WARA General Meeting Online Tues Jan 26 at 7 pm

23 Jan

I am pleased to announce we have re-scheduled our First Online Members meeting on Tuesday, January 26, at 7:00PM. We will be having a talk on the Club HF station by Glenn Lindsey, VA7HC.

Here is the link to the YouTube page for the meeting: https://youtu.be/MV3NsC-irP8

Just click on the link and watch starting at 7pm Tuesday. If you sign into YouTube using your Google account (there is a SIGN IN box on the top right of the YouTube page) you can add your questions into the chat section.

Or you can text your questions to the number on displayed on the screen during the meeting.

I would like to apologize to and Thank all the members that waited patiently last Tuesday but we were overwhelmed with technical issues. It looks like we have stomped all the bugs.

I look forward to seeing you all, Brent, President, Westcoast Amateur Radio Association

Saturday Morning Coffee Breaks on ZOOM

9 Dec

WARA is testing holding our Saturday Morning Coffee Breaks by using the Zoom platform. This will be very informal in place of the breakfasts that we can’t hold right now. The first Zoom meetup was very well received, and there was a sense that the group wanted it to continue.

Saturday Zoom meetings provide a chance to say “Hello”, meet and put faces to people we only hear on air, swap stories, and have a “Show and Tell” if you have a new piece of kit you want to brag about.

All members should have received an email with the login information. I hope to see you next Saturday morning, January 23rd at 10:00AM, PST  

Brent Besse VA7BNB, WARA President

New Sunspot Cycle could be one of the strongest on record

8 Dec

sunspot cycle

“In a new article published in Solar Physics, [a] research team predicts that Sunspot Cycle 25 will peak with a maximum sunspot number somewhere between approximately 210 and 260, which would put the new cycle in the company of the top few ever observed.” Laura Snider

Overlapping 22-year magnetic cycles will produce the ultra-strong 11-year magnetic cycle. 260 sunspots as a max! Amazing.

This is a very exciting article for HF radio operators. NCAR and UCAR news

The magnetic classification of sunspots

7 Dec

HF communications are affected by sunspots. Their number is growing with the new solar cycle #25. There are eight classifications of sunspots. You will find them below.

The different classificationssunspot with magnetic classification

  1. α – Alpha:
    A unipolar sunspot group.
  2. β – Bèta:
    A sunspot group that has a positive and a negative polarity (or bipolar) with a simple division between the polarities.
  3. γ – Gamma:
    A complex region in which the positive and negative polarities are so irregularly distributed that they can’t be classified as a bipolar Sunspot group.
  4. β-γ – Bèta-Gamma:
    A bipolar sunspot group but complex enough so that no line can be drawn between spots of opposite polarity.
  5. δ – Delta:
    The umbrae of opposite polarity in a single penumbra.
  6. β-δ – Bèta-Delta:
    A sunspot group with a general beta magnetic configuration but contains one (or more) delta sunspots.
  7. β-γ-δ – Bèta-Gamma-Delta:
    A sunspot group with a beta-gamma magnetic configuration but contains one (or more) delta sunspots.
  8. γ-δ – Gamma-Delta
    A sunspot group with a gamma magnetic configuration but contains one (or more) delta sunspots.

Check out more info on sunspots at SpaceWeatherLive.com