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-4373 or go to hamstation .com. everyone! This
is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, and welcome to HamTalk
Live episode number 48, Sunspot Cycles with Karl
Lutzelschwaub. K9LA, recorded live on Thursday,
January 19th, 2017. I'm your host, Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning into this episode of
HamTalk Live. Tonight, We're joined by Carl Lutzelschwaab,
K9LA, who will take your questions about sunspot
cycles and how they affect radio propagation.
We will take your calls live in just a few minutes.
Last week, John Davis, WB4QDX, was here to talk
about setting up a D -Star rig. We'll have some
more D -Star, DMR, and System Fusion shows in
the future. So if you missed the show about D
-Star, you can listen anytime at HamTalkLive
.com, or on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn,
SoundCloud, or YouTube, or several other podcasting
sites. Hey, congratulations to Hope Lee, KM4IPF.
She had over 30 ,000 views on a Facebook video.
of her working the ham radio station on the set
of the tv sitcom last man standing um so hope
just keeps getting all over the screen and uh
if you haven't seen it yet go over to facebook
check out the ka0xtt web page there on facebook
and you can watch that One other note, we want
to send our condolences to the family of Charlie
Emerson in 4OKL. Charlie was chairman of the
Huntsville HamFest and he became a silent key
this week. He was on episode number 27 of HamTalk
Live back in August. And if you tune into Amateur
Radio Newsline tomorrow, there'll be a special
tribute to the friendly ham who made Huntsville
the world's friendliest ham fest. Well, we'll
be back. We'll have the interview with Carl Lutzelschwaab
and you can call us with your sunspot cycle questions
on Skype. The username there is ham talk live,
or you can call us on. the old telephone. The
number is 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261.
You can also tweet us a question or Twitter handle
is at HamTalk Live. So we'll check those as well.
And I'll be back with Carl Lutzelschwaab, K9LA,
right after this word from the HamStation right
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They've got you covered for just about anything
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Live. We're on the air every Thursday night at
9 p .m. Eastern Time. Right here at HamTalkLive
.com and if you missed the show you can listen
to the archive on the website or download it
for most popular podcasting websites. Carl Lutzelschwaab,
K9LA, was first licensed in October of 1961 with
the callsign WN9AVT. His interest in amateur
radio came from being a shortwave listener in
the fifth and sixth grades using a National NC
60 with a long wire out the basement window.
His amateur radio interests ultimately led to
a career in electronics. His interest in propagation
goes back to his college days at Purdue University
where he earned a bachelor of science in electrical
engineering in 1969 and a master's in 1972. Carl
retired in October 2013 after 41 years as an
RF design engineer with Motorola and Raytheon,
which is formerly Magnavox. He's authored many
articles and given many presentations on solar
effects on the radio propagation. He and his
wife Vicki Lutzer -Schwab, AE9... YL have been
on several DXpeditions. He's at the top of the
DXCC honor roll, having worked all current DXCC
entities. He's also completed DXCC on 160, and
is nearing five -band worked -all zones. His
website contains many of his articles and tutorials.
That's over at K9LA. And he's also the vice director
of the ARRL Central Division. So Carl, welcome
to HamTalk Live. Well, hello, Neil. I'm glad
to be here and hope I can provide some good information
to all the listeners. Yeah, sure. We appreciate
you coming on the show and appreciate your help
with things at my school as well. And we want
to start off just talking about the sunspot cycle.
We know from studying from the license that there's
this 11 year cycle. And so tell us a little more
about that cycle and where we are in that cycle
right now. Okay Neil, very good. Well we measure
solar cycles from solar minimum through solar
maximum and then back down to solar minimum.
Sometimes it's not real easy to tell when a solar
minimum is. because there are many things going
on. Now the average length of a solar cycle as
you stated is about 11 years and I can't stress
the fact that it's about 11 years. Of the 24
cycles that we have in recorded history the length
varies from a couple years shorter than 11 to
several years longer than 11. Average rise time
of a solar cycle is about four years. So after
hitting solar minimum, we should usually expect
to see the maximum about four years later. And
some simple math says the average descent is
therefore seven years. So what that tells us
is the descent is much slower than the rise.
And that's been going on for... or at least all
the 24 cycles that we have recorded. Now, posted
in various places, I was just looking at it on
QRZ .com, is figure one, which I thought might
help, and I'll talk about figure one. If you
can view it, that's great. If not, hopefully
I can explain it. What it is is just shows the...
Smooth sunspot number for the last one two three
four five six solar cycles that'd be cycle 19
20 21 22 23 and 24 and that extends from about
1954 up to the present date and let me jump in
here too if if you aren't looking at the pictures.
We also have those on our Twitter. So if you
go to HamTalk Live on Twitter or on our Facebook
page, they're there as well, as well as in that
news post on QRZ .com. So you can try to see
those if you want to follow along. Yeah, well,
thanks, Neil, for further additional information
there. What we can see there is cycle 19 as maybe
most of you are aware has been the biggest one
in our recorded history Now that doesn't say
that the Sun has done bigger cycles before Before
we started even viewing sunspots, but at least
19 is the biggest cycle 20 was kind of small
About half the size of 19 and then cycles 21
and 2 came 22 came along and they were pretty
good not as big as 19, but they provided lots
of good 10 meter openings worldwide. Cycle 23,
which peaked around 2000 for the first peak,
was not too far behind cycle 2, so it gave lots
of good worldwide opportunities. And then cycle
24, if you can see the picture, it stands out.
It's the lowest cycle in our lifetimes. So things
have been kind of going down. since cycle 19
and maybe a little bit later we'll talk about
that. If you get the picture you'll see some
of those solar cycles have dual peaks. In other
words they peak the first time then they take
a little dip and then go up again. What that
is is just that the solar hemispheres aren't
in sync. Sunspots in the northern hemisphere
sometimes are greater and that causes a peak
and then sunspots in the southern hemisphere
are just come roaring back and that causes another
peak. Interesting phenomena, and there's a lot
of good stuff that we won't talk about, but hopefully
I'll cover some of the general stuff. With cycle
24, we're in the decline. We're more than halfway
down to solar minimum, which is expected to be
in about 2020. And then of course that kind of
suggests that in 2024 cycle 25 will peak So that's
it that's a little bit background on that question
Okay, well since we're we're kind of you know
approaching the bottom of the cycle here We noticed
that the bands have been pretty bad for a while
Seems like every time I get on Twitter. It's
the bands are dead Jim and you know the Forecast
just says you know band closed band closed band
closed so Why is this one so much worse than
the normal? That's a real good question As I
mentioned just a couple of minutes ago cycle
24 is the lowest one in our lifetime And it also
suggests that maybe cycle 25 is going to be low
also. Now why is the cycle so much worse? Well,
it's because for the past several solar cycles,
the sun's magnetic field has been weakening.
And of course, sunspots are tied to the sun's
magnetic field and the plasma flow within the
sun. So that's why it's weakening. Now we don't
fully understand or at least solar scientists
don't fully understand why the sun's magnetic
field is weakening, but it is. And there sure
is a lot of research trying to understand, you
know, how solar cycles are generated. You know,
we want to do that to be able to predict future
cycles because of, you know, space operations
out there. An active sun creates more hazard
to the astronauts. Of course, Ham Radio was interested
in what solar cycles are doing. Now, I've got
a figure two on there posted to the qrz .com
and all the places that Neil said. And what it
shows is all 23 recorded solar cycles, or 24
recorded solar cycles. And what the figure shows
is that the first four cycles were rather high.
The next three cycles were rather low. The next
six or so cycles were kind of high. Then we went
into a period of about four solar cycles that
were kind of low. And then we hit the modern
times where cycle 19 was, and that was very high.
So what we've had is we've had a period of very
high solar cycles followed by a period of low
solar cycles followed by another period of high
solar cycles followed by another period of low
and then this recent period of very high solar
cycles. What that suggests is we're now headed
for some low solar cycles, 24, 25, maybe even
26. We like I said, we can't really predict that
very well, so we're just gonna have to wait and
see what happens The solar cycles of course get
into how good the bands are Yeah, and that's
the the next thing here is okay, so the bands
are dead you know the bands are not what they
have been for several years so what do we do
about it what what implications does the cycle
have on trying to choose a band and operating
times and and and get through this low part of
the cycle yeah that's a good question As we've
since we've been proceeding on the descent of
cycle 24 The bands have been pretty bad and the
reason for that is when there are lots of sunspots
There's lots of ionization mostly in the especially
in the f2 region, which is Generally what is
used for for long -distance communications worldwide?
and what that means is when there's more ionization,
the higher frequencies can be refracted back
to Earth. They don't go through the ionosphere
into space to never return unless the universe
is, you know, closed and folds back on itself.
But we won't get into that. Yeah. We hope that's
not happening. Yeah. If you want to know more
about that Star Trek episode number. Yeah, exactly.
OK. So, you know, there are two things that really
determine if you can have a QSO between you and
a target location. One is there's got to be enough
ionization in the ionosphere to be able to refract
the frequency you're on, to send it back to Earth
so it can maybe go for another hop or do something
even more exotic like ducting up in the ionosphere.
The other issue is ionospheric absorption. In
other words, I'm sure everyone's heard of the
D region, and that's responsible solely for loss,
signal strength loss during propagation. So it
determines if you can hear that other station
or not, and if he can hear you. Actually, there's
really a third issue. It's called polarization,
vertical, circular, horizontal, et cetera, elliptical.
But that's less of a problem and it's usually
not a big issue So most of the time we kind of
ignored on HF at least when we get down to 160
meters it starts getting important for some good
physical reasons but Like I said the polarization
is not a big issue, so I'm not going to worry
about it too much Now as as cycle 24 approaches
minimum we're gonna have We're going to have
less and less openings on 10, 12, and 15 meters.
Now you may wonder, how can we have any less
than we're having right now, right? But generally
North -South propagation is, it kind of happens
on 10 meters. In fact, yesterday there are a
lot of South Americans on up here. I could hear
them up here in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is
up in the Northeast corner of the state. So 10
meters is not. There's going to be a lot of nothing
there, but at times there could be some good
propagation. And of course, during the summer,
you should always check 10 meters for sporadic
E. That happens regardless of a solar cycle,
where we are in a solar cycle. So don't give
up completely. Every once in a while, exercise
those band switches. In general, of course, the
low bands seem to approve as we approach solar
minimum. But recently there have been some interesting
questions about this conventional wisdom. Many
people have expected the low bands to be a lot
better than they appear to be. Trying to figure
out why they're not as good is kind of interesting.
So who knows, maybe we'll learn something as
we go through this solar min period. but I think
the general takeaway is just for the next several
years until cycle 25 gets going there's going
to be few openings in the high bands and most
of us are going to be well beyond the low bands
you know 17, 20, 30, 40, 80 and 160. 20 and 17
will probably be still be pretty good throughout
the solar min period. Of course, they won't be
as good as at solar max, but they'll still be
worldwide DX opportunities. 40 and 30 ought to
be really, really good. And hopefully 80 and
160 will pick up. So for the next couple of years,
move down in frequency is the advice. All right.
Very good. That's what I'm hearing is 160. I
can kind of cheat with my antenna and get 160,
but that takes some wire. So you may want to
think about that 160 antenna. Well, we're going
to take a break. And when we come back, we're
going to take your phone calls. So get ready
to call in. The number is 812 -NET -HAM -1 and
I'll be back to take your calls with Carl Lutzelschwaab
right after this message from Tower Electronics
right here on HamTalk Live. This episode of HamTalk
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For ham talk live. So now it's time for your
questions. So if you have a question For Carl
Lucil Schwab, K9LA, call 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's
812 -638 -4261. Go ahead and call that right
now. 812 -NET -HAM -1. Now is the time to call
in. You can also Skype us. You can Skype us at
HamTalk Live. So give us a call on Skype. and
join the conversation, or if you'd rather type,
you can tweet us. Over on Twitter, at HamTalkLive
is our handle there. So if you have a question
about propagation and sunspots, give us a call.
And by the way, Carl, I've noticed you've been
on the AWRL audio news lately, and my friend
Sean Kutsko It seems to say your last name a
lot. I think he just likes saying Lutzl Schwab.
So a friend of mine mentioned that. For what
it's worth, we've kind of Americanized it, I
guess. We pronounce it Litzl Schwab. But they
even pronounce it a different order in Switzerland.
Yeah, so so what I thought I would do is See
if I can outscore Sean and by saying Lutzl Schwab
more times in the show Than he does so and maybe
we'll maybe we'll have a contest And guess the
number of times that I said Lutzl Schwab tonight,
so We We used to see Sean quite a bit when he,
of course, he lived in Nineland. But now that
he's out at headquarters, we see him at Dayton
and maybe some other ham fest, but that's about
it. Yeah, he's got his hands full of all kinds
of work out there in Connecticut, so he's abandoned
us of Nineland. Yeah, he's done a lot of violence
on the air, right? Yeah, islands on the air.
Yeah, there we go. Yeah, he's having a lot of
fun. Yeah, Parker, yeah. He's having lots of
fun. All right, 812 -NATAM -1. 812 -638 -4261
is the phone number for Carl Lutzelschwaab. I
got it in there again. What are some... While
we're waiting on the calls here to come in and
questions, again, you can tweet us over at HamTalk
Live on Twitter. What are some websites that
people could go to to get the solar weather and
propagation reports and that kind of thing? What
are just some website addresses that you would
suggest for people to check out? OK, well, as
one might expect, there are quite a few out there.
You know, the ARRL puts out a propagation bulletin
every Friday and it's authored, it's edited by
Tad K7RA. So he talks a lot about the numbers,
sunspots, the geomagnetic field indices and also
most of the time a lot of reader input. It's
good practical information that you can read
there. Of course, if you're a member of the ARRL,
you can subscribe to that propagation bulletin
for free, and it shows up in your email every
week. Of course, CQ Magazine has a propagation
column by Thomas NW7US. Lots of good info there.
Now, if you're just looking on the web for some
websites, spaceweather .com. Space weather is
all one word. There are lots of measurements
on the left side of their homepage, and in the
center is usually lots of good discussion on
various issues. One of the ones that has just
mucho information is the Space Weather Prediction
Center in Boulder, Colorado. Their website is
www .swpc .com. So swpc .noaa .com. And they
have lots of measurements, they have models,
they have lots of tutorials to help you understand
what all these measurements mean. I believe that's
.gov. If I remember right. Yeah, you're right.
And apparently we've got some sunspots on the
line here. Your audio is breaking up a little
bit. Well, okay, maybe it's not sunspots. So
we apologize for that, but keep on going. We're
in good shape here. Okay. Also www .qrz .com
has a little panel. shows solar terrestrial data.
Another good site is www .solarham .net. It has
lots of data. And there are many more out there,
and I'm sorry if I didn't include maybe some
of your favorites, but they're all over the place.
It's kind of like propagation prediction programs.
They're all The same, it's the bells and whistles
and how they present the data that's different.
And that's what I think you'll find with all
these websites, a lot of common data, how they
present it. And of course that says you'll probably
feel more comfortable with maybe a certain website
and kind of stick to that. Yeah. And I like to
follow Dr. Tamatha Scov too, over at spaceweather
.tv. She does a great job on the visuals and
some good stuff there too so all kinds of stuff
out there to take a look at so those are some
some great resources and I will put a list of
those together and send those out on on Twitter
and Facebook after the show so you can get a
hold of those again if you missed those so those
will be up on Facebook and Twitter afterwards
812 Net Ham 1 is the phone number 812 -638 -4261
or you can tweet us over at Twitter at HamTalk
Live or you can call us on Skype at HamTalk Live
if you have a question. One other thing that
I've always wondered in listening to the W1AW
bulletins, we always have the sunspot numbers
at the end. Today's sunspot numbers are, I kind
of think sometimes it's kind of like a fortune
cookie, you know, your lucky numbers for today
are 2478, you know. What are those sunspot numbers
that they give out on the W1AW bulletins and
how can we use those to help figure this stuff
out? Okay, yeah, that's a good question, Neil.
Those numbers are, you know, what we observe.
And you have to realize that sunspot, counting
sunspots is subjective. You know, humans do it,
so there can be biases in there. And of course
it depends on how good your telescope is, the
sky cover, etc. And that's why they use a bunch
of observatories to come up with a sunspot number.
Hold on here, the cat's getting twisted in the
headphone. Uh -oh. Yeah, one of the cats is active,
but okay. It's not the first time that's happened
on the show, by the way. So we count sunspots,
which are subjective. But we try and you know
get them as right as we can Of course there's
another solar parameter It's called the 10 .7
centimeter solar flux that is measured so it's
much more of a an objective measurement and Of
course you have to keep your you know the receiver
and the calibrated etc and all that but still
it's there's no human interpretation involved
now sunspots and the 10 .7 centimeter solar flux
are proxies for the true ionizing radiation,
which is at much, much shorter wavelengths than
10 .7 centimeters. But there are relationships
that relate sunspots to 10 .7 centimeter solar
flux. You'll probably find those on that NOAA
.gov website. So, we use those numbers to get
a general picture of what propagation is like.
Generally, we'd like very high sunspot numbers,
very high 10 .7 centimeter solar flux. That would
make the higher bands like 15, 12, and 10 very
good for worldwide communications. In general,
if the sunspot number is greater than about 50
or so, then 10 meters has a chance of being open.
If the sunspot number is only around 35, it suggests,
okay, well, 15 meters at least should be open.
Those are some rough numbers, and they also correspond
to solar fluxes. If the solar flux is greater
than about 100, then 10 meters is open. If it's
greater, about 90. It's at least 15 meters will
be open. So we use those. And of course, this
brings us into the propagation prediction programs
that are available. There are many of them out
there. There's W6ELProp. It's free download.
And on my website is a tutorial on how to download
it and use it and interpret it. Also the Voice
of America program, VOA Cap. is also a free download
on the website. Just do a Google search and you'll
find that program. There's a tutorial on my website
at k9la .us for how to download it, set it up
and use it and interpret it. We have to remember
that our understanding of the ionosphere is statistical
in nature. Unfortunately, a given sunspot number
or solar flux number does not map to a unique
level of ionization of the ionosphere. So you
just have to remember that our predictions are
statistical over a month's time frame. And once
you understand that, they begin to make sense.
And you can do some planning on what's the best
band to talk to Uncle Joe over there. in maybe
Arizona or something. So using the sunspot numbers
is just gives an indication of where what bands
might be open. The lower bands, generally the
ionization is always high enough that you don't
have to worry about the level of ionization.
There's always enough to refract those lower
frequencies back to Earth and all you're left
with is how much absorption is there, and will
it put the signal below your noise, which generally
is limited by external noise around you, man
-made noise and atmospheric noise. Also in the
bulletins are the geomagnetic indices, the K
index and the A index. The K index is a three
hour index of how the magnetic field of the Earth
is varying or being disturbed. The A index is
essentially the average of the eight three -hour
K indices. So it tells you if the ionosphere
is disturbed or not. In general, we'd like a
quiet magnetic field, which means a low A and
K indices. But of course, there are always exceptions.
Sometimes high A and K indices are useful, like
aurora at VHF frequencies. Sometimes the ionosphere
can be enhanced at low latitudes by elevated
K indices. So there are some general guidelines
to follow, but just understand that it's a very
complicated system up there. A lot of interesting
things happen and the more you know about them
the more you may be prepared to work something
that your friends may not work. Carl Lutzl Schwab,
K9LA is our guest. You can call in and ask him
a question at 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638
-4261. We have just a few minutes remaining,
so give us a call on there or on Skype. Give
us an audio call or you can tweet us over on
Twitter at HamTalk Live. One other thing I just
thought of. Carl is Most of the time I'm in a
hurry, you know either in a contest or I've got
a few minutes to check things before I Go upstairs
to the ham shack at school and get the kids on
the air and So I go over to DX Summit or QRZ
and look at that little You know band conditions
thing and observed and predicted and and Sometimes
it seems like that's accurate and and sometimes
it doesn't So I'm wondering how much of that
is Is just kind of like whether it's it's predicted
and how much of that is is pure measurement Well
most I think most of it is pure measurement Interestingly,
the ionosphere varies on a day -to -day basis
quite a bit. Although solar radiation instigates
the ionization process, the condition of the
Earth's magnetic field also comes into play in
determining how much ionization there is at a
given point, at a given time. And interestingly,
we're discovering and doing much more research
in events that happen in the lower atmosphere
that couple up to the ionosphere and they have
an impact on what the ionization is. So, you
know, since we don't understand that, that's
why we have a statistical model of the ionosphere.
The best way to understand predictions are to
realize that they're probably monthly median
value, in other words, kind of almost like an
average over a month's time frame. So on any
given day within that month's time frame, it
could be, you know, 10 to 30 % different, 10
% higher to 30 % lower. So it's tough to predict
propagation on a very short -term basis. In other
words, what's happening today? We just don't
have it yet. Of course, there's lots of work
by the military, et cetera, in taking measurements
from ionosans. and total electron content from
GPS systems and assimilate that into a model
to try and get a more up -to -date picture. I'm
sure we'll see more and more to that and I know
many universities are working on physical models
of the ionosphere and the atmosphere, well the
atmosphere really, that will hopefully give us
what's the ionosphere doing right now. I find
the best way to go find out how the bands are
doing is, you know, I monitor a packet cluster.
You know, it shows, you know, stations spot other
stations. And that gives me a general, a good
idea what the band is doing right now. On the
higher bands, there are also the IARUNCDXF beacon
system, where in a three -minute period, you
could assess worldwide propagation on a given
band because there are 18 beacons scattered all
throughout the world. So that'll give you a good
idea what's going on on 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10
meters. Unfortunately, we don't have anything
on the lower bands. But maybe someday we will.
But there are ways to assess short -term what
the bands are like. But those predictions you
see on all the websites are just general. And
realize that maybe one band up or down could
really be what's happening. Just based on the
predictions. All right. Very good. Well, thank
you so much for coming on. We're just about out
of time. So thank you for doing that. And I will
get those websites up. online here after the
show. So that is wrap for this week's edition
of Ham Talk Live. I'd like to thank my guest
Carl Lutzelschwaab, K9LA, and everyone out there
in cyberspace for listening and calling in and
invite you all back next Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern Time when Richard Garriott de Caillou,
W5KWQ, will be here to talk about operating ham
radio from space and his new book called explore,
create. Richard was one of the first space tourists
on the International Space Station and the old
timers like me may remember his father Owen W5LFL
who was an astronaut on Skylab and the space
shuttle and was the first to operate ham radio
from space so I'm sure we'll talk a little bit
about his dad as well and for a list of all of
our upcoming guests visit hamtalklive .com and
just click on the link there. For now, this is
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and, as
always, may the good DX be yours. 73, and good
luck from HamTalk Live.