2016 Spring/Summer Es Season Observations from 10-Meter WSPR

I guess I have a weak will.

In November 2015, I said goodbye to 14 years of propagation reporting and analysis with the PropNET group. I was a bit stubborn and due to other things going on in retirement, I did not care to upgrade or replace my desktop computers in order to operate the new version of software. I like using my older equipment for fun stuff like Ham Radio and put the newer technology to use such as typing and posting this paper. I also do not care to use laptops for this either.

I wrote my final propagation analysis paper using PropNET towards the end of January 2016 titled, “How Solar Cycle 24 Affected 10 Meter Spring Summer Es”
http://ka5dwipropagation.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-solar-cycle-24-affected-10-meter.html
http://propnet-studies.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-solar-cycle-24-affected-10-meter.html

The analysis showed that Cycle 24 had exponentially lessened Es activity during the Spring/Summer season.  The good thing I thought was that the decline of solar activity should result in improved Es conditions for 2016.  During the spring and summer of 2015, I had experienced some nice 6 Meter Es (118 grid squares worked) and looked forward to what the 2016 season held.

In December 2015, I played in a few contests and had a great time working the bands, particularly 10-Meters. Cycle 24 was going out with a bang and was still pretty active. I couldn’t help myself and fired up the old Dell desktop on 10 Meter WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter) to see if the band was open.  After a couple of weeks pulling in some nice Trans-Atlantic and Pacific DX, I put the old Yaesu HF rig (FT-747GX) back in line, set to one-half a watt to see who could hear me. 

From January thru April I pulled in WSPR signals and was also heard throughout the world. I received some nice emails from Hams copying my signal and/or me copying theirs. The old XP computer worked like a charm. No issues at all with memory or crashes. The WSPRNET website is another issue. I never was impressed with it. There were constant connection timeout issues that still exist today. Where is Dave when you need him?

I decided that despite the Website issues, to operate on 10-Meter WSPR as I had in my early days on PropNET to see if Es conditions were improving since the decline of Cycle 24.  Also, I wanted to see if a different propagation reporting system would show similar results. I took a relaxed approach this year. I operated only when I was nearby. It was infrequently left on all night. 

If you already know me, you can skip this next section.

Background:
1. Amateur Radio Operator since 1979. Have carried the same call since issued. Worked all states, all continents and well over 200 DXCC entities on 10-Meters.
2. TV/FM/VHF/UHF/Utility DXer and CB’er since the early 1970’s. MWBC and SW DX’er since the early to mid-1960’s.
3. Active 2, 6 & .70 Meter weak signal. 540+ 6M, 200+ 2M, 40+ .70M grid squares. 60+ DXCC on 6M and one-half of the 2-Meter N. American DX record for Tropo-Overland (9/2003).  All activity from near Fort Worth, Texas (EM12).
4. Retired in June 2014 and moved to near Prescott Arizona (DM34un) and now working on new VUCC’s, DXCC and WAS.
5. Participated in PropNET from 2004 to 2015.  Wrote 7 annual seasonal and 5 cumulative year analyses on Spring/Summer 10-Meter Es.  Published 2 Papers for the annual proceedings of the Central States VHF Society Conference. Also wrote papers on other special events.

Operating WSPR 2016:
1. Rig: Yaesu FT-747GX. Power output set to 2 watts for the Spring and Summer.
2. Computer and Interface: Very old Dell Dimension 2.1 GHz XP Desktop and West Mountain RigBlaster with a Serial interface.  Computer was dedicated to WSPR operation, Telnet and Weak-Signal or Contest logging.  No other programs were used to limit CPU and memory resources.
3. Antennas: Primary – 42 year old 3 Element Yagi. My original CB Yagi (Antenna Specialists Hustler) pointed generally east, but pointed in other directions when working 6-Meter openings. Secondary – 35 year old Cushcraft ATV-3 Vertical nestled between 2 Blue Spruce trees. The antenna was used whenever monsoon storms were forecasted or within the area.
4. Operating Setup – Whenever on, transmitted a 2-minute long WSPR packet either 18 or 20 minutes apart. Software was set to transmit at 10% (10 2-minute transmissions every 3 hours, listening 160 minutes during that time). I operated on average about 11 hours each day from morning to early evening. 

Data:
1. All measurements and charts are derived from my reception of 10-Meter WSPR packets. Extracted from the ALL_WSPR.txt file and imported into and compiled from an Excel spreadsheet.
2. The database from WSPRNET was NOT used due to unreliability of the website to acquire propagation reports.
3. Any reception considered ground wave or Trans-Equatorial was removed from this analysis.

Numbers:
1. Operating Dates – From April 29 through August 28, 2016 (122 days)
2. WSPR Packet receptions - 2,543
3. My WSPR Transmissions – 3,941
4. Shortest reception – N7NEV DM43 103 miles Es Backscatter, N6RY DM13 281 miles Single Hop Es
5. Longest reception – WP3D FK68 2,979 miles Multi-Hop Es (F2 MUF was too low)
6. Most active day – July 12 with 154 captures.
7. Least active day – 16 recorded days without activity.
8. Distance – Average capture length 1,175 miles, Median distance approximately 1,050 miles.
9. First capture – KD6RF EM22 4/29 @ 16:34 UTC (9:34 AM PDT Time), Last Capture – W1VR 8/24 @ 01:50 UTC (8/23 6:50 PM PDT)
10. Calls captured – 96, Grid Squares captured – 69

I was optimistic that we would finally start getting more Es activity. All the signs were there for a deserved recovery. Or so I thought.

Daily WSPR Captures During the Season

First observation was that the Es season had no early indications it was beginning. Usually there are short openings the second, third and fourth weeks of April. These did not appear. Even in high solar activity years openings being a probable linking of Es and F2 will show up. No evidence of much of that this season.

Second observation was there were very distinctive quiet periods for nearly 5 periods until the summer solstice. Each active period was a little better than the previous, but each lull was very quiet.  Between the solstice and Independence Day was horrible.
Third observation was once we passed the Fourth of July, something turned the Es switch on and we enjoyed a very good end of the season. The period around the Perseid meteor shower was also very good.

Once the meteor shower was over, the season came to an abrupt end on August 25.

The polynomial trend line of the lowest order showed that the season peaked on July 5, highest order on July 13. These are the latest dates I have observed. Generally it was no higher than June 28.  The median WSPR capture (the one in the middle) was on July 11. My median WSPR transmission was on June 22.

Overall I felt this was unusual for a poor season occurring during a declining Solar Cycle.

Hourly Activity Spring/Summer Es

With the Es season being a little off kilter, I thought that the hourly figures might be off as well. Wrong.

The hourly progression was precisely what has been experienced in most years. The trend is called a dual peaked diurnal pattern. Also, most years it is much more active in the mid to late morning hours, starts to decline around noon, then rises again as sunset is approached. Once the sun sets, activity declines sharply. Missing this season was any hint of twilight activity. The only difference was that in Texas, the second peak was proportionally higher. I might go back to my PropNET data and see if the left coast trends similar.

The median WSPR capture this season was 1,026 miles, so I distributed the hourly captures at the next mileage capture 1,079 miles.

For both distance segments, the dual peaked diurnal was evident. More so for the longer half segment for captures. One of the benefits of being located on the west or east coast is a large amount of multi-hop Es. At times it outnumbered single hop paths.

As noted, the 1,000 to 1,250 segment is the most active and is the optimum distance for single hop Es. Many of the other 250 mile segments were well represented.

During the season, I captured about everyone in the United States that transmitted. Likewise, most that were listening heard my signal. Active participants followed population in most cases. The number of active WSPR participants was impressive, but only a few were active continuously.

Thank you to those that were.

As the Es Season improved, the average distance tended to trend upward. On the most active days average distance was higher thanks to Double-Hop (Multi).

Directional

The 90 Degree segments are north, east, south and west. Almost 90 % of all activity does come from the east here in Arizona.  Activity to the north and west was always an indication of more intense Es activity.

 

Narrowing the angle to 60 and 45 degrees, the concentration of activity is the Northeast to the Southeast.  The more southern Es was central and south Texas and Florida.

Coverage During the Season
The following maps show both 10-Meter WSPR stations that I captured or those who captured my 2 watt signal.

The first active day of the Es Season, May 10. It included Es to Hawaii.

June 14 was the best day prior to the Summer Solstice. Just after the June VHF Contest. There was only one more active day until the first week of July. 

July 5. After an extended lull, Es became more active.

July 12 was the most active day of the Es Season. It was active on 6 Meters this day, but failed to reach 2-Meters.

July 20

July 30

The season was fairly active throughout July into August.

The last high-activity day was August 9. Once the Perseid Meteor Shower was over, activity steadily declined.

Summary
Expecting a much improved season from the past few years was not the case. There were occasional signs that Es conditions were on the upswing. In the stratosphere, Noctilucent Clouds reappeared in the Northern latitudes. The first weekend in June, a nice European opening occurred on 6-Meters as far west as southern Arizona. I worked 106 grid squares (down 10%) on 6-Meters and my best worked DX was Maine, Dominican Republic and copying Alaska on JT65.  The difference appeared to be periods that the bands were void of activity.

I still believe that our declining solar cycle is still too active and not quiet enough yet to provide long period high quality Es conditions.

Solar Conditions

2009 and 2010 were excellent years for Es conditions. 6-Meter Trans-Atlantic, short & longer path 2-Meter opportunities and the best conditions occurring around the Summer Solstice.

A comparison between 2009 & 2010 to 2015 & 2016

Solar Flux

Between Solar Cycles 23 and 24, little movement in daily values occurred . In 2014 and 2015, values cycled very close to the rotation of the Sun.  Notable in 2016, was that Solar Flux closely reached its lowest possible levels.

Solar A Indices

The A indices show geomagnetic activity. On several occasions the past 2 years this activity was high enough to produce Aurora.  It was non-existent in 2009 and 2010.

The general amount of high activity still is putting a lid on Es.  I still remain optimistic that a less active sun will produce much better results for Spring/Summer Es.

I hope to be available next year and do this again.

73 Art Jackson KA5DWI/7 near Prescott Arizona

2016 10-Meter WSPR Honor Roll
The following Hamradio operators accounted for 80% of the season's captures:

Call	Grid Sq	Catches
KD6RF	EM22	520
W1VR	EL98	400
KC0TKS	EM38	368
AE5HO	EM13	129
N5GG	EM13	115
W6LVP	DM04	96
KB2SVD	FN20	81
N0AN	EN22	78
N5HJC	DM93	59
AE5BW	DM75	53
AE0MT	EN34	47
W3PM	EM64	38
N5ZKK	EM00	31
AE7U	CN87	30

The following Hamradio operators accounted for the remaining 20%:

Call	Catches
KR6ZY	27
N3XKB	26
KA7OEI	24
KI4ENY	24
W0JP	23
N7GLS	22
K4RJD	21
K7OFT	20
K9AN	19
KH6RD	19
KK4LMG	16
KC2PRB	15
WD5EAA	14
N0CXX	13
KM4UYE	11
K5DRU	10
KB0FHF	10
W4HFZ	10
VA7MM	9
W5GNB	9
N9PBD	8
K6EME	7
N6RY	7
NK7Z	7
W4GO	7
K8TK	6
KC1BTV	6
WB1FIG	6
K6WKX	5
KC9NBV	5
AK4T	4
KD4YDD	4
KK1D	4
N2NOM	4
ND6M	4
W1QG	4
W6NIR	4
W9MDO	4
K5NAN	3
KG5HYP	3
N7NEV	3
AB9TX	2
AE2EA	2
AE7OA	2
AF7HL	2
KF5PZW	2
KJ4RWD	2
KK6WVH	2
N6KOG	2
W5CGC	2
WD4EYI	2
WV0Q	2
AA5JD	1
AC0WN	1
AF5ES	1
AI6KG	1
K3FHP	1
K4PRA	1
K5GIL	1
K5PED	1
K5RKS	1
K7IP	1
KD2CPT	1
KD6JWK	1
KF2AT	1
KK7JV	1
N2NXZ	1
N4AU	1
N5IRC	1
N5RGV	1
N7NEI	1
NF4E	1
NV0O	1
W3CSW	1
W8AC	1
WA7NWP	1
WA9EIC	1
WB2TQE	1
WB4RFQ	1
WJ5FF	1
WP3D	1