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Here we go Good evening, everyone. It's time
for HamTalk Live. It's episode number 223, Solar
Cycle 25 with Ted Cook, K7RA, recorded live on
Thursday, August 13th, 2020. I'm your host, Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined by Ted
Cook, K7RA, and we'll take your calls live. In
just a few minutes, last week, Michael Colley,
W4MCA, and Mike Banigan, KJ4UDO, were here to
talk about the Orlando Hamcation and the Carol
Perry Educator Award nominations. So if you missed
that show, you can listen anytime over at HamTalkLive
.com. or your favorite podcast app or on youtube
or you can catch the rebroadcast every saturday
afternoon at three thirty p m eastern time on
w t w w that's fifty eighty five a m so i get
your solar questions ready to go we'll talk with
tad here in a little bit and uh... let me give
you the phone number here to call if you have
a question to ask if you're listening to us live
on Thursday night you can give us a call after
the interview and that telephone number to call
is 859 -982 -7373 so write it down have it ready
to go it's not time to call just yet but it's
859 -982 -7373 73. You can also tweet us. I'll
be checking Twitter throughout the night. As
always, it's at ham talk live on Twitter. And
if you're on Spreaker, you can comment as well.
And I'll be back with Tad right after this word
from icon America right here. on HamTalk Live.
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Live is on your side with traffic and weather
together on the eights. Welcome back to HamTalk
Live. Thanks to Icom America for sponsoring HamTalk
Live. Check them out at icomamerica .com slash
amateur. Tonight's guest is Ted Cook K7RA and
ironically comes from where the Sun doesn't shine
Seattle, Washington But he knows all about the
Sun and its effect on radio propagation. Ted
had become a ham at age 12. It's WN7CSK and has
been WA7CSK, KT7H, K7VVV and In 2003, he took
on the call sign K7RA in memory of Homer Spence,
one dear friend of Tad's. And since 1991, he
has been writing the weekly ARRL propagation
bulletin. And I had you muted, Tad, but you can
say it again. It's actually sunny. Yeah, it's
sunny in Seattle right now. Very comfortable.
Doesn't get too hot here. Well there there we
go, so so we timed it right today So so the Sun
is the Sun is always shining with it with Tad.
We'll talk about some nice ways to phrase that
here in a little bit, but First off. Thanks for
coming on the show and it was kind of quick notice.
I had got just totally swamped with the start
of a new school year and it's like day two of
school and I'm just like still kind of like trying
to figure out where I am right now. And so yesterday
is like, Oh yeah, I've been meaning to get a
hold of Ted and let's see if he can come on the
show. So thank you for doing that. And then,
then to top it off, we were fighting audio issues.
So we were a minute late. So I apologize, but
solar 25 solar cycle 25 is revving up and there's
been some news lately. So tell us about that.
Well, it's exciting. We certainly waited long
enough and Let's see, we've had some spots every
day for over three weeks now, and that's certainly
a big change. this information campaign from
some forces that were doubtful about climate
change. Somehow they had got the idea that maybe
it was actually linked to sunspots, but it wouldn't
be a problem because we weren't going to have
sunspots anymore. One day, it was over 10 years
ago, I got a ton of emails from readers an article
in Investories Business Daily. And I clicked
on it, and it was this thing saying, it was poo
-pooing climatology and saying that it was all
linked to solar cycles. But this wouldn't be
a problem because we weren't going to have sunspots
anymore. And I thought, well, that's news to
me. anyone would predict that. And then, reading
further down, they had a quote from somebody
I know. And that's Ken Tapping, who works at
this solar observatory in Penticton, British
Columbia, where we get our solar flux readings.
And they had insane things that were just outlandish,
like he was talking way outside of his field,
and of astrophysics, and talking about climate.
email and asked if they quoted him accurately.
And he said, this has been the worst two weeks
of my life. I don't know what happened, but he
said he got a call from a woman. He didn't write
down her name, didn't realize that they were
going to be talking for 90 minutes. And he kept,
she kept trying to get him to comment on climate
and he kept telling her he's not an expert in
that. And I guess she had an agenda. linking
climate to solar cycles and when he didn't say
what she wanted and she didn't get the quote
she wanted she just made it up and so his life
had turned to hell because you know he was getting
all this blowback on this and so this started
me on an interesting path where I was you know
tracking these articles that would talk about
climate And they would always mention the monitor
minimum and the time when England had ice spares
and there weren't any sunspots. And I just kept
seeing this over and over and over. And the worst
were the British tabloids. They've gotten a bit
better. Now they, of course, point out that even
if it is linked to sunspots and we don't have
any sunspots, overwhelmed by all the carbon that's
in the atmosphere. And anyway, it was quite an
interesting time. So when I would reply to people
about this, I would point out that the biggest
solar cycle of all time was 1957 to 59, cycle
19, the one we all dream about. And then I would
ask, well, was that hotter then? or not, and
it wasn't. So anyway, it was an interesting time,
and I ran into a lot of that noise. Yeah, and
I'm sure when you run into the noise, as my friend
Christian K0STH says, it's hard to stay above
the noise, both on the air and in news. Well,
what for those who don't realize, you know, this,
what this really means that we've had a sudden
spot for, you know, every day for three weeks
and why that's good news. Explain a little bit
of that. Why, why we're optimistic about this
next cycle? Well, I don't see any other choice.
I'm an optimist. But the reason that's a good
thing, generally, especially for HF propagation,
is that sunspots and solar flux correlate with
a type of X -radiation, X -rays from the sun
that charge the ionosphere. And the record -breaking
cycle 19 produced so much solar activity that
the ionosphere was densely ionized, 24 hours
a day. And from stories I've heard, you could
get on 10 meters with very low power and work
the world. And what happens is as solar activity
increases and the ionosphere gets more densely
ionized, the maximum usable frequency goes up
and it reflects higher frequencies. Well, one
of the neat things about that is, of course,
when you double frequency, like when you go from
20 meters to 10 meters, antennas are half as
big to be just as efficient. And so this is a
really neat thing when it gets ionized. And all
kinds of weird things happen. I remember my dad.
in the San Joaquin Valley. And he was a biologist,
but making money so he could go back to school
at UC Berkeley. And I remember judging from the
length of the antenna that was on the bumper
of the company car that we used, his radio, two
-way radio, was probably up around 40 megahertz,
or at least above 30 megahertz. And he would
get weird things happening back in 1958 where
he wouldn't be able to contact his base in Fresno,
but he would hear stations in Texas. And so this
was because of cycle 19 and the increased solar
activity. So increased solar activity really
helps make things exciting on HF amateur radio.
And we've been saying for several years now that
the bands are dead. The bands are dead. It's
like, you know, I keep seeing this meme on Twitter.
It's the Star Trek thing. The bands are dead,
Jim. And, you know, it's just been pretty miserable
for long distance stuff. We've had a few little
instances of 10 meters actually doing some stuff,
and so we're kind of hoping that this is going
to get better. Yeah, fortunately we have some
new modes to distract us. FT8 is just amazing
in how it can dig readable signals out of the
noise, and I've been enjoying and one of the
fun things is to put out a call on FT8 on 6 meters
or 10 meters and then check PSK report and see
that with a low power and a very limited antenna
I was heard all over the world and I can see
what the signal strength was and it's really
a neat mode. It's a disappointment for some people
who used to be able to use who want to be able
to grab a mic and just chat. But I think for
observing openings and propagation, it's really
neat. I've even noticed in the last couple of
days, totally independent of the sun here. We're
taking a tangent here for a minute. But there's
been some tropospheric ducting going on where
I'm at. And normally I listen to this radio station
in indianapolis you know on my alarm clock and
my alarm goes off and i'm hearing wls and i'm
like wls that's in chicago that's on am well
it was their fm station and you know here i am
in southern indiana and i'm i'm here in wls all
the way from chicago well Sometimes I hear KG95
over in St. Louis and so I'm used to, you know,
there being kind of a mix there of those two
and then I've never heard WLS FM before. I didn't
even know they had an FM and all of a sudden
yesterday, you know, here it comes and that's
all that tropospheric ducting stuff. But back
to the solar stuff, you know, when these sunspots
get up and going and, you know, we're going to
have a pretty good time when all this stuff is
back to what many of us are used to. Yeah, I
think so. It's certainly welcome. Yeah, and I
hope the sunspots keep increasing. Okay, now
my next question here is about the number of
sunspots. So, on these propagation bulletins
that come out and I remember decoding these on
RIDD and I think we were talking before the show
about FEC Amtor mode and I remember that and
I remember getting these and I would always get
the bulletins and sometimes we'd read them on
nets and stuff and kind of got away from it.
But I remember, you know, whenever I do this
and on field day, you know, you copy the field
day bulletin, then all the rest of the bulletins
come out. And here's all these numbers. So I
went to the last one here and just copied and
pasted this into my into my notes here. So the
sunspot numbers for July 30th through August
5th 2020 were 22, 23, 22, 22, 23, 12, and 13
with a mean of 19 .6. So what does that mean
and why do we care about that? Well we want more
sunspots and the sunspot number is not the number
of sunspots. arcane way that this number is calculated,
and it dates back at least a couple hundred years.
But basically, one sunspot group counts for 10
points. And there's one point. what the mean
is or the average is. And you'll see some correlation
with the solar flux, which is a measure of radiation
from the sun at 10 .7 centimeters. And a lot
of the popular press got confused about this
when we were at a certain spot minimum. remembering
a time when the sunspot numbers were that high,
but it wasn't the same as the number of sunspots.
The other thing that we present in the bulletin
is geomagnetic indicators. geomagnetic unrest.
So generally we want those numbers to be low
and we have, they've been low for a very long
time now. What will happen is if there's a big
solar flare, for instance, it will disturb the
magnetic field and we'll see a lot more absorption
and I remember times past where it was just going
on for weeks like that and it's especially bad
if you're way up north, the energy gets concentrated
towards the poles. And so I remember having friends
who were in Alaska during times past when things
were really active and the bands were just dead
for weeks. But we've been seeing such low geomagnetic
indicators that it's made it really good for
160 meters. And it's better when it's dark and
there's no noise from thunderstorms, which can
be quite considerable. On 160, you can pick up
noise from thunderstorms that are happening all
over the world. And so 160 operators tend to
enjoy their band. Logarithmic measure and each
point in the K index from zero, it can go as
high as nine, I think, is a lot. And so typically
we'll see numbers like one or two. And if it
goes up like to above three, things can be pretty
disturbed. The A index is a daily number from
all the K indicators, the K index, and it's a
linear, not a logarithmic number. So when we
see a K index of three, we might see an A index
of... Okay, yeah, I was just looking here at
the this one the a indices were four four three
nine sixteen eight and five with a mean of seven
so There was one day in there that that was pretty
good That was pretty active. Yeah. Yeah or bad
if you're Or bad. Yes, depending on how you Yeah,
but But we haven't seen any really bad geomagnetic
conditions for a long time things have been quiet
Okay, well we are due for a break, but there's
there's one other thing I wanted to ask you about
it's kind of a fun thing so we'll do that on
the other side of the break and Then we'll get
into some of the questions and comments and and
take some phone calls Right after this word from
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Join the conversation. Give us a call at 859
-982 -7373. Again, the number to call is 859
-982 -7373. Or, if you'd rather type than talk,
tweet us at HamTalk Live. Now, here's Neil Rapp
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Talk Live, the number one podcast amongst the
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the title. Here's your host, Neil Rapp. Welcome
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phone calls right now. So if you have a question
for Tad, give us a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again,
859. nine eight two Seventy three seventy three
is the phone number you can tweet us. It's at
ham talk live on Twitter and You can type a comment
if you're listening on Spreaker and if you're
listening to us on the podcast edition or on
WTWW you won't be able to reach us because we're
doing this live on on thursday night so so i
had you muted but you're kind of giggling at
the the commercial there because i called him
scott walking on the pl 259 coal and jill strolling
toward the next customer in line well we didn't
get to we didn't get the background so they got
the punch line they didn't they didn't get the
background so i want to ask you that you know
when i was reading these reports but you know
i guess it's been some years ago and there was
always a nickname it's like every week there's
a different nickname for you so it was like tad
walking on the sun cook or tad somewhere the
sun is shining cook so yeah i'm guessing there's
a story behind this so so what's the story behind
my choice to do those um they were done by uh
And that wasn't my creation. It was somebody
else. And so, anyway, those aren't coming back.
Don't worry. Oh, I kind of enjoyed them because,
you know, every week it's like, okay, what's
it gonna be this week? Yeah, well, and then after
a while, it was just a rotating list. Now, okay,
now I'm glad you mentioned the rotating list
because here on my paper, I have some of the
rotating list So there was Tad who countess the
steps of the Sun cook You know, that's from I
think a slightly different era when Christine
teen was my editor and she liked you know, not
being very well educated myself. This was kind
of, kind of helped the liberal arts education
that I was missing. Yeah, we've got more. Don't
worry. We've got magnificent, strong sun, so
prodigally generous of pristine light. Well,
I guess you could Google that phrase and see
who wrote it. The rain exploded with a mighty
crash as we fell into the Sun Yeah, well Google
it and I'm sure you'll find the reference there
you go The Sun is swimming on the rim of a hill
So somebody somebody has some some sense of humor
here and People would read that and think those
people or maybe they just needed a nice quick
little comic relief Just to de -stress from the
day. Maybe maybe that was it So it's had walking
on the Sun cook That's the one I was did that
one happen more often than not because it seems
like I remember that one more Oh, I know I play
that I Played that song now. I can't think of
who it was. But anyway, I had that I had to ask
I was gonna throw Joe Karsha under the bus and
I figured it sounded like something he would
do but it wasn't him so yeah he had nothing to
do with it he had nothing to do with it he just
plays it he just reads it and plays it so all
right well anyway that's uh that's Tad walking
on the Suncook so that's that's where the where
the punch line comes from here so Alright, well
we do have some real questions, so let's get
to some of those. John W. Ford USF wants to know,
aren't the cycles about 11 years long? Have there
been cycles significantly shorter or significantly
longer? Yes, they range from they tend to average
out that way. So that's kind of the mean, I guess.
Yeah. All right. Carl KD9HQT says, my father
WB9EWF remembers the biggest and best from 1968.
And he was told many stories about 1968. How
would you compare 1968 to 2020? On the proper
side not not on the craziness side because you
know cultural things in 1968 are more interesting
25, but that was 20. Yeah. Yeah, that was 20.
And so we would all like to see another cycle
19. And maybe we'll get to see it. We're making
a prediction, not a, not a sure thing. So that's
the way it goes. So John W four USF says, uh,
68 was his first cycle peak. And that was lots
of fun during high school with cycle 20. So that
must've been a good one. That was just before
my time. So yeah, 68 was surely exciting. I came
along two years later. So there there we go.
All right Well, if you have a question, give
us a call. It's eight five nine Nine eight two
seventy three seventy three. Give us a call eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three or tweet us It's at ham talk live on Twitter.
You're on speaker. Leave us a comment We'll pick
up on those and I'll check those again a couple
of times before we Wrapped things up with Ted
cook K7 la or should I say let me pick one of
these again? Tad in the dark of the Sun we will
stand together cook So much fun So Okay, so a
couple of other things I had put down here to
ask you about here So we wait for calls or tweets
here eight five nine nine eight two seventy three
seventy three the propagation forecast on Websites
like deck summit, you know, it says good fair
port. You know, it has the calculated one and
How are those calculated how do they come up
with these things? There we go. I always wonder
how they come up with good. I guess there's a
range somewhere? Well, good would be more sunspots
and less geomagnetic disturbance. So somebody's
probably just come up with a range of numbers
and said, Well, if it's between here and here,
that's good. If it's here and here, it's fair,
I guess. Yeah, I wish I should pay more attention
to those so I could talk about it. Well, there
you go. The other thing I was going to ask you
about is, I don't know if you're familiar with
Dr. Tamitha Skov, the Spence Weather Woman. What
do you think about all this imagery that she's
using to make all these weather forecasts you
know, solar forecast like a weather forecast
with all this high -res imagery and stuff. Isn't
that great? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's great. She's
wonderful. I love her. She's just great. And
I got the chance to meet her last year at the
DX convention. And she certainly brings a lot
of excitement to the field. coming up, and that's
good news for ham operators and emergency responders.
And it's that last part that I don't really understand.
I think of emergency responders as people who
are using trunk radio systems on... Well, yeah.
Yeah, I guess she's talking about the big catastrophic
emergencies where ham radio is... Yeah, but there's
still some VHF going on because sometimes the
trunk systems just don't cut it. Yeah. Yeah,
I think she's been a tremendous asset and she
even got her hand license a couple of years ago.
Let's see, what is it? WX6SWW. That's it. And
I think it's a very clever brand she's developed.
Yeah, I've got to meet her a few times and and
talk with her and I've got a little clip of all
the different layers of the atmosphere that I
use At school to teach, you know, okay. Well,
this is why this man works at this time and then
you know a night it doesn't work as well and
all that kind of thing is She's been a great
resource. So so Dr. T, if you're listening or
you hear about this, thank you for all of that.
All this 3D images let you see these numbers.
It just gives all new meaning to it. Yeah, it's
great. Yeah, she's great. She's been a tremendous
shot in the arm for people who study this stuff.
all right well if you have a question for here
we go let's see tad like the bright spots that
move about the sun cook k7 ra give us a call
859 982 -7373 will make this the last call here
for questions. Chris Bloxham, AA, AA4CB says,
1987 -88 was my first good year. Yeah, that was
my senior year of high school. So, I was enjoying
that since I hadn't seen good conditions since
then. Let's see, John W4USF again. Any idea of
antenna usage differs during peaks of the cycle?
Can a great antenna overdrive one signal or change
broadband characteristics? Well, you need antennas
as big and as high as possible. Although we saw
at the Western Washington DX club a couple of
days ago, we saw a great presentation on tower
safety. And after seeing that, I mean, it was
scary. And it's made me rethink the lust for
bigger and higher antennas. But yeah, as big
as possible and as high as possible. Yeah, I
agree. Especially on lower frequencies. Yeah,
I've seen some of the tower stuff I know what
you mean and I'm thinking next time it's going
to be a it's going to be a fold over the climbing
days are gone, I think 40 by 100 foot walk in
the city in Seattle University District, so there's
not a lot of room for antennas. I had a nice
one back in the 80s. I had a on the peak of the
roof and the roof is pretty high. I live in a
1907 Craftsman house and I have that and a 20
meter three element mono bander and it played
really, really well. So I miss those days. Yeah,
I'm looking forward to getting some better antennas
up when I move. on a, just a, you know, I'll
say it again, just a dipole. And then, you know,
I was like, oh, dipoles are good. Well, yeah,
but I kind of missed my, missed my beans, but
we'll, we'll see how that goes. All right. Well,
let's, uh, let's check here. Oh, okay. Just making
sure we didn't miss any body. But, Tan, it's
been so good to talk to you. I feel like I've
known you. We've only talked for like a day getting
ready for this. But, you know, I keep seeing
that name on the ARRL letter and on the propagation
reports and everything. And just glad to talk
to you and and Karen Eve Murray Katie to GUT
by the way is the one who recommended that Tad
be on the show because Tad was on Amateur Radio
Newsline, which I'm also a part of and you know
90 seconds just isn't long enough to get Enough
of Tad's insight, so we wanted to do this to
kind of get a little more time On the topic.
So thanks so much for coming on the show. I really
appreciate it. I'd love to have you back Okay
All right, very good. Well, that is Oh W4USF
says thanks to had Neil great show again. So
thank you very much John and John You've got
a package on the way. Actually John won a t -shirt
last week. I just packed it up for the show.
So T -shirts Oh, yeah, we have teachers. We'll
have to get you one. I'll talk to you after this
show. Yeah, it's got to be double XL at least.
Okay. All right. We'll work that out. All right.
Well, that is a wrap for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live. Thanks to my guest, Ted Cook,
K7RA, and everyone out there in cyberspace for
listening and typing in. and invite you back
next Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time, when
Frank Howell, K4FMH, will be here to talk about
the Portable Ops Challenge. It's a new contest
that puts portable operations against home ones.
So we'll talk more about that next week for a
list of all of our upcoming guests. Just go to
HamTalkLive .com, and if you like the show, please
leave us a review. That's how... people find
us faster so for now this is NeilRap WB9VPG saying
7 3 7 5 and may the good DX be yours