RE: LF: strange MF TA propagation last night

[Rik Strobbe <rik.strobbe@fys.kuleuven.be>]

Hello Alan,

 

thanks for your reply.

I was just wondering if (and how) the strange propagation was correlated to the solar events.

Although the WSPR SNR values have to be interpreted the sharp eak at 05:02 (-8dB at DL4RAJ) is remarkable and would be pretty close to CW copy level.

 

73, Rik  ON7YD - OR7T

 

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Van: owner-rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org [owner-rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org] namens Alan Melia [alan.melia@btinternet.com]
Verzonden: maandag 7 maart 2016 15:27
Aan: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Onderwerp: Re: LF: strange MF TA propagation last night

Hi Rik I looked at your initial posting and the first thing I noticed was the Pacific DX was all before the CME impact and conditions re Dst were good.

 

I have pondered the use of WSPR for propagation research and have given up on it at the moment. My opinion is that there are too many unknowns to really make any worthwhile detailed predictions on the basis of a few spots.  Again I may just be being cynical  (but that is the nature of "the scientific method"  :-))  ) To explain.....I feel it just as necessary to consider no-spots as spots.......but your other message suggests that there was a no-spot period because the TA station was not transmitting. I am also suspicious of a cluster like you point out. I wonder if because of internet connectivity whether one receiver says "ah WD2xyz was received a few km away so that noise must be WD2xyz". There has also been much discussion over the last 9 months of spots not being recorded centrally despite attempted uploads. This may be due to s/w deficiencies or network contention now there are so many "listeners"  It would seem that more than one central logging site is necessary, probably in different continents to allow for these problems. Also as Andy G4JNT says there is always the probability of "false positives" in any statistical process, and multiple occurances are needed to reduce this probability......think the so-called 5-sigma levels often quoted by CERN on their expeiments. I can't remember the exact levels but 3-sigma is a probability of less than about 2 chances in 100 observations of getting a "false positive". One would need much more data to achieve even those levels with WSPR spots.

 

On the other hand there is the possibility that the early morning spots are the result of the "hot electron" aborption from the precipitated electrons killing the manmade night-time noise early, and the range (3 or 4 night-time hops) just happening to add constructively. also the result of the impact around  00:00z distorts the envelope of the magnetosphere. This could quite possibly lead lead to a foussing effect or favourable constructive fading.

 

In conclusion .....I dont know!!  but these occasions are always interesting and fun  :-))

 

Alan

G3NYK

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Rik Strobbe

To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org

Sent: Monday, March 07, 2016 12:51 PM

Subject: RE: LF: strange MF TA propagation last night

Hi Stefan, all,

 

to get the facts right: there were many other EU's "listening" at that time (> 30), but any one (you) at less than 500 km from the JN68 group.

So it's not sure how focussed the propagation was. But is nevertheless remarkable that serval other Eu's that are known to have "good ears" didn't copy any TA last night.

 

BTW, in my earlier list I did miss the 05:02 UTC copy at DL4RAJ, the complete sequence is:

 

2016-03-07 04:40 WH2XND 0.475740 -30 0 DM33xt 5 DL4RAJ JN68kj 9367 33
2016-03-07 04:52 WG2XXM 0.475711 -30 0 EM15lj 5 DL4RAJ JN68kj 8406 40
2016-03-07 05:02 WH2XND 0.475740 -8 0 DM33xt 5 DL4RAJ JN68kj 9367 33
2016-03-07 05:02 WH2XND 0.475740 -16 0 DM33xt 5 DH5RAE JN68qv 9352 33
2016-03-07 05:02 WH2XND 0.475740 -22 0 DM33xt 5 DJ0ABR JN68nt 9346 33
2016-03-07 05:12 WH2XND 0.475740 -30 0 DM33xt 5 DL4RAJ JN68kj 9367 33

2016-03-07 05:00 WG2XKA 0.475723 -25 0 FN33lq 1 DL4RAJ JN68kj 6292 53

 

It seems that the propagation peaked at +/- 05:00 UTC.

The fact that DL4RAJ copied most of it is probably due to his "good ears" (last night DL4RAJ had 6 copies of EA5DOM, while just 1 for DJ0ABR and nil for DH5RAE).

 

Maybe G3NYK and/or PA0RDT can link strange propagation this to some propagation mechanism / solar event?

 

73, Rik  ON7YD - OR7T

 

---

Van: owner-rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org [owner-rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org] namens DK7FC [selberdenken@posteo.de]
Verzonden: maandag 7 maart 2016 11:40
Aan: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Onderwerp: Re: LF: strange MF TA propagation last night

Wow, very impressive.
As we saw in the past, JN68 is a special field...

The dst plot showed a dramatical dip. On LF we think that propagation must be down for days but on MF i thought there can be miracles. Thus i started the TX over the night. And see here, the miracle happened!

73, Stefan

Am 07.03.2016 09:15, schrieb Rik Strobbe:

I just noticed very strange TA propagation on MF last night:

 

During a very short period (04:40 - 05:02) 3 US stations were copied in southern Germany, but nowhere else in Europe:

 

2016-03-07 04:40 WH2XND 0.475740 -30  0 DM33xt 5 DL4RAJ  JN68kj 9367 33
2016-03-07 05:02 WH2XND  0.475740 -16  0  DM33xt  5  DH5RAE   JN68qv  9352  33
2016-03-07 05:02  WH2XND  0.475740  -22  0  DM33xt  5  DJ0ABR   JN68nt  9346  33
2016-03-07 04:52  WG2XXM  0.475711  -30  0  EM15lj  5  DL4RAJ   JN68kj  8406  40
2016-03-07 05:00  WG2XKA  0.475723  -25  0  FN33lq  1  DL4RAJ   JN68kj  6292  53

 

The signals were partially very strong (up to -16dB) and the 3 EU stations are located close together.

Also the distances are remarkable, up to 9367 km.

Based on WSPRNET data at least a dozen other stations were receiving WSPR in Western Europe at that time, but not a single copy from them!

 

During the same time period one German station was copied in the US:

 

2016-03-07 04:54  DK7FC  0.475682  -26  0  JN49ik  1  WA3TTS/2  EN90xn  6636  298
2016-03-07 05:04  DK7FC  0.475682  -20  0  JN49ik  1  WG2XJM   EN91wr  6557  299
2016-03-07 05:04  DK7FC  0.475684  -17  0  JN49ik  1  WE2XGR   FN31ls  6099  295
2016-03-07 05:14  DK7FC  0.475680  -22  1  JN49ik  1  WG2XKA   FN33lq  5970  297

 

Further there was also some trans Pacific DX:

 

Hawaii-Australia:

 

2016-03-06 10:36  WH2XCR  0.475798  -31  0  BL11je  1  VK2XGJ   QF55jl  8278  222
2016-03-06 15:12  VK4YB  0.475617  -24  -1  QG62ku  5  WH2XCR   BL11je  7597  50
2016-03-06 15:06  WH2XCR  0.475798  -26  0  BL11je  1  VK4YB   QG62ku  7597  227

 

Australia-Japan:

 

2016-03-06 15:08  VK3ELV  0.475775  -27  1  QF33bq  5  JH1INM   PM95iq  8043  354

 

Hawaii-mainland US:

 

2016-03-06 07:58  WG2XKA  0.475724  -28  0  FN33lq  1  WH2XCR   BL11je  7945  282
2016-03-06 08:02  WH2XCR  0.475798  -27  -1  BL11je  1  WG2XJM   EN91wr  7413  52
2016-03-06 07:48  WG2XJM  0.475782  -22  -1  EN91wr  5  WH2XCR   BL11je  7413  278
2016-03-06 07:32  WH2XCR  0.475798  -30  0  BL11je  1  SWL/K9   EN61  6844  53
2016-03-06 07:32  WH2XCR  0.475798  -28  0  BL11je  1  WB0VAK   EN34ia  6328  50
2016-03-06 07:58  WG2XWS  0.475792  -19  0  DH89  1  WA3TTS/2  EN90xn  6153  21
2016-03-06 07:58  WG2XWS  0.475652  -23  0  DH89  1  WB0VAK   EN34ia  6144  9
2016-03-06 07:34  WG2XIQ  0.475611  -18  0  EM12mp  5  WH2XCR   BL11je  6030  274
2016-03-06 07:32  WH2XCR  0.475799  -27  0  BL11je  1  WG2XIQ   EM12  6023  65
2016-03-06 07:34  WG2XXM  0.475712  -13  -1  EM15lj  5  WH2XCR   BL11je  6007  272
2016-03-06 07:32  WH2XCR  0.475798  -28  0  BL11je  1  WG2XXM   EM15lj  6007  61

 

73, Rik  ON7YD - OR7T