Last week was good for HF propagation for a number of reasons. Firstly, we are now entering autumn, which offers better propagation prospects than summer. Secondly, the solar flux index has remained high at up to 184 as of last Thursday 25 September. We had a week of near-normal geomagnetic conditions, with a low Kp […]

Last week we said that it looked like someone had thrown a switch on the Sun and all the sunspots had vanished. Well, this week we’re pleased to report they’re back! We have eight sunspot groups, spread evenly throughout the Sun’s hemispheres. Interestingly, the northern hemisphere sunspots are close to the equator, which is what […]

As of Thursday 11 September, it looked like someone had thrown a switch on the Sun to turn off all new sunspots! Unless there is a big change, there will be no sunspots visible on the Sun’s surface today, the 14 September. It is clear that we are no longer at solar maximum. A bigger […]

Last week’s aurora may have come as a bit of a surprise! The propagation segment for GB2RS is usually written on a Thursday, but the aurora was sparked by a solar flare that took place two days later, at 2002UTC on the 30 August. As we don’t have a crystal ball we couldn’t have predicted […]