Massive solar storm 'could knock out radio signals' over next three days

[CSORuger]

Massive solar storm 'will knock out radio signals and produce amazing Northern Lights' | Mail Online

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

The sun is an amazing phenomenon, and stuff like this happens sometimes. Radio propagation on shortwave is muchly effected by the sunspot cycle, should be peaking soon. You get freakish things, like talking between California and New Zealand on legal CBs.

 

[ZombieApocolypse]

Its supposed to peak in 2012 .... :duck and cover:

 

[MrSmitty]

Wasn't that what the movie "Knowing" was about? Is that why my computer is slow?

 

[Kaiser]

solar maxiumum is this comming year maybe the Aztecs were on to something I still think it would be grand to have a storm big enough to knock the grid down for a few months. I spend my life (work and hobbies) completely connected to the web. A unconnected life sounds very refreshing. I have plenty of food plenty of wood plenty of water and plenty of ammo. We would be good for several months

 

[phylodog]

I hope not. A couple if weeks without Microminimus would be devastating.

 

[Kaiser]

Did not mean to offend. just playing around. I make my living on a computer. I just have a strange sense of humor. Playing off all the end of the world soothsayers.

 

[patience0830]

Did not mean to offend. just playing around. I make my living on a computer. I just have a strange sense of humor. Playing off all the end of the world soothsayers.

Prophets? Or soothsayers? We won't know til the crisis has come and gone.

History is a funny thing. Written by the winners from the winners point of view, it always seems optimistic as to the future of the winners. Doesn't always work out that way. Ask the Romans. Cultures fail. Doesn't happen every day. Doesn't always happen all of a sudden. They felt, I'm sure, like they just turned around and everything had suddenly gone to PooPoo, but the signs were there. People willfully chose not to notice. Are we at that stage in America? Where most are willfully ignoring the signs?

We shall see. IMO, we'll know something in the next 1 to 2 years. Possibly a lot sooner.

 

[ZombieApocolypse]

solar maxiumum is this comming year maybe the Aztecs were on to something I still think it would be grand to have a storm big enough to knock the grid down for a few months. I spend my life (work and hobbies) completely connected to the web. A unconnected life sounds very refreshing. I have plenty of food plenty of wood plenty of water and plenty of ammo. We would be good for several months

How do i get to your place? Im all outa ammo

 

[ThrottleJockey]

I've been getting some pretty weird AM skip lately. Detroit and Chicago stations in Alabama, got a Boston station in Kentucky...

 

[ZombieApocolypse]

I've been getting some pretty weird AM skip lately. Detroit and Chicago stations in Alabama, got a Boston station in Kentucky...

That could just be the aliens

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Amateurs call AM MW (medium wave) and it often propagates like shortwave. When things get extreme, it's not a big thing. Get a clear channel and the right time of day, you can get one all over the continent. I've had TV channels from different time zones, UHF from different states with tropospheric ducting. The stuff that's really freaky is when you get ionospheric propagation up to over 50MHz, and you can go intercontinental with 6M. Good times to recruit new hams, I tell ya.

 

[ThrottleJockey]

Amateurs call AM MW (medium wave) and it often propagates like shortwave. When things get extreme, it's not a big thing. Get a clear channel and the right time of day, you can get one all over the continent. I've had TV channels from different time zones, UHF from different states with tropospheric ducting. The stuff that's really freaky is when you get ionospheric propagation up to over 50MHz, and you can go intercontinental with 6M. Good times to recruit new hams, I tell ya.

As a child I recall one evening in the car with my mother and we picked up a station that sounded as though they were speaking some sort of "oriental" language. That was freaky because it was obviously not from this continent. If only we could find a way to control and use these phenomena.

 

[Zephri]

Amateurs call AM MW (medium wave) and it often propagates like shortwave. When things get extreme, it's not a big thing. Get a clear channel and the right time of day, you can get one all over the continent. I've had TV channels from different time zones, UHF from different states with tropospheric ducting. The stuff that's really freaky is when you get ionospheric propagation up to over 50MHz, and you can go intercontinental with 6M. Good times to recruit new hams, I tell ya.

I remember one day this year (can't remember the month), where ducting was happening and you could pickup people from all over the states on 2m. The local repeater was going crazy with people making contacts.

That was a great day to listen in.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Oh we understand them pretty well, now, but it's all natural phenomena that we really can't control. There are operators that work each other via the ionization trails from meteors, but it still depends on the incidence of meteors. We can't make sunspots happen, we just have to wait for them, but then the magic happens Talk to Europe on 5 watts. Make friends all over the world. When the bands are hot, you can do it all. In a few years, it will die off again, and you're lucky to get the next state on some bands. Just the way it is.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I remember one day this year (can't remember the month), where ducting was happening and you could pickup people from all over the states on 2m. The local repeater was going crazy with people making contacts.

That was a great day to listen in.

My best one was a traffic helicopter at 460something from Toledo OH, received just north of Indianapolis. I had to look up a couple of intersections they mentioned, just to figure out where they were. I picked them up full quieting on narrow FM out in my driveway on an HT. Kind of surreal.