The Propogation Blues

Let's face it, it's been a bad couple of years for SWL's. Being in the lull of the sunspot cycle is never fun, nor productive for the DX'er, but here lately it has been absolutely disappointing.

I can't remember the last time I saw the solar activity as flat for as long. In fact, it is so flat that NASA is concerned that the lack of solar winds will cause devastating UV effects on the earth. That's pretty bad.

Everywhere I've read, there seems to be no end in sight, at least for a few years. But alas, our good friend Arnie Coro has seen the light at the end of the tunnel, literally.

Arnie does things the old fashioned way. He grabs a telescope (With proper filtering, of course) and takes a look at the surface of the sun. He stated last evening on his show , DX'ers Unlimited (Radio Habana), that he was seeing the beginning of a sunspot!

Maybe there is some good listening around the corner. The only thing I can say is that it can't get much worse than it has been.