2009-08-14: in June NSO scientists published an article which declared the silent sun. They believed a kind of jet stream, which brings strong magnetic fields to the sun's surface which produce sunspots, had only come into effective position fairly recently. Immediately after the report, Cycle 24's most sunspots emerged, to disappear of the sun's visible disk in early July. It left the sun back in the Doldrums, because since, no active regions have appeared. It is another sign that the sun is definitely not awakening yet. Still the international sunspot number shows us an increasing trend, which still gives hope.

2009-08-10: meteorscatter is a propagation mode where radiowaves, with MUF up to 1000MHz, reflect of the trails of burning meteors when entering Earth's atmosphere. An annual meteorshower which is famous is ten Perseid meteorshower. It always peaks between August 11th and 12th around midnight local time. But this year's meteorshower is different, it is big... The Perseid meteorshower already displayed a high rate of "bursts", and scientist believe that this year's shower will peak at 250 burst per hour, 2 times more than the 2008 peak. Meteorscatter propagation will absolutely be possible, with short powerful bursts lasting from a split second up to a few minutes. Meteorscatter is a QSB propagation mode with sometimes extreme audio distortion (almost aurora like). The high MUF allows very short range propagation as low as a few hundred km's, up to 1800km.

2009-07-05: [PSC] is going on a well deserved summer holiday. Last forecast will be issued on 8th July, the next forecasts will be issued again on August 3rd. In the mean time, the regular indexes and images on the Conditions and Solar images page will be updated automatically.

2009-06-24: our [PSC] Forum has been targeted by loads of spam, followed by a few hack attempts. With one of those hack attempts, the Forum database was filled with loads of nonsense and later damaged beyond repair. Fortunately our team member 43SD280 Jordan was so kind to put a a new discussion forum, so for all old and new Forum members, just register and we can continue our discussions as usual. You can find the [PSC] Forum by clicking on "Forum" in the horizontal menu above. Tnx Jordan!!!

2009-06-22: the best way to start summer in the northern hemisphere is with some nice sunspots. And guess what... sunspots are there. June 2009 is heading towards a Cycle 24 record, with the highest sunspot number until now. November 2008 holds the record with a sunspot number of 4.1, so we just need a few sunspots more. If everything stays active on the sun's backside, a nice region with some sunspots may turn into view at the end of the week. At this active regions 11022 and 11023 are pushing up the numbers from the sun's southern hemisphere. Will our Solar Minimum patience be rewarded at last? It looks like!

  STEREO BEHIND images shows an area of activity (BP090622E) on the sun's backside (click to enlarge)

2009-05-13: a quite unique picture captured today by NASA's STEREO B spacecraft. Just when we all were happy with two relative large Cycle 24 regions, Cycle 23 came around to show that it is still present!

The bright areas are all active regions, but two Cycle 24 regions and one Cycle 23 region. The most right is Cycle 24 region P090509, just a bit left is Cycle 24 region P090510 that is trying to punch some sunspots out. The most left is Cycle 23 region 11016, which has managed to stay active for at least 15 days now, while most of us all expected Cycle 23 activity to have faded away. Cycle 24 is ahead by two regions, but Cycle 23 is catching up!

 Cycle 23 vs. Cycle 24: 2 - 1 (click to enlarge)

2009-05-11: in this stage of Cycle 24 it is important to monitor every bit of sunspot activity on the sun. Not only the part of the sun that is visible from Earth, but also the part behind the sun's eastern and western limb. NASA's STEREO spacecrafts are in the same orbit around the sun as Earth. But one spacecraft is orbiting ahead of Earth (STEREO A) and can look behind the sun's western limb, while the other is orbiting behind Earth (STEREO B), and is looking behind the sun's eastern limb. Both spacecrafts are drifting part further until the position that both spacecrafts have the complete left and right side of the sun into full view. This way we will not miss any action that is taking place on the sun's backside.

While both spacecrafts drift apart, you can already see the images that they transmit to Earth every 10 minutes on the [PSC] website in our Solar images section, where images are displayed through a extreme UV filter. The bright areas in these images are areas of activity, like active regions, which can harbour sunspots. Sometimes the images are so clear that you can actually see the magnetic field lines in an active region, piercing through the sun's surface, leaving a sunspot behind. 

The position of both NASA's STEREO spacecrafts on 11th May 2009 (click to enlarge)

2009-05-09: yesterday the NOAA/SWPC Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel issued its latest prediction on Cycle 24, and the outcome was not a surprise. SWPC (Space Weather Prediction Center) had brought in data that suggested a downwards adjustment on their last prediction, that floated between a SSN (Smoothed Sunspot Number) of 60 and 125. The Panel believes that the solar minimum occurred in December 2008, and with the minimum "settled", the majority of the Panel believes that Cycle 24 will be below average (average is SSN of 114), and predicts a smoothed sunspot number of 90, peaking in May 2013.

The SC24 Prediction Panel predicts a below average Cycle 24 (click to enlarge)

2009-05-06: the STEREO BEHIND spacecraft looks behind the sun's eastern limb, and can spot solar activity a few days before it rotates into Earth view. Past few days we have been following a bright area of activity on the sun, on images from the STEREO BEHIND spacecraft. This area is relatively large in area, and it probably harbours one or more sunspots with a more or less magnetic complexity, as it produced a nice solarflare and CME yesterday. Surprisingly another bright area of activity showed up just behind the first area that we have been following. Now both areas are present at a high latitude on the sun, indicating that both areas are Cycle 24. Both areas should rotate into view during the weekend and early next week, and were numbered both today, so it looks like sunspots are finally on their way...

STEREO BEHIND images show two areas that could harbour some long needed Cycle 24 sunspots (click to enlarge)

In this LASCO C2 images from the sun's atmosphere, you can clearly see the atmosphere is lit up by the two areas of activity (click to enlarge)

2009-04-27: because of the very low level of solar activity, our 4-weekly forecast named [PROPCAST] will not be issued. Because the solar activity level is too low to do any 4-week forecast, we have postponed the [PROPCAST] until solar activity reaches low to moderate levels.

2009-04-07: after having it postponed for two times, [PSC] has finally collected sufficient data and produced its first Solar Cycle 24 Prediction. Did NASA scientist back in December 2006 predict a strong Cycle 24, we at [PSC] have drawn or own conclusions. Will it be a weak, average or big cycle? In a few days you can expect our prediction to be published, stay tuned!

2009-03-22: [PSC] makes use of the ultraviolet solar images provided by the two NASA STEREO spacecrafts. These two spacecrafts which orbit the sun, one ahead of Earth and one behind of Earth, can see activity behind the sun's eastern and western limb, and can spot active regions and sunspots which are not on the sun's visible disk. Until now we have not logged these "invisible" regions, but because of their importance for making propagation forecasts, we decided to start logging these active regions and sunspots.

For regions not spotted yet by the "official guys", we already use the format P following the date, for example P090325 for an active regions that [PSC] spotted on 25th March 2009. We have added a new format for active regions emerging behind the sun's visible disk, but visible on the STEREO spacecraft images. This format is B(behind)P followed by the date and assignment W and E for behind western or eastern limb. So an active region emerging behind the sun's western limb on 28th March 2009 will be assigned BP090328W.

You can see the STEREO images on this website: http://stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov/browse/

2009-03-10: at [PSC] we are doing the necessary calculations to predict the date and sunspot number of the Cycle 24 sunspot maximum. It will be based on the progression of Cycle 24 until now. In the next few weeks we are going to put this prediction into a readable format, which will be published in the first week of April. The format in which we are going to present this prediction is new in the world of solar activity, and will be based on a multiple outcome.

Do you think you can predict the Cycle 24 sunspot maximum? Go to our Forum section Solar Cycle 24 predictions and gives us your best shot!!

2009-02-10: what is going on with the sun? Did we all think that Cycle 24 started it's ascend back in October, now we at [PSC] have not seen any active Cycle 24 region in 22 days. But we did see Cycle 23 regions! What is happening to the sun? We believe that there was at least one Cycle 24 region in the past 22 days, but it was active on the sun's backside, and decayed before it became visible. Now also Solar Flux is showing a slight upwards trend which does indicate the sun is waking up slowly. Recent images of the sun's atmosphere shows that there is quite some activity going on but simply not visible for us.

The sun's atmosphere is lit up on the right side, so there is definitely something going on!

2009-02-01: Cycle 24 keeps it's reputation high as an unpredictable cycle. Did we at [PSC] think, that Cycle 24 would rapidly evolve with the increased activity in the 3rd quarter of 2008, and we would see not so many spotless days again, December and January proved that that this strange cycle is hard to predict. We at [PSC] use a prediction method based on so called active region migration. To calculate a prediction, we need more active Cycle 24 regions than we seen during the slow progress of this cycle had. Because we only want to publish a prediction that has a certain error margin, we have postponed our prediction until the day we have observed enough active regions. We expect to publish our prediction in March.

2009-01-14: what do you think is the longest distance ever covered on 11m in a QSO? Longpath DX is something very special, but who are the two operators who hold the record for longest distance ever covered in a 2-way QSO on 11m?

We at [PSC] would like to know, so we are going to reward the record holders with a special glorious award, the [PSC - All Time Longest Distance DX Award]. Next to this award [PSC] will reward the longest distance covered in 2008, the year of the lowest of the lowest sunspot minimums, with the [PSC - 2008 Longest Distance DX Award], an award which is rewarded annually. So you want to know how you can obtain these glorious awards? Look on our Forum in the Propagation Discussion section, and upload your proof!

2009-01-11: NASA's Solar Scientist Professor Hathaway issued a new prediction on Cycle 24 maximum. Hathaway published his first prediction on Cycle 24 in March 2006, predicting the maximum at an SSN (Smoothed Sunspot Number) of 140 to be reached in 2011. Hathaway in February 2007 predicted even a maximum of 160, equal to Cycle 22, to be reached in 2012. In last prediction from November 2008 Hathaway was still optimistic, and predicted a solar maximum with a SSN (Smoothed Sunspot Number) of 135. But the past year proved that Cycle 24 may not become as strong as suggested. Where most scientists believed that the minimum was reached in September 2007, and the Cycle 24 ascend started of in January 2008. The actual minimum was reached in July 2008, with the ascend starting probably in October 2008. So Cycle 24 looks to be a year behind schedule, probably a lost year. Hathaway needed to adjust his predictions downwards, and issued a new prediction with a maximum SSN of 105, peaking somewhere late 2012, early 2013. You can view Hathaway's prediction by clicking the image below. Hathaway leaves some room for mistakes, Cycle 24 could end somewhere between a SSN of 80 and 130 (dashed line).

More info on Hathaway's prediction at http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

2009-01-05: we look back at 2008, a most remarkable year speaking about propagation and solar activity, and a fantastic year speaking about the popularity of [PSC].

Most of the people studying solar activity, like us at [PSC], thought that in 2007 we reached the minimum. With the first appearance of a Cycle 24 active region in December 2007 and the first Cycle 24 sunspots in January 2008, the ascend of Cycle 24 was expected to take place in the first quarter of 2008. But the sun had fooled us all. A small Cycle 24 region in early May was the only sign of any Cycle 24 life on the sun, and the sun sank into what seemed as an endless period of inactivity, with July as an absolute anti-climax. Soon the scientists came with new theories of a oncoming minimum like back in the 19th century. Our patient DX hearts had to wait until September for the first Cycle 24 activity to emerge, followed by a short period with several Cycle 24 sunspots. Half December the sun went quiet again, marking a remarkable year now known as the second longest minimum since the 20th century. In the mean time, the unofficial minimum has been calculated to July 2008.

Propagation wise, 2008 was certainly a year where the real DX'ers could prove themselves. And they did... even with a solar flux below 70, quiet some operators were able to cover quite some distances via F2 propagation, like the EU-Australia path. 2008 did not provide any aurora propagation, and only faint backscatter propagation. The propagation climax for us at [PSC] in 2008, was absolutely the northern hemisphere's Es (sporadic-E) season from May until August. However the season did start late, and was not extraordinary in numbers of openings, it did bring loads of multihop-Es. Via multihop-Es paths between North America/Caribbean and Europe, and Europe and Japan were open on many nights, on some nights even well after midnight, with impressively stable signals. Next to multihop-Es, [PSC] also recorded more rare phenomenon, like backscatter via Es and ultra short skip, with skip distances below 400km.

For [PSC] 2008 was the year of the worldwide introduction of our services. In May we had the privilege to do a seminar on propagation and solar activity on the Delta Xray Radio Club meeting in Wittenberg, Germany. And in October we renewed our website and introduced a new [PSC]. That renewal is still a major success for [PSC]. At this moment our pages are viewed over 13500 times per month. And this numbers is still increasing every month. Not only 11m amateurs are regularly visiting our pages, but also licensed amateurs find their ways to [PSC].

We hope that 2009 will finally bring the so long awaited new sunspots and increased solar activity. And when the sunspots and propagation come, we at [PSC] will be the first to tell you...

2008-12-20: we are going on holiday. Our forecasts will be updated again on December 31st. [PSC] wishes you Merry Christmas and a Happy and DX-full 2009.

2008-12-16: NASA's Solar Scientist Professor Hathaway, is a leading figure in Solar Science. He has done many studies on the sun's behaviour and is also a leading figure when it comes to predicting Cycle 24. Although there is still a significant group of (amateur) scientists that predict a low Solar Maximum, Professor Hathaway predicts an average Cycle with a smoothed sunspot number of 135, peaking in in the 1st half of 2012. According to Hathaway, Cycle 24 will be a little better than Cycle 23 which peaked at a smoothed sunspot number of 121.

To get to this peak, we only have about 4 years to go, which means that the number of sunspots in Cycle 24 will increase rapidly, much faster than the Cycle 23 ascend. Hathaway predicts that this rapid ascend will start between now and March 2009, for the 135 sunspot number. He also published a variation with a peak at a sunspot number of 110. For this peak, the ascend should start the 4th quarter of 2009, but the activity of past 3 months suggests the 135 version is more likely, according to Hathaway's model. The high variation with a sunspot number of over 160, seems unlikely after the long period of very low solar activity.

For 11m propagation it looks like the 2nd quarter of 2009 will finally bring the very needed improvement. You can see Hathaway's prediction of last November here below (click to enlarge).

2008-12-03: Solar Cycle 24 is definitely not one with a predictable behaviour. After Region 11002 appeared in September, new Cycle 24 regions popped up in a nice pattern. But this pattern has already been broken, as the last Cycle 24 activity is now two weeks ago. Region 11008 was promising, but did not survive a solar rotation (27 days). Now scientists are even more confused about Cycle 24, and the different predictions are getting more into extremes. All based on various prediction methods, the two most supported scenario's are a big solar maximum, somewhere with a sunspot number between 160-180 and a very steep climb to this maximum starting off in tone of the first three months of 2009. And another scenario is a very low maximum, with a sunspot number not more than 40, like Cycle 5 and Cycle 6. Less positive is that more or less the last scenario seems to supported more and more, however there is not any good scientific base for this. The ongoing minimum is going to end in the record books, but does not hold the record for longest minimum (yet). The only thing we need is just a few Cycle 24 sunspots in December to keep the line going upwards.

2008-11-18: the new [PSC] has been visited more than ever. Since the new [PSC] launched last Friday, we counted over 1000 pageviews in just 3 days which is 8 times more than average. All those that have visited the site, thanks!

2008-11-14: after a month of designing and testing we officially launched the new [PSC] website today, which has been made "Solar Cycle 24 proof". We hope that the new design will attract more visitors. Do you believe we can improve even more? Please put your comments on the [PSC] Forum!

2008-11-12: the new <PSC> website is nearly finished and will be launched officially on Friday 14th November between 1900 and 2000 UTC.

2008-10-31: with more new Cycle 24 regions developing, data on the new cycle is being gathered. <PSC> expects to have gathered enough data to publish a first prediction on the Cycle 24 sunspots maximum in January 2009.

2008-10-29: we have been working on a new <PSC> website in the past weeks. The new website is more accessible than the current one, and the index directly displays the most important data like indexes, forecasts and solar images. We are finishing the last details, and will start testing next week. The new <PSC> website is planned to go live on Saturday 15th November. Here is a small preview on what you can expect:

2008-10-12: since the birth of Region 11002 (a Cycle 24 region), solar activity has been increasing slowly. Yesterday Region 11005 was the second significant Cycle 24 region to emerge with a maximum of 9 sunspots, and is the largest Cycle 24 region until now. It is a positive sign indicating that Cycle 24 is progressing normally, and we are not stuck in a new solar minimum.

2008-09-25: 3 days ago the 6th Solar Cycle 24 active region as spotted. It rapidly developed into the largest Cycle 24 until today with 8 sunspots. Unfortunately this region lost all of it's spots within 2 days, but it's a small positive sign for the Cycle 24 progression.

2008-08-13: because we are on holiday, the <PSC> forecasts and Region Maps services will be postponed until September 3rd. Our Current Conditions page is automatically updated. In the same week as September 3rd we will also issue a new <LT-PROPCAST>, our 3 monthly review and forecast. The <PSC> Forum will be checked every now and then for new messages.

2008-08-07: today's UV image of the sun, shows as the sun at it's most inactive stage during the sunspot minimum. Next to that an image of the sun at the sunspot maximum during December 2001.

2008-07-16: today at 1700 UTC the Solar Flux was as low as 64.2, which is the lowest value measured since April 2nd 1954. What does it say about the the new Solar Cycle 24 maximum? Just look at the maximum sunspot number of the following Solar Cycle 19, which peaked in 1958: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/cycl19.html

2008-07-15: we were not able to get our old <PSC> Forum back online, so we also lost all posting. We built a new forum with some new categories which allows you to discuss subjects which are not directly related to propagations or solar activity. We also opened up three permanent polls to see what antenna and transceivers our visitors use, and what kind of propagation the like most. Unfortunately you will need to register again, also if you were registered on the old forum.

2008-07-11: for unknown reasons the <PSC> Forum has shut down. We are working on a solution to get the forum up and running again.

2008-06-29: we are not regularly updating the <SOLAR-ACTIVITY INDEX> anymore. Because of the holiday season in July and August, we will update our <SOLAR-ACTIVITY INDEX> if there are any changes in solar activity, that might influence propagation. Our other forecasts will be updated as usual.

2008-05-29: we have a new team member in <PSC>, his operator name is Aroldo, and QRZ is 32PSC8. His QTH is the most southern tip of South America, the city of Punta Arenas. Aroldo will report on propagation on this particular part in the world.

2008-05-05: last weekend Jean-Paul attended the Delta Xray Radio Club's meeting in Wittenberg, Germany, with a presentation about Propagation & Solar Activity. The presentation has been made available on he <PSC> website and can be downloaded here (approx. 8MB).

During the meeting 13DX015 Pete joined the <PSC> team. Pete was one of the very experienced operators which was in the team which supported the WWDX <PSC> project back in the 90's.

2008-03-24: our team member 43SD280 Jordan has opened an independent forum where we can discuss propagation and solar activity in general. You can access it with the navigation button "PSC Forum" on the main page. Thanks for your work Jordan!

2008-03-23: today <PSC> has formed its own team of propagation observers. This team will help to improve the quality of propagation forecasts, by providing regular information about propagation worldwide. You can read about the team and its members on the "About us" page. Also interested in propagation and want to help forecast propagation? Join the <PSC> team, and contact us via the contactform.

2008-03-10: another milestone for <PSC>. Past 30 days we have had over 1500 pageviews. Many thanks to our new and regular visitors.

2008-02-27: <PSC> reached 1200 pageviews in the past 30 days, which is a new record. Many thanks to our new and regular visitors. Please keep your suggestions coming as we further improve the quality of our information.

2008-01-22: this summer <PSC> will start with an experimental European Sporadic-E (Es) map. This quite unpredictable propagation mode will be mapped for several weeks in June, based on the Google Earth maps. We will paste info from several clusters into this map, on which active Es clouds will be visualized. If the results are good, we will start with this new service during the Winter 2008/2009 Es season, with live maps for every active continent.

2008-01-22: <PSC> will attend the Delta Xray Radio Club's annual meeting, with a Propagation Seminar on Saturday afternoon. This year's meeting will be held in the historic city of Lutherstadt-Wittenberg in Germany. More info on the Delta Xray home page in the Members Area.

2008-01-21: in a relative short period since our active re-launch in October, we have established an average of 770 pageviews per month, from all continents. This number is still increasing, thanks to several friends of <PSC>, which are promoting our service quite active. Thanks to everybody!

2008-01-12: the active region maps have been added to our page with historic reports, which can be accessed via the "Historic" button on our main page.

2008-01-10: on the "Solar Images" page we have added a Sunspot Region Map to visualize the current active regions.

2008-01-09: today <PSC> was the first to spot the official 2nd Cycle 24 region. This region was not identified by SEC, so was numbered P080109 as the <PSC> procedures. This is the 2nd evidence that Cycle 24 is in full progress now.

2007-12-23: because of the holidays, we will not issue new forecasts on December 25th, 26th and 31st, as well as January 1st. If any drastic change in propagation is likely to occur we will issue a forecast.

2007-12-16: from today on, we will implement a change in numbering sunspot regions in our <SOLAR-ACTIVITY INDEX>. SEC (NOAA Space Environment Center) does not always number an active region when it appears, or comes into view. New regions that have not been numbered by SEC, but have been spotted by <PSC>, will be numbered with the letter "P", followed by the year, month and day. Multiple new regions on one day will be identified by adding a, b, c, d, etc. As soon as SEC numbers this region, we will follow the SEC numbering. For example a new spotted region on 18th December 2007 will be numbered by PSC as: P071218. The next spotted region on that day will be numbered P071218a.

2007-12-13: start of Cycle 24 confirmed by NASA with the observation of a reverses polarity sunspot: Quote from the NASA SOHO site:

SOHO has observed (Dec. 13, 2007) what may be the first indication of a "reversed" magnetic polarity region when compared to the current solar cycle, something scientists consider to be a crucial indicator that the new sunspot cycle is about upon us. This so-called plage region did not have a strong enough magnetic field to form a sunspot, but scientists believe that it may nevertheless stand as an icon that the old cycle is ending and a new one, Cycle 24, is about to begin. Sunspots appear in groups with north and south polarities just like a magnet. In magnetic images of the Sun taken (by SOHO's MDI instrument) during the last solar cycle, sunspots in the northern hemisphere of the Sun have had white areas preceding the black; in this new spot, we can clearly see that black precedes white. (This orientation is reversed in the southern hemisphere.)

2007-12-11: our observation of a reversed polarity sunspot indicates that new Sunspot Cycle 24 must be in progress.

2007-11-13: we announce the start of new Sunspot Cycle # 24 within less than three months from now.

2007-11-13: we have issued our first test forecasts:  <SOLAR-ACTIVITY INDEX>, <PROPMETER>, <PROPCAST> AND <LT-PROPCAST>.

2007-01-10: we announces first test forecasts to be issued in November 2007 until the end of 2007. Forecasts now may be issued irregulraly.

2007-07-01: Propagation Service Center<PSC> has been revived after being inactive for almost 8 years. At this moment we are working on getting most information online again in the new style. We expect to be up and running 100% in January 2008.