35 Replies to “It’s Probably Nothing”

  1. Is the KP 7 the reason I woke up with a bone so hard a dog couldn’t chew it and a cat couldn’t scratch it???

  2. Not on topic, but I must say, this is a very interesting blog. I learn a ton of stuff that never gets mentioned in newspapers. This post is an example. Thanks, Kate, Francisco, David and other helpers, as well as the great community of posters.

  4. Don’t tell global warmmongers, they will blame the car driving proletariat for it.

    1. Is it possible that Global Warming was NEVER the real threat … but rather it was all the modern electronics? The cell phones, 5,000 TV Broadcast channels, the proliferation of satellites, etc.? That we’ve killed ourselves and our planet with a giant Tower of selfie Broadcast Babel?

      1. Heh …

        Mostly computer games, the “climate scientists” playing their laptops to see who will get the climate hotter.
        And making tones of money doing it.

        1. They all run the Jesse Jackson scam. He said; “pay me! , err my Foundation … or I’ll tell everyone your Corporation is racist”. These “scientists” with laptops tell corporations and governments that they’ll let everyone know our government and corporations are KILLING THE PLANET … if they don’t get the GIANT flow of grant money they demand.

    1. You got it right YW. But don’t say anything or they will tighten their tin foil hats.
      The magnetic north pole has left Canada and has been moving very fast in geological terms and according to paleo geologists this always precedes a pole shift. That and we are in a Grand Solar Minimum. And with our very weak magnetosphere we are getting heavily bombarded with cosmic radiation.

  8. What a coincidence. I thought this weekend the moon pulled up an acre of fish, since it was the biggest slaughter of the year for me at Lake Pueblo, but, nope, it was KP index. Pulling cranks.

  9. No new news here. The North magnetic pole has been hiking off toward Russia for some time, and speculation that exactly this (weakening of the magnetic field) may the reason; percussing a flip in the Earth’s polarity; an event that is documented as happening frequently over geological time. The record is locked in cooling magma, most visibly in spreading of the Atlantic ridge as Americas and Europe/Africa recede from each other. See:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_magnetic_field#Characteristics

    You might want to read the first paragraph under “Significance”, and then really, really hope that “It’s probably nothing…”

  11. WE’RE ALL GOIN TO DIE, I TELL YOU, ALL OF US. Well, we really are, eventually.

  13. Many of us involved with radio communications take it all in stride. We’re used to having the ionosphere being disrupted, making long-distance signal propagation difficult.

    Right now, conditions on the amateur bands aren’t great.

      1. When I was at my house last week, I tried 20 metres in the early evening but there was zippo to be heard. Even 40 was dead except for, maybe, some faint digital traffic.

        Unfortunately, here in Edmonton, I have too much background interference to make HF worth trying. That’s hardly surprising, considering I live near a neon palace, namely a major shopping centre, and everybody and his dog in my apartment complex seems to have a large flat-screen TV.

        I’d have to leave town to get away from all that noise to try.

        One of these days, I’ll have to activate my satellite station and see if I can get back on the birds. At least the bands they generally are on (2 metres and 70 centimetres) aren’t as badly affected by the interference.

    1. Jinks, when I read your one line post, my immediate thought was,
      “shoot, we don’t get that lucky”. If it helps, I’ll hold my breath and keep my fingers crossed.

  15. Even if we were not in this weakening magnetic field situation, the solar storm “kill shot” scenario needs to be taken more seriously, after all the Carrington event (1859) happened during that distant era of stronger magnetic field and even then it was still strong enough that if it happened today it could cripple our electrical grid for months or years. As far as I know, governments in major developed nations have not taken this possibility seriously enough to have created any sort of contingency planning, and good luck to any society that only starts thinking about a response after the electrical grid is fried. Basic survival for 99.9% of the population will become an immediate challenge. And the problem is, we have no knowledge of how frequent a Carrington event might be, would they happen once a century, once every five hundred years, or longer? We just don’t know. As this youtube blogger was saying, the odds just get worse with a weaker magnetic field to protect us.

    1. When the auroral event in March 1989 took down the Hydro Quebec transmission lines, people didn’t take it very seriously. I spoke with someone from the Montreal area and he shrugged it off as being yet another example of HQ’s lousy service.

  16. 40 Meters has been good early morning and evening, thru the day no so much.
    Talked to New Zealand on 40 meters 2 mornings in a row.
    20 has been great as well. Venezuela, Barbados, Florida, Texas, Arizona, B.C then up to Alaska. Lots of fun.
    Having a 3 element beam for 40, 20, 17 meters is fun fun fun!!!
    Now if old sol would straighten out and give us more sun spots (cycles) then the bands will really wake up!!
    VA3KBC

    1. Living in an apartment, I have restrictions as to what I can do.

      I have mag-mounted a vertical antenna on my car and the best I’ve been able to do was Mississippi and Texas on 10 metres during an opening a few years ago.

      My preference is for satellites and they’re not affected as much by geomagnetic storms since transmission is by line of sight. Using a dual-band Arrow yagi, I’ve worked stations as far away as Hawaii on sideband and Finland on FM, though through different spacecraft. Not bad for 5 Watts on 2 metres/70 centimetres.

      Unfortunately, many of the older satellites I used to be on are getting old or have completely died. I’ve had varying degrees of success with some of the newer cubesats, but, because they’re in lower orbits, the windows aren’t as long.

      I haven’t had as much time to get on the air in recent years as I’ve been busy with settling my father’s estate.

      1. I’m looking forward to moving to Mara Lake area in a few years and geting myself a nice Yagi on a 30 footer for the 20m.

        Had no idea there were some Am Rads here on SDA. Cool!

        1. I’m a VA6 in grid square DO33, though I travel to Fort St. John (CO96) to work on settling my father’s estate.

          Here in Alberta, one can get a license plate made with one’s callsign. It doesn’t cost much since hams are members of a government-regulated communications service. I’ve got my callsign for my car and I’m thinking of getting another one and putting that on my truck.

          1. CN89 myself. VA7-. Been packing my Yaesu handheld full time for the past few months as, ironically, given the topic, I realize that given where I live, we could get the big quake at any time.

            I work in a field littered with Lefty-Progs and when they see my handheld perched on sill while I am listening to the net they are all “hey waiting for the end of the world are ya?”, said in a snicker.

            Not waiting, just prepared and hope to never need it.

  17. If it all grinds to a halt so be it. Till then party on. Don’t think a mask is going to save you.

    bverwey

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