‰ Now 18 WPM transition file follows ‰

Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, Special Counsel for the FCCs Enforcement
Bureau, has decided not to retire.  He had announced last week that
he would leave the FCC in January 2008.  Riley states, After
spending the entire weekend thinking about the decision, it became
more and more clear to me that it just isnt the right decision for
me right now.  There are several issues on the table that I want to
continue to work through with the amateur community.  The
Enforcement Bureau is the primary organizational unit within the
Federal Communications Commission that is responsible for
enforcement of provisions of the Communications Act, the Commissions
rules, Commission orders and terms and conditions of station
authorizations, as well as enforcement of Amateur Radio rules.
Zero, zero, zero sunspots for 18 straight days now.  A single
sunspot appeared briefly October 6 and 7, no sunspots for four days
prior, one sunspot for the final few days of September, and none for
the three whole weeks prior to that.  Until recently, many of us
thought the solar cycle minimum occurred in March of this year.  You
can see a table of projected smoothed numbers with a minimum in
March 2007 on the web.  This year we began looking at a table of 3
month sunspot number averages, and for a while the data seemed to
support a March minimum.  But then we hit this longer period of no
sunspots, and the 3 month average dropped again.  You can see the
most recent table in Propagation Forecast Bulletin ARLP041 on the
web.  Note the 10R2 average assigned to August, which is the middle
of the July through September period the 3 month average is based
on, is lower than March, which was 11R2.  With such a long period of
so few sunspots, at the beginning of November we might see a much
lower 3 month average.  This is because the sum of all the daily
sunspot numbers from August 1 until now is only 492, and if we still
see no sunspots through next Wednesday, that total divided by the
number of days for August/September/October, or 92, is only 5R4.  So
how low is 5R4, compared to the last solar minimum?  I looked at
averages between December 1995 and April 1997, and the only time the
3 month average of sunspot numbers dipped below 10 was in 1996, with
9R9 in March and 8R7 in September.  But this doesnt really tell us
when solar activity will increase, just that we are currently seeing
lower overall sunspot activity than we did at the last solar minimum
eleven years ago.  With no sunspots, it is sometimes amazing what
hams can work on the air.  Geomagnetic activity increased on October
25 due to solar wind, and just ahead of that Dick Hanna, K3VYY of
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania worked two Florida stations on 28R37 MHz
at 0100z, which was two and a half hours after his local sunset.
This is an unusual time for propagation over this path, which would
normally occur during the middle of the day with the sunspot number
over 100.  Sunspot numbers were 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and 0 with a mean
of 0.  10R7 cm flux was 68R2, 67R3, 66R9, 67R2, 66R7, 67R1, and 67R5
with a mean of 67R3. Estimated planetary A indices were 10, 15, 12,
4, 5, 7 and 3 with a mean of 8. Estimated mid latitude A indices
were 11, 11, 8, 5, 3, 6 and 2, with a mean of 6R6‚

‰ End of 18 WPM transition file ‰