Well, if only it was that simple. There has been a big
Sun spot aimed right at Earth last week and that raised the flux
up to 93 or maybe even 95. I get the ARRL propagation bulletin
each week and it is a treasure trove of information about
propagation and how the Solar cycles are figured.

	The best way to think about the Sun is to imagine a
musical note mixed with some random noise. The note's pitch is
roughly one cycle every 22 or so years. The positive and
negative peeks of the amplitude occur every eleven or so years,
give or take a year or so each time.

	Mixed in with this regular cyclic activity is what can
best be called random noise. Even in a Solar Minimum, we can
have a killer Sun spot that can open up the whole world for a
day or so and make things really start ticking. Then, the spot
will rotate out of view of Earth and things go back to boring
normal again for months or years.

	The Solar activity numbers do not follow a sine wave,
but sort of a distorted saw tooth pattern. In other words, when
the flux goes up for the cycle, it tends to rise pretty fast and
then taper off much more slowly.

	We are actually supposed to be at or near the bottom of
the Solar cycle and should stay there for a few more
years.

	The next peak is forecast to be around 2010 to 2012 so
probably in a year or 2, the long-term flux will start rising,
but not quite yet.

	Finally, they can tell which spots belong to the last
Solar cycle because they have a different shape due to opposite
polarity. Observers usually start seeing new spots well before
the end of the previous cycle so there is a mixture of old and
new spots for a while during the minimum and near
minimum periods.

	We are in the Winter E season, so keep listening to ten
and six. While it is most likely too soon to get really excited,
Winter and especially Summer Sporadic E can pop up at any time
regardless of the Solar cycle.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group
Jeff Kenyon writes:
>Hi everyone, I checked WWV a while ago here this evening and our flux is
>still  at 89.  I don't know what is going on, but it looks like the
>minimum of the last cycle is done and over with!