A huge orangupoid, which no man can conquer

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Sunspots

The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research issued a forecast today that states that the upcoming solar cycle, Cycle 24, is expected to start about a year late and to be 30-50% stronger at its height than the current solar cycle. Interestingly, this is the first time they’ve had a model with which they could forecast a solar cycle’s intensity with enough certainty to issue a forecast.

Looking at the graphs on their press release page, the prediction shows the cycle being about equal or maybe slightly stronger than cycles 21 (1979) and 22 (1990), although not as strong as the legendary cycle 19 of 1957. I wasn’t born in 1957, but I got my start in shortwave listening as cycle 21 was starting up, and can say that reception at the peaks of 21 and 22 was excellent.

Good news for shortwave radio DXers, maybe not quite so good for mediumwave DXers and satellite users. If there are any stations left on shortwave by 2011, anyway.

Posted at 3:14 PM

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