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Greetings All:

The following is an observation the occurred about an hour ago that may be of interest to some in the LF and LowFer communities.

I am watching 189.000 +30, -30 Hz with Gram continuously while I am in the shack here. There are two signals I am seeing on this part of the spectrum, one carrier that goes on and off from time to time is on 189.008 kHz. There is a much weaker signal on 189.000 that in the daytime is a faint trace line. There is another signal that is louder in the evening on 189.000, I am assuming the two signals on 189.000 are from different sources. I am looking for a LowFer beacon signal on 189.000, so far I can not confirm I have seen it.

There was an M class flare at 11.59 utc, peaked at 12:14 utc, ended at 12:33 utc.

At about 12:48 utc the screen presentation from Gram suddenly went from typical noise spots to almost ZERO noise, the signal level on 189.008 kHz stayed the same level and the trace signal on 189.000 kHz stayed the same level although it was certainly easier to see. Without having the confidence of my observation I started poking around for a bad RF connector in the system. The duration of the low noise was for very nearly two minutes then the noise returned to normal levels. By this point I had nearly torn the place apart looking for the bad connector that I now feel does not exist. The low noise period had moved to very nearly the edge of the screen when I realized that the 189.008 kHz signal level had stayed the same throughout the event period, only the noise had changed in level.

The 15 minute difference from the end of the M level solar event started me wondering if the lack of noise and the M level event might be related.

If anyone else has an observation of a varying level of noise on LF during this time period today I would be interested to hear about it.

Larry

VA3LK