Topics and links of the broadcast 21-8-2022 11:00 am (CEST)

Radio propagation and news (by PC5D)

Propagation news is curated by Tom PC5D. In the composition he makes other use of the information relevant to the Netherlands from the weekly Propagation News of the British radio amateur association RSGB, dxinfocentre , darc.de/der-club/referate/hf/ , Make More Miles on VHF and poollicht.be. Propagation news is also part of the radio news of the South Limburg Sunday morning round. The audio recording of this round is back listened on a22.veron.nl

HF propagation (by PC5D)

The sun's activity was evident in several ways last week. The week started with an increase in solar flux to above 130. This led to a significant increase of the MUF and thus to noticeably better conditions on the shortwave. In the course of the week there were numerous eruptions of solar flares. The strongest eruption reached the M5-category in the early morning of August 16. It caused a short-lived radio blackout over the Indian Ocean. On August 18th alone occurred in four and a half hours three M flames in front. As a result, the Earth crossed an area of ​​high velocities of the solar wind and was hit by the effects of several coronal and coronal mass ejections on. Thursday therefore had moments with critical frequencies that decreased to something more than 5MHz. This meant that DX was mainly closed to frequencies above the 14MHz. However, there were also times when propagation revived with MUFs over a 3,000km of trail reaching 21MHz.

A geomagnetic storm pushed the Kp index to six for two consecutive six-hour periods on Wednesday evenings. This, together with a decline in solar flux, led to from Thursday to noticeably worse propagation. The geomagnetic storms led to visible northern lights, which have also been observed in the Netherlands.

Solar activity has decreased slightly again in recent days, with the dynamics in the Earth's magnetic field remained moderate to stormy due to CMEs. NOAA expects the solar flux index in the coming week will fall to around 100. More solar flares from medium strength are likely, but if the most active sunspot group next week away from us, the probability will decrease. The MUF will vary between approximately 9 MHz at night to 18 MHz during the day. DX conditions on the 20, 17 and 15m tires hold up well, with sporadic openings at 12 and 10m. On the lower tires we expect DX openings in the Pacific during twilight at atmospherically calm to dawn.

VHF, EME propagation (by PC5D)

We now have the usual pattern of changeable weather and southwestern wind direction back. The maps on dxinfocentre show unstable areas and sometimes some marginal to reasonable conditions between the south of the Netherlands and Brittany. This allows for conditions on the VHF band to be a bit flat. Now that the Perseids are behind us, Es becomes more sporadic again with another smaller coming opportunity in the first week of September. In such fleeting events you will often notice that the digital modes can provide a potential direction to explore, starting at 10m and then migrating to 6m as an event develops.

The main driving force behind the overhead sky pattern is a wide elevation trough over the United Kingdom extending southwards from a high low above Iceland. Little large-scale movement is expected in this part of the pattern. This indicates various options for just about the whole range of directions including short skip on the HF bands. There is a secondary feature over the Adriatic Sea, which is a slow moving high low with a weak jet stream circulation around it and some heavy thunderstorms nearby. It will move a little east, but over the course of the weaken time. This promotes the chance of a hop in that direction. Solar activity has recently created auroral conditions, so don't forget the Kp-index in case more auroras form. In addition to using of the traditional 10m or 6m and sometimes 2m tires for this purpose, you will often find a strong indication getting even 80m signals that are 'hollow and watery' sound and that's a hint to check for VHF aurora. Also on www.poollicht.be you can monitor almost real time whether the power is the hemisphere is sufficient for (visible) aurora.

Meteor scattering is always an option when all else fails, especially in the early mornings when the random meteors are at their peak. In the coming days, the moon will be high above the equator and there will be long moon windows, but the distance from Earth is maximum on Tuesday and so the path losses are at their highest. The 144MHz noise is moderate and falling, but be aware that the sun and moon are close to eclipse are coming Saturday morning, meaning there will be a lot of noise from the sun for a while.

News by PC5D

Finally, a movie tip from Tom DF5JL: In March 1989 the heaviest cosmic storm caused of the 20th century caused a power plant to shut itself down. After that it was all power grid in the Canadian province of Quebec. At the time, the World Wide Web his first steps and satellite navigation was still in its infancy. A similar one Today's solar storm could have far more dramatic consequences.

In a half-hour video for the broadcaster Arte, physicist Tamitha Skov, too known as "Space Weather Woman", discusses the dangers of space weather. For space weather experts, the question is not whether space weather will throw our technological world off balance, but when the signs point to a storm. Unfortunately, the prediction capabilities for such events are still about the same as those that science has experienced over the years fifty of the last century for forecasting Earth's weather.

The German-language broadcast “Wie gefährlich ist das Weltraumwetter?” featured in the ARTE media library: https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/104840-006-A/wie-gefaehrlich-ist-das-weltraumwetter/

At Arte you can also find a Finnish documentary with English subtitles about Aurora https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/080102-000-A/fire-in-the-sky/

Background news: How the growing global water shortage is affecting chip production in the IT industry and the production of Communication systems. (PD4Z)

We are becoming increasingly dependent on chips in both industrial and private sector applications. Europe has for a long time allowed the production of these chips to take place in the Asian countries, although the development of new technologies and the production of machines to produce these chips are still being developed in Europe. This has recently led to extreme shortages and long delivery times due to the Covid-19 pandemic and increasing temperatures due to climate change inducing an ever increasing global water shortage.

This has major effects for the communication and IT industry, especially due to the ever-increasing water shortages on a worldwide scale needed for production.

In several videos from 'Asionemetry' it is explained what the connections are and the problems surrounding the water shortages in the chip industry.

The Big Semiconductor Water Problem. The northern-western part - Taipei, New Taipei City - is generally fine. There are enough reservoirs. But other areas like Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taichung, and Hsinchu are having some issues. Their water infrastructure is not as resilient or their water demand is greater. There are reports in the media of TSMC budgeting for millions of dollars to truck water down to its fabs in Tainan. The Big Semiconductor Water Problem.

Ultra pure water It is the purest water you will ever know. And every day, chip factories are sloshing their wafers with it. Ultrapure water or UPW is an industry term. A term that describes its product quite well. Water with purity requirements so strict, you're more likely to win the national lottery than to find a non-water molecule inside it. Companies have contorted themselves into pretzels making ultrapure water. And the bar keep getting higher year after year. How pure can you possibly get? Ultrapure Water for Semiconductor Manufacturing