Sunspot activity is being villain-ised, blamed for damage to our electrical systems, communications, and computer gadgets- and maybe it does- BUT -on 27 MHz , it is our friend ! Read why below.
Sunspot activity is on the rise-all kinds of recent articles are being published on the subject- you can find some really good ones on -Space weather dot com- Also , I just got the" gallery image of the day from NASA.gov- a 3D photo of the sun showing jets of radiation coming off the surface. This radiation travels all the way to earth , and then
energizes the ionosphere, and becomes a thick layer of "plasma". This high altitude plasma becomes a barrier to 27 MHz waves (actually from below 14 MHz to almost 40 MHz) and so the RF carriers (from our 27 MHz radios) reflect or bounce off of the plasma surface. So the signal is now beaming down, back toward the earth, at an angle from the ionosphere. Someone back on the ground may receive our signal. The angle our signal traveled up, and the angle our signal traveled down, gives us our distance. You could think of it as a triangle, if you are into math. Fortunately, one other phenomenon takes place, wherein our small 5 watt signal has also been amplified by the ionospheric plasma.
I call this “carrier-wave absorption and re-deposition”. We’ll go into more detail in the class.
So, most signals will still have enough energy to bounce again off of the earth, and back up to the ionosphere. Yes, as you may have guessed, this is the “skipping action” or skip –waves, CB’ers call it “talkin’skip”. There’s no way to know how many times your signal will bounce, or how far it will go. That’s what makes it a hobby that can change every day. If you get up early enough in the morning, and turn on the base station CB just as the first rays of sunlight peak-out from the horizon, you will hear the static of the incoming skip waves, the whistles of competing signals and the voices from far away.
Watch the needle of your “S” meter; slowly wiggle higher and higher, as it responds to the signal strength of the approaching static. When the number is 7 or 8, the meter is telling you that the earth has rotated, relative to your position, towards the sunlight and a fully- charged ionosphere! It’s time to start “talkin’ some skip”.
I think that’s one of the most enjoyable times in the AM, though it rarely lasts more than 20 minutes. The noise increases, and the skip continues through out the day.
Making sure that you can send your signal into those skip-waves takes special knowledge and equipment, information I teach to those who join the class!
As you read in the Space.com article, we are heading into a new age of sun-spot activity, so get started soon on your equipment collection and be sure and join our class.
