Issued : 3rd August 2008 UTC : 1355 Solar Activity: Solar activity last month was very low. No new Cycle 24 sunspot regions appeared in July. The only activity was reported from and old Cycle 23 region, which was able to produce a sunspots for one day. Solar Flux was very low, ranging between 64 and 66. The X-ray background flux, all of the time far below the A-level, which is extremely low. On July 16th at 1700 UTC, the lowest Solar Flux since 2nd April 1954, was reported with a value of 64.2. Remarkably enough, the sunspot maximum which followed in 1958, was the highest in 300 years history of solar observations. The geomagnetic field has been very quiet most of the time, as there were no Coronal Mass Ejections, and only a few Coronal Holes. Next month we do not expect any significant changes in solar activity, which will remain very low. There is some chance we will see some Cycle 24 activity, with one or more active regions. But an old Cycle 23 region might develop as well, however the life span of Cycle 23 regions is becoming shorter and shorter. Propagation: Long distance (>1800km) F2 propagation was very poor. The southern hemisphere might saw some low and mid latitude propagation during the morning and afternoon, with some openings across the equator. In the northern hemisphere F2 propagation was reported on a few days only. F2 propagation is expected to improve a little in northern and southern hemisphere, due to seasonal influences, these are the paths expected to improve later in August: Europe: - Morning : Australia, Middle East, SE Asia - Afternoon: Africa - Evening : South America, Caribbean North America: - Morning : South and NW Africa, Middle East - Afternoon: Caribbean, South America - Evening : Australia South America: - Morning : Europe and NW Africa - Afternoon: Nw Africa, North America and Caribbean - Evening : NE Asia, SE Asia Australia: - Morning : North America - Afternoon: NE ASia, SE Asia - Evening : Middle East, Europe, Northern Africa Short skip (500-1800km) Es propagation slowly decreased in the past month from excellent to moderate. But still the 2008 Es (sporadic-E propagation) season is one of the best in history, with many multihop Es openings across low, mid and high latitudes. Even in late July the band is still opening up from Western Europe into North America and The Caribbean. There have also been reports of contacts from UK into western USA via multihop-Es, which is very very rare. Es propagation is expected to decrease from moderate to poor in the next month weeks, as Es-season comes to it's end.