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For the past ten days weve observed no sunspots at all. Periods like
this, or longer, are expected at the bottom of the sunspot cycle. As
mentioned in a recent bulletin, the latest projection for smoothed
sunspot numbers from NOAA Space Environment Center has the solar
minimum at February through April 2007, with a smoothed sunspot
number of 11. You can see the table on page 10 of the Preliminary
Report and Forecast on the web. Another way to look at it is that
the minimum is projected between December 2006 and July 2007, with a
smoothed sunspot number of 12 or lower.  Randy Crews, W7TJ notes
that the graph on the dxlc.com/solar web site tells the story on
recent trends.  But reports still arrive weekly of operators working
long distance, even at the bottom of the cycle. Mike Carter, K8CN of
Durham, New Hampshire says he runs 50 watts CW into a wire 60 feet
long and 20 feet at its highest. Hes worked a lot of South Pacific
DX on 40 meters from 1100 to 1200z, and Europe, Africa and the
Caribbean on 30 meters around 2100 to 2300z.  The lower part of the
HF spectrum is a good place to operate at the bottom of the sunspot
cycle. Unlike 10 or 15 meters, 160 and 80 meters wont be bothered by
a low MUF, or Maximum Usable Frequency, a consequence of the lack of
sunspots. With less solar activity comes less problems with
geomagnetic disturbances, which can be frequent toward the top of
the cycle.  Wednesday night about an hour after local sunset I
operated 60 meters from my car, using one of those inexpensive
popular single band mobile whips mounted on the trunk. This antenna
cant be very efficient, as the length is only about R045 wavelength.
60 meters is an unusual channelized band, with just 5 channels, the
top at just above 5R4 MHz. Upper sideband SSB is the only permitted
mode, with transmit power limited to 50 watts ERP. The atmospheric
noise was high, and the static crashes probably from far away
thunderstorms.  I made contact with Frank Miller, K9HMB of Harvard,
Illinois, nearly 1700 miles to the east of me, and was surprised to
receive an S9 signal report. Later, a glance at his antennas on
k9ns.com told me what kind of station was receiving K7RA so
strongly. See if you can find the photo of a large commercial crane
adding a third beam to the stack.  You can see more info on
operating in the 60 meter band on the ARRL web site.  Dramatic solar
images from the Japanese Hinode spacecraft prompted numerous emails
this week. The messages referred to a NASA article and a New
Scientist article, both located on the tinyurl.com web site.
Spaceweather.com has a movie from the spacecraft on this site as
well. You can see it on the spaceweather.com site for today.
Clicking on the movie URL should launch a media player on your
personal computer. I found the movie better on the second viewing,
because all of the content had been buffered and the motion was
smooth.  Sunspot numbers were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 with a mean of
0. 10R7 cm flux was 69R2, 68R7, 69R3, 70R5, 70R1, 72R6, and 72R8,
with a mean of 70R5. Estimated planetary A indices were 8, 10, 8, 3,
2, 2 and 2 with a mean of 5. Estimated mid latitude A indices were
5, 11, 8, 1, 1, 1 and 1, with a mean of 4‚

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