5 Feb 2009

Sunspots - slow start to 2009

The expected upturn in solar flux and sunspots have been very slow to materialise yet this winter, as yet. I haven't seen a very recent prediction from people like the solar physicist Hathaway who was, a few years ago, predicting a very large cycle 24 peak. The bets must now be on a much more modest peak?

My own experience on bands like 15 and 10m is we are still very much in the doldrums. Even the brief sunspot minimum openings I used to hear to South America (when I could work LU and PY stations even with 10W SSB) seem to be absent.

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