HF news
Solar activity has continued to decline, leaving us with an SFI around 100. But the upside is we haven’t had any solar flares and associated CMEs to contend with.
Over the last week we have had only one M-class flare and no X-class events. The SFI declined to 102 by Thursday 3rd September, down from 122 a week ago.
But the Kp index has been firmly in the range of one to two, which bodes well for ionospheric stability.
This has led to MUF’s over 3,000km being around 21-24 MHz, although FT8 has stretched this up to 28MHz at times. There have been some good 10m FT8 openings to South America late in the afternoon, with Chile, Brazil and Argentina all being workable.
DX to be worked this week includes 3W9C (Vietnam), T99PB (Palau), Z68PX (Kosovo), P29YY (Papua New Guinea), HP/WE9G (Panama), D44TWO (Cape Verde), T32AZ (East Kiribati) and J38DX and J38LD (Grenada).
V47YA and V47RCX (St Kitts & Nevis) will be active, holiday style, from September 8th until the end of the month and KH8WW (American Samoa) will be on from the 10th to the 24th.
RI1FJL (Franz Joseph Land) has been very active on all bands, no doubt giving hams a new entity in their logs. They should now be ending, but have been very workable, despite some polar flutter at times.
Two rare ones to look for are VK0DS (Davis Station, Antarctica) and VK0TBC (Casey Station, Antarctica). Operations will be mostly SSB and FT8 as time permits. They have both been spotted on the FT8 frequencies on 20, 15m and even 10m at times.
Next week NOAA predicts that the SFI will remain around the 100 mark. But the good news is that barring any flares or CMEs the Kp index should remain low, perhaps around two all week.
VHF and up
The weather remains in a rather unsettled mood, but with some signs of a transient area of high pressure brushing past the south of the country this weekend, perhaps with a chance of some Tropo into the continent.
This could tie in very well with the 144MHz Trophy and Backpackers contest over this weekend. The unsettled pattern returns for the rest of the week and may not provide much help for the 432MHz UKAC on Tuesday or the 50MHz UKAC on Thursday, although in occasional bursts of heavier rain there may be some potential for rain scatter on the GHz bands.
The prospects of meteor scatter remain in the random territory so best to listen just before dawn for the better chances. The solar conditions have not been too dramatic lately with the Kp index staying below three, but if it perks up a bit, say above Kp=5 there may be the chance of aurora.
The Sporadic-E season has more or less ended now, so the next moment to consider checking usually comes at the end of the year and first week in January for that out-of-season surprise opening.
EME now and sky noise should remain low this week. Moon declination remains high and, as we head towards Moon perigee, the Moon’s closest point to Earth, this weekend, path losses remain low.