Strongest solar flare of 2016 recorded
 

In case you missed the news from earlier today, the largest solar flares of 2016 just occurred. More details as taken from spaceweather.com :

Sunspot complex AR2565-AR2567 erupted on July 23rd, twice, producing two strong solar flares in quick succession. The first @ 0211 UT registered M5 on the Richter Scale of Flares. The second @ 0516 UT registered M7.6, making it the strongest flare of 2016 so far.

Pulses of radiation from the two flares ionized the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing a blackout of shortwave radio transmissions over the Pacific side of Earth. These maps from NOAA show the frequencies and territories affected. People who might have noticed the fading signals include ham radio operators, mariners and aviators.

Update: The explosions hurled an impressive CME into space: movie. The body of the cloud will not hit Earth. However, Earth could experience a glancing blow from shock waves on the outskirts of the cloud. This has prompted NOAA forecasters to issue a minor geomagnetic storm warming for July 26th when the shocks might arrive.

My own observation: Earlier today conditions very poor on 80, 40 and 20 meters. Current (0630Z) propagation conditions on 80 and 40 meters (3.8 megs and 7 megs) greatly improved here after local sunset, but pretty high atmospheric noise levels.

Thx for the info. During the last MAX GAIN we were in a solar minimum, a bit harder on the HF side... Even for the 137.

Oh, you're a commo geek for posting this...lolol Respectfully of course.

Glad folks are keeping up with this kind of stuff...:lifter

Thanks for the info. With the regular cycle in the toilet would be difficult in many areas to tell the difference, esp on 40m. As to noise levels I'll take the racket if I can get the bounce. Must be all those leaky appliances Kerry owns. Another of those times when I appreciate my key.
:cool:

18E's across the globe will be using this as an excuse for not making commo. :p

I was thinking the same thing Chief.....pre excusing..."You know Top yada yada yada"...:)

Yes Sir! I'm very much a commo geek as a HAM and MARS volunteer.
Since I imagine many of the QP still rely at times on HF I thought it's worth mentioning.
Never served myself but did Firefighter/Medic for 10+ years

I imagine the other commo resources will allow all to cope well.
Having an ionosphere that likes to reflect signals is a nice thing to have.

Now this is just from what I've heard/gathered mind you, but it's okay to be a commo geek.

It lets the Bravo's feel that they're not the low man on the totem pole and actually worth something.

Again, this is just from I've heard/gathered from some VERY reliable sources.

At times, commo geeks can be useful. :D