Last weekend saw HF shine as stations took part in the CQ World Wide SSB Contest. Geomagnetic conditions remained settled and DX was plentiful, with contacts possible as far afield as Alaska to the west and China to the east. Given the unsettled conditions we have had recently, it was a welcome break as radio […]

It looks like Earth dodged a bullet last week when a large coronal mass ejection, or CME, erupted on the far side of the Sun on Tuesday, 21 October. Had that CME been Earth-directed we could have endured a strong, or possibly an extreme, geomagnetic storm with dazzling displays of aurora. The source of the […]

Conditions over the past week have been reasonable with a relatively high solar flux and lower Kp indices. This resulted in a maximum usable frequency (MUF) over a 3,000km path, in excess of 35MHz. This is just what October was meant to be like! But all good things come to an end, and there are […]

We finally got rid of the high-speed solar wind stream, which caused havoc on the HF bands. But we are not out of the woods yet! Last week saw the Kp index hit 6.67 on 2 October, and it was often up around 4 or more. Even though the Kp index eventually reduced, the ionosphere […]