weather topics in which you are interested.

If you are not yet familiar with my YouTube channel, you can find my channel here:  https://YouTube.com/NW7US — Please subscribe and hit the bell to be notified when I release new video content.

I will also post more often on this site.  I appreciate the opportunity to share with you my love of amateur radio, and the science of propagation and space weather which affects our radio signals.

Best regards,

Tomas, NW7US
https://NW7US.us

From the RAIN HamCast episode #56, 2021-XII-11 (used with permission):

When you were knee high to a grasshopper, did you undergo a game-changing experience that shaped your future career?

Here is text from the introduction:

Tomas Hood/NW7US did. Tomas has been a shortwave enthusiast since 1973. He was first licensed as a ham in 1990 at age 25.

In the mid 1990s Tomas launched the first civilian space weather propagation website, HFRadio.org, which later spawned SunSpotWatch.com. His website, NW7US has been up and running since June, 1999. Tomas has contributed to the Space Weather Propagation column in CQ magazine for over 20 years, and for The Spectrum Monitor magazine since 2014.

A product of the Pacific northwest, Tomas resides today in Fayetteville, OH. RAIN’s Hap Holly/KC9RP spoke with Tomas recently about Solar Cycle 25 and the game-changing afternoon Tomas experienced in 1973 at age 8 ( Read more about this, at his amateur radio and space weather blog: https://blog.NW7US.us/ ).

Here is the first part of the two-part interview:

Mentioned in the interview is Skylab:

From Wikipedia’s article on Skylab: Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments.

Tomas was drawn into space weather as a life-long passion, by inspiration from Skylab, and from the hourly propagation bulletin from the radio station WWV.

WATCH FOR THE NEXT EPISODE, PART TWO

This video is only part one. The RAIN HamCast will conclude Hap’s conversation with Tomas in RAIN HamCast #57, scheduled for posting Christmas Day.

Hap Holly, of the infamous RAIN Report (RAIN = Radio Amateur Information Network), is now producing The RAIN HamCast. The results are both on https://therainreport.com and on the RAIN HamCast YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbNkaUvX_lt5IiDkS9aS4g

KEEP ON HAMMING!

The RAIN Hamcast is produced and edited by Hap Holly/KC9RP; this biweekly podcast is copyright 1985-2021 RAIN, All rights reserved. RAIN programming is formatted for Amateur Radio transmission and is made available under a Creative Commons license; downloading, sharing, posting and transmission of this ham radio program via Amateur Radio in its entirety are encouraged. Your support and feedback are welcome on https://therainreport.com. Thanks for YouTube Technical Assistance from Tom Shimizu/N9JDI.

This imagery captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO; link) covers a busy period of activity in October, during which we witnessed an X1.0-class X-ray flare.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6blJJHs10[/embedyt]

From late afternoon October 25 through mid-morning October 26, an active region on the left limb of the Sun flickered with a series of small flares and petal-like eruptions of solar material.

Meanwhile, the Sun was sporting more active regions at its lower center, directly facing Earth. On October 28, the biggest of these released a significant flare, which peaked at 15:35, 28 Oct 2021 UTC.

This X1.0 X-ray flare that erupted from Active Region 12887 (we typically drop the left-most digit when referring to an active region, so this is AR2887) is the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, as of the time this video goes live.

The first X-class flare occurred on 3 July 2021 and measured X1.59. It, too, caused an HF radio blackout. These blackouts will occur more often as the cycle activity increases, because the higher sunspot activity leads to many more flares, and thus cause the geomagnetic storms as the typical CME is erupted out into space, possibly colliding with Earth’s magnetosphere.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. When intense enough, they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. Some of these disturbances to communications are called radio blackouts. They cause the lower layers of the ionosphere to become more ionized, which results in the absorption of shortwave radio frequency signals.

This flare on October 28 was classified as X1.0 in intensity. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. An X2 is twice as intense as an X1, an X3 is three times as intense, and so on. Flares that are classified X10 or stronger are considered unusually intense.

This was the second X-class flare of Solar Cycle 25, which began in December 2019. A new solar cycle comes roughly every 11 years. Over the course of each cycle, the Sun transitions from relatively calm to active and stormy, and then quiet again; at its peak, known as solar maximum, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip.

Two other eruptions blew off the Sun from this active region: an eruption of solar material called a coronal mass ejection and an invisible swarm of solar energetic particles. These are high-energy charged particles accelerated by solar eruptions.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO

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73 de NW7US dit dit