Predicting QRP Propagation

August 4, 2012 - It was a gorgeous day today and I felt well enough to get out and operate QRP. Regretfully, that bands were lousy. Seems everything was leading up to some geomagnetic shenanigans. I stayed out for three hours - operating QRP Phone and CW, eating lunch, "reading the mail" - and then I eventually wrapped things up.

Space Weather reports indicate minor geomagnetic activity. My attempt to "brush up" on propagation can be reviewed here. So, it's time to put my study of Space Weather and QRP propagation to work!


My hunch: a minor geomagnetic activity alert was recently issues (G1 Minor, K=5). Most HF bands (10-20 Meters) have remarkable noise with QSB. I'm wondering if this suggests that the MUF with become higher and that 40-80 Meters will be good frequencies for QRPing once the grey line (sundown) approaches the Mid-Atlantic region.

Review of NA4N's resources concurs with estimated conditions by RigReference Solar Widget. I'm curious to listen to 40 and 75 Meter Phone in a couple of hours and to revisit some of the data (again, RigReference have some helpful data summaries and graphs).