"John Doty" wrote in message
...
Michael wrote:
22:30 UTC 05/10/04

What is with propagation right now ???

I checked out http://hfradio.org/propagation.html

They state that there is a sunspot group:

"24 (NOAA 0606) is the most active as it produced a B4.4 flare."

A class B flare is barely a peep. Need a least a class M (100X stronger)
to have much effect.


Is that why I'm finding that the 49, 41, 31 meter bands all messed up
???
Massive fade out of usually very strong and relaible signals that are
falling below the noise floor at times.

I see neither significant solar activity nor magnetospheric disturbance
at http://www.sec.noaa.gov/today.html.

Ionospheric soundings at http://digisonde.haystack.edu/latestFrames.htm
look normal.

-jpd


I wonder if there is some sort of local noise source that is causing this
here... I even tried three different radios to make sure I wasn't dealing
with an electronics problem. I'm hearing a loud hiss that is drowning out
the signals. I can describe the hiss as exactly what it sounds like when
there is lightning, but this hiss is lasting for long periods of time. The
signal levels of stations like WWCR 9475 and BBC on 5975 are going from
strong and clear to barely audible above the noise I'm hearing. As the
"hiss" gets louder and stronger, the signal strength cuts out and I can't
hear anything over the hiss. I don't ever remember this happening before,
especially on such strong and reliable signals. This is weird.

Michael