ARRL President Kay Craigie, N3KN, is eagerly anticipating the ARRL National Centennial Convention this week with a sense of history, awe, and honor. The Convention gets underway Thursday, July 17, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. Craigie said this week that to be President when the ARRL celebrates its centennial “is an extraordinary good fortune that I am sincerely grateful for…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
Amateur Radio propagation and solar phenomena authority Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA, said in an April 27 webinar, “Are We Headed into Another Maunder Minimum? What Does That Mean for Propagation?” that most solar scientists believe several low solar cycles lie ahead, ushering in periods of diminished HF propagation, especially on the higher bands. Luetzelschwab, who maintains K9LA’s Amateur Radio …
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) says solar activity is “high and intensifying,” and radio blackouts reaching the R3 levels have been observed over the past 24 hours. An R3 event can cause a wide-area blackout of HF radio communication and a loss of radio contact for about an hour on Earth’s sunlit side. Low-frequency navigation signals may be degraded for about an hour as well. A…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources
According to NASA, the current solar cycle — Solar Cycle 24 — should hit its “solar max” sometime in this year, but so far, solar activity has been relatively low. According to an article by NASA’s Dr Tony Phillips, this period of quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. But solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explan…
American Radio Relay League | Ham Radio Association and Resources