The 100 year Gleisberg Cycle about to kick in?

[Bashful]

Back in 1981, I lived in South East London UK (East Dulwich). Every night I chatted to a CB mate about 1.5 miles from my QTH. Most nights during the intense solar activity of the 1980s, he would get wiped out by Scottish breakers. It was awesome and my curiosity about how and why he got stomped, led me into amateur radio. My interests lie in antennas and propagation. I have little interest in the mysteries of our 'black boxes' and each time my rig goes awry, I wish I had the knowledge to fix it
The recent sunspot cycle (25) has been a bit disappointing although activity has picked up a lot. There is a short article in spaceweather.com that might explain the 'patchiness' of increased solar activity and its effects on 20m and above. I have'nt heard of the Gleisberg Cycle before but it makes sense that the 11 year sunspot cycle is a cycle within a larger cycle. Does anyone have other ideas on present-day radio activity and solar solar activity. Perhaps in other parts of the world, the radio spectrum is heaving but my single wire and 10/11 m vertical is not picking up as much as I would like.

 

[Crawdad]

I've only been licensed a few years but the last couple have been quite good for me DX-wise. This is the first cycle I've paid much attention to but the results in my log and amount of DXCC's I've collected make it seem like a good one to me. I'm sure there've been stronger cycles in the past but this one has beat a poke in the eye.
Antennas and propagation are also my favorite madness, glad I'm not alone.

There are so many predictions out there it's hard to tell the wheat from the chaff. Some of the "experts" said this cycle would suck, others said average and some forecast great things. I just wait and see what happens.

7 3

 

[nomadradio]

The earth's geomagnet is weakening. And the magnetic north/south poles are wandering. This is why the numbers painted at the end of an airport runway keep getting changed every few years. When the magnetic north pole moves, the compass heading deviation from true north changes with it. Just wish somebody would study how this affects the ionospheric propagation and publish it. Just seems like a thundering silence, not hearing any work on this question.

73

 

[Bashful]

I've only been licensed a few years but the last couple have been quite good for me DX-wise. This is the first cycle I've paid much attention to but the results in my log and amount of DXCC's I've collected make it seem like a good one to me. I'm sure there've been stronger cycles in the past but this one has beat a poke in the eye.
Antennas and propagation are also my favorite madness, glad I'm not alone.
7 3

Hi Crawdad,
Belated congrats on getting your ticket. It sounds like you hit the ground running. I hear what you say on what people say or expect near the peak of each sunspot cycle. FWIW and with no empirical data behind it, I think this sunspot cycle will 'peak' later than normal because the sun appears to be having a second wind.
73

 

[Bashful]

The earth's geomagnet is weakening.And the magnetic north/south poles are wandering. This is why the numbers painted at the end of an airport runway keep getting changed every few years. When the magnetic north pole moves, the compass heading deviation from true north changes with it. Just wish somebody would study how this affects the ionospheric propagation and publish it. Just seems like a thundering silence, not hearing any work on this question.

73

Hi Nomad,
You are dead right. I have been tracking the movement of the Magnetic North Pole for some years and last time I looked it was way over Siberia. The Schumann Resonance of the lower atmosphere which has been a constant of 7.83 Hz since time out of mind has also changed. Weather patterns across the globe are also shifting and it has nothing to do with global warming/climate change. The jet stream and Gulf stream have weakened/strengthened and also wandered off their usual trajectories.

Like you you, I also wonder if any of these events alter the 'opaqueness of the atmosphere to our RF signals. Some of the above environmental/geo-physical changes, especially the weakening geomagnetics of the plane to suggest to me that planet Earth is heading into a geomagnetic field reversal which will increase further, cosmic activity within the lower atmsphere.

How all of this pans out in terms of the reception of RF signals across the globe is just too difficult to compute. There are too many variables, known unknowns and unknowns. I am now retired from all this stuff but the greatest unknowns for me relate to a peak or double peak in sunspot numbers concurrent with an increase in solar activity outside the remit of the sun.

To part answer your earlier question "Just seems like a thundering silence, not hearing any work on this question", only Big Science can look at these issues but Big Science is split into various branches which rarely talk to each other.

 

[Crawdad]

Aren't we in for a pole flip at some point?

 

[Bashful]

Aren't we in for a pole flip at some point?

Your guess is as good as mine!

 

[nomadradio]

Aren't we in for a pole flip at some point?

That's what this guy thinks.



I'm not convinced he has the whole picture, but he's not a complete whacko, either.

73

 

[Shadetree Mechanic]

 

[nomadradio]

Cool! At least Ben isn't the only voice crying in the wilderness.

73

 

[Bashful]

FWIW, A pole flip in geomagetic polarity (from what I understand) does not take place overnight. It can take place over hundeds if not thousands of years. There has been many geomagnetic reversals or pole flips through geological time with no evidence of catastrophic animal-extinction events (see: https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-earths-magnetic-field-flipped.htm.

I first learned about geomagnetic reversals back in the late 80s i.e. check out seafloor spreading at mid-oceanic ridges and how magma-turned oceanic crust records the magneic field changes through time. Incidentally, the ticker-tape geomagnetic reversals in oceanic crust which eventually finds its way to the surface as continental crust, verified the hypothesis of plate tectonics over the then dominant theory of shifting continents.

Finally, all of these events are naturally-occurring processes as are we. Unlike most scientists of today and yesterday, I believe in a Divine Source which I call Creation. Others call It God, Buddha or whatever. I see no ecological or evolutionary advantage in a pole-flip wiping out over 8 billion souls - none of that makes any sense to me!

I understand why some people prep for this or that and that is their personal decision. I beleive that what we focus on, we give energy to and ultimately create and power an experience we do not want to have and (b) I am content with the idea that we are born, we grow and accrue knowldge about ourselves and the natural world and then, our mortal body dies, but our soul lives on.

Are we done with this thread? It has gone off-topic but thats OK because I chill the breeze with anyone wanting to chat or exchange views on this or other topic.