http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html

Kp=5

Jim (MI)

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:24:52 PM UTC-4, (unknown) wrote:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Kp=5 Jim (MI)

Using binoculars, I saw a huge sunspot at sunrise this morning, which for me was right after 6:00 a.m. outside Washington, DC. It looked like the transit of Venus. Really, it was that large and noticeable.

The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's mask. YMMV.

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 12:43:54 -0700 (PDT), Beloved Leader
wrote:

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:24:52 PM UTC-4, (unknown) wrote:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Kp=5 Jim (MI)

Using binoculars, I saw a huge sunspot at sunrise this morning, which for me was right after 6:00 a.m. outside Washington, DC. It looked like the transit of Venus. Really, it was that large and noticeable.

The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's mask. YMMV.

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

Jim (MI)

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012, wrote:

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012 12:43:54 -0700 (PDT), Beloved Leader
wrote:

On Thursday, August 2, 2012 3:24:52 PM UTC-4, (unknown) wrote:
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html Kp=5 Jim (MI)

Using binoculars, I saw a huge sunspot at sunrise this morning, which for me was right after 6:00 a.m. outside Washington, DC. It looked like the transit of Venus. Really, it was that large and noticeable.

The atmosphere was so humidity-laden that I could look at the sun through the binoculars without any needing any glass from a welder's mask. YMMV.

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.

I remember when I got my first shortwave receiver in 1971, I'd tune up and
down the CB band, and when conditions were good, it was one big squeal,
all the heterodynes and just solid signal from all the stations packed
into such a small space, and conditions good so even 3.5watts out would
come booming in from elsewhere.

Michael

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.

On 08/02/2012 05:37 PM, Brenda Ann wrote:
"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were
around were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until
around 1971 or 72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a
lot more powerful than a 3W CB.


There was a big CB boom when it was first authorized. 1961 or so. My dad
put a ground plane outside my window.

On Fri, 3 Aug 2012, Brenda Ann wrote:

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.


I didn't think there was that big a difference between "the sixties" and
1971 in regards to CB. It was a small number of channels, and almost from
the start some were trying to DX. But even without those attempts, people
realized early on that it was the wrong place in the spectrum, because
with the skip in, you did get everyone else. I don't know what it was
like when the boom hit a few years later, but with a crummy Hallicrafters
S-120A receiver that had little selectivity and little sensitivity in
1971, when conditions were good, it wsa a solid whine across the CB band.
I'm pretty sure that would have been the case even a few years earlier.

The issue isn't so much density, but that skip might come in from multiple
places, and each place was using those channels, so added up, it made the
whine.

Remember a superregen has virtually no selectivity, which is why he could
hear WWV at 25MHz when CB started just below 27MHz. But that also meant no
real selectivity, just a multitude of stations coming in when conditions
were good.

Michael

On Thu, 2 Aug 2012, dave wrote:

On 08/02/2012 05:37 PM, Brenda Ann wrote:
"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were
around were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until
around 1971 or 72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a
lot more powerful than a 3W CB.


There was a big CB boom when it was first authorized. 1961 or so. My dad put
a ground plane outside my window.

People forget, it was relative. There had been demand, there had been
dreaming, of "personal radio" for a long time. If nothing else, all those
people who wanted to be hams but didn't want to take the test.

And I gather the rules or the public knowledge was ambiguous to begin
with. I've seen early issues of Popular Electronics where CB was promoted
as a hobby band, not just peripheral things like 'build your own monitor
scope" but outright columns about DXing.

And it was no wasteland. They soon learned it was a lousy place in the
spectrum for something like that, since even without people trying to work
long distance, the long distance signals came in when conditions were
good. One reason the Heathkit Sixers (supreregen receivers with simple
transmitters, a variant of the CB version) did so well at 50Mhz was that
when the band opened up, 5watts input was more than enough for DX, even
witha lousy antenna. At 27MHz, the same thing applied, except the band
opened up even more often.

Michael

On Fri, 3 Aug 2012 09:56:51 +0900, "Brenda Ann"
wrote:

"Michael Black" wrote in message
xample.net...

Do you remember the giant sunspots during the 1960's you could see
with the naked eye? Solar flux over 200. I used to pick up WWV on 25
MHz on my cheap walkie-talkies. New Zealand used to blast in around
midnight local time just below 18 MHz. Good times.

I'm surprised you could hear 25MHz WWV on a cheap walkie talkie. Surely
band conditions opened up that you'd get all the CBers first, so they'd
wipe out WWV. The superregenerative receivers were wide band, but the
CBers were a lot more plentiful.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the 60's, there were relatively few CB'ers, and the ones that were around
were legal 3 watt output. The big CB boom didn't happen until around 1971 or
72. WWV would have been what? About 50KW? At any rate, a lot more powerful
than a 3W CB.

These were cheap crystal controlled transmit walkie talkies. The
receive as mentioned was wideband and in the late afternoon during
peak solar conditions (late 60's) WWV would fade in and out. I don't
know what path the signal took,or even what frequency I was hearing -
I assume it was 25 MHz - but I could hear it pretty well from
northeast Detroit, MI.

Jim (MI)