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Apparent Auroral Conditions March 17

K

KR4BD

I usually scan the AM dial every night and noticed that most of the Powerhouse stations NORTH of me in Central Ky are very weak or not there at all. This includes WJR, WTAM, WLS, WBBM, etc. When this happens, it's a GREAT time to look SOUTH for new stations. On 1010, Neither CFRB or WINS were there, but I keep hearing Bill Cunningham's Sunday night show dominating the frequency... FINALLY, WMOX was clearly heard on one of the breaks. They're in Merridian, MS with only 1,000 watts at night with an antenna pattern that probably sends very little signal to the NE (my direction from MS).

You'd be amazed what you can hear with these conditions on AM.
 
Another new one heard...WRGA-1470 from Rome, GA. They are 5 KW at night, but send VERY LITTLE of it in my direction. WMBD from Peoria usually dominates 1470 here, but not tonight....
 
Do auroral conditions have any affect on radio reception further south in the US? I'm on the Gulf Coast and while the dial seems to be a little more crowded than usual, I'm not hearing anything really crazy.

I did manage to log two new stations, 1260 KSGF Springfield with news/talk and 1520 KRHW Sikeston with classic country, both out of Missouri.

KGOW Houston is booming in for a change, along with other a few other east/west regulars. The Chicago stations are mostly strong with WLS being the only one absent. 670 is overpowering the Cubans which is a true rarity for me. 780 and 720 are rock solid, along with WSM and WLAC from Nashville and WXJC and WERC from Birmingham. KLEB on 1600 from Golden Meadow, Louisiana is also curiously strong and singular on that channel this evening. It's usually a day only catch here.

I guess the only other oddities worth noting is KRMG Tulsa on 740 is completely alone right now, with no fighting with the Canadian station like usual, and some faint but audible Spanish speech programming is behind Enciclopedia on 530 whereas it's usually dominant for me.
 
Very unusual conditions noted last night in the north Chicago suburbs. Many skywave signals were much weaker than normal, allowing groundwave and other stations to come in. For example, last night was one of the nights I could hear WILL operating on their nighttime power of 180 watts. Even the graveyard channels were a lot quieter. I probably could have pulled something out of the pile if I had the patience. Noted WSM, CFZM, WLW, WHAS, WCCO all much weaker than usual (WSM almost at the noise floor). From the west, could not hear CBW at all. From the south I did hear WMOB as usual.

At night I never hear Chicago's 1450 at all in my area, and can only just barely tell that 1490 is in there. Last night I could hear 1450 trying, and 1490 was copyable. I thought I could hear 1220 from Waukegan as well (never ever hear them at night). Radio Disney had 1300 all to itself and the same was true for 1390. Toward morning it seemed like most of the usual skywave signals were almost back to normal.
 
Yes...The CBS Evening News even talked about last night's auroral conditions.

For Zack: As mentioned, Auroral Conditions affect different areas in different ways and these conditions are NOT always the same on the AM dial. For me, in Central Kentucky, I usually notice very weak or totally absent AM signals from the North while signals from the South will be enhanced. For instance, last night, a Spanish station was extremely strong on 890 with NO SIGN of WLS (which is a blowtorch here most nights). None of the biggies to the North were being heard, but lots of signals to the South of me were clear. WMOB-1360 was all alone...Usually WSAI from Cincinnati is in the mix on 1360, but not last night. All the Northerly Clear Channels 670, 720, 740, 760, 780, 830, 890, 1000, etc., were just not being heard, but in most cases something else, (Spanish stations) were on most of those frequencies. But note, in my first two posts above, the two stations I clearly heard last night which when considering their antenna patterns, etc., I would NEVER hear under "normal" conditions.

Auroral conditions can affect many frequencies other than the AM band. I was just talking to some ham buddies in NW Indiana tonight who were working a lot of distant signals last night on the 2 meter ham band (144-148 MHz). I have also worked some weird skip on 2 meters in the past when the Northern lights are active. What you do is rotate your antenna looking for the "hot spot" in the ionosphere (usually NW-N-NE for me). You will hear distorted audio come back from other stations who are also bouncing their signals off the "hot spot" making for some interesting contacts, sometimes 1000 miles from me, on a band that is normally only good for line-of-sight communications (50-75 miles). Please understand, I have greatly simplified this explanation.

I have loved radio all my life and it never ceases to amaze me what can happen if you are patient with it.
 
I don't watch the solar numbers on a day to day basis, but here is a quite from today's propagation report prepared by K7RA for the ARRL.

An eruption on March 15 caused a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) which struck Earth on March 17, causing the planetary A index to jump to 46.
Click to expand...

Wow. Compare this to a typical A index of 8 or so.
 
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