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MI, USA
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Will I see a few minutes of easy DX to Europe? Will the bands be lousy with contests?
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Posted: 8/3/2017 8:24:35 PM EST
You won't notice any difference at all.
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Posted: 8/3/2017 8:42:06 PM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By aa777888-2:
You won't notice any difference at all. In theory there might be some interesting grey line paths as the grey line direction is never seen in a normal sunset. Less esoteric is just that there will be a time of odd nighttime propagation in the middle of the day. 80 meters should be pretty neat. If it was wintertime there would be some pretty cool 160m. AM broadcast DXing might be neat for those so inclined. I was on the air during the partial eclipse in 1994, mostly on 80 and it was a lot of fun. I was just goofing around and really not that well informed about propagation. |
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Posted: 8/3/2017 10:11:24 PM EST
Might be some "Doomsday" type pirate HF stations on.
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Posted: 8/4/2017 4:44:00 AM EST
http://www.reeve.com/Documents/Articles%20Papers/Reeve_2017SolarEclipse_VLF.pdf
A bit of info in the above link, VLF and LF. |
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Posted: 8/4/2017 9:03:37 AM EST
Two ARRL items:
http://www.arrl.org/news/amateur-radio-participation-is-key-to-university-solar-eclipse-experiment http://www.arrl.org/news/many-special-events-will-be-on-the-air-to-mark-the-total-solar-eclipse-in-august There's also an article in the August 2017 QST. |
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Posted: 8/4/2017 10:30:06 AM EST
Gamma, while you are strictly correct, given the generally low state of charge of the ionosphere these days, due to the lull in solar activity, I do not believe that we will see any significant differences in propagation this time around. However, I suppose we'll know in a few days.
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Posted: 8/4/2017 10:48:39 AM EST
IMHO: if Twitter & Facebook are any indication; the bands (from top to bottom) will be full of peeps trying to see if there is any change in propagation, which will (potentially) in turn create (supposed) propagation due to the influx of operators on the air (Think Contest Days).
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Posted: 8/4/2017 11:17:50 AM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By SCWolverine:
IMHO: if Twitter & Facebook are any indication; the bands (from top to bottom) will be full of peeps trying to see if there is any change in propagation, which will (potentially) in turn create (supposed) propagation due to the influx of operators on the air (Think Contest Days). 
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GA, USA
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Posted: 8/4/2017 1:50:59 PM EST
No joke. It's amazing how the 10M "Wasteland" always seems to have excellent "propagation" during contests.
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By SCWolverine:
IMHO: if Twitter & Facebook are any indication; the bands (from top to bottom) will be full of peeps trying to see if there is any change in propagation, which will (potentially) in turn create (supposed) propagation due to the influx of operators on the air (Think Contest Days). |
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Posted: 8/4/2017 2:15:47 PM EST
[Last Edit: 8/4/2017 2:24:58 PM EST by Frank_B]
The D Layer collapses quickly, so medium wave propagation is probably going to be affected in varying degrees along the eclipse path. 80 and 160 Meters along with the AM broadcast band should show a short-term uptick in propagation in a generally east-west direction.
I can easily pick up St. Louis and Atlanta from my northeast TN QTH on my pocket portable, so will try for them around totality. |
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Posted: 8/4/2017 4:32:56 PM EST
[Last Edit: 8/4/2017 4:33:28 PM EST by Gamma762]
Quote HistoryOriginally Posted By Frank_B:
The D Layer collapses quickly, so medium wave propagation is probably going to be affected in varying degrees along the eclipse path. 80 and 160 Meters along with the AM broadcast band should show a short-term uptick in propagation in a generally east-west direction. http://content.thesuntoday.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2013/11/eclipse-path-0817-1078.jpg I can easily pick up St. Louis and Atlanta from my northeast TN QTH on my pocket portable, so will try for them around totality. |
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Posted: 8/4/2017 7:15:19 PM EST
[Last Edit: 8/4/2017 7:17:13 PM EST by Frank_B]
Looking at this map, if 80% totality has an appreciable effect on the D layer, there could be a very significant increase in signals on the MW band. It would be a shadow ~1000 miles in diameter moving across the country.
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Posted: 8/4/2017 7:54:03 PM EST
My QTH is almost in the path. The "epicenter" will pass just about 80 miles south of us. I'll be outside enjoying the view. Screw the radios and propagation.
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Posted: 8/4/2017 7:59:26 PM EST
im in on one
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MI, USA
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Posted: 8/5/2017 9:39:30 PM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By Gyprat:
My QTH is almost in the path. The "epicenter" will pass just about 80 miles south of us. I'll be outside enjoying the view. Screw the radios and propagation. |
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Posted: 8/21/2017 5:18:12 PM EST
It was surreal. I have never seen anything like this before. It did not get pitch dark but it was dark-ish for a little over a minute. Yes, this was a 100% eclipse. We could see the sun's corona surrounding the moon. Riht before it got dark, i noticed sun light flickering a bit. What could cause this? Perhaps the irregularities in the corona?
Anyway, we had a blast. Right after the eclipse, I heard reports on a 2 meter repeater about roads being blocked with heavy traffic. Several emergency nets were activated but all they did was checking in and out. I took a video if the eclipse. Now I need to figure out how to edit it and post to Youtube. Any suggestions?  
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Posted: 8/21/2017 5:22:16 PM EST
It's easy to create a youtube account, and upload pics.
I need to learn to edit too. Here's what I did..... Old PENTAX K110D cheap glasses frm my kids eye doc and cardboard holed taped to lens was cool as hell to hear all the night time bug noise. somebody up the road was shooting off big fireworks, but the big show was up higher 
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Posted: 8/21/2017 5:38:59 PM EST
Pretty much a non-event, here.
75% coverage, I think. About as unimpressive as the one I saw 33 years ago. Whoopee. 
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Posted: 8/21/2017 5:54:02 PM EST
100% here, got weird-dark; quick, bugs started singing..
like Gyprat, we too noticed the sunlight looking refracted or rippling just before and just after totality. Kids were stoked, DMR worked during event. what shall we obsess about tomorrow? |
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Posted: 8/21/2017 8:24:30 PM EST
I think we only got 65% coverage here but I sure could feel a difference in the Sun's intensity.
It was actually pleasant working out in the Sun, in the desert, in the summer, for a short while. 
No radio's with me at work, but the lake sure was Purdy during the eclipse. |
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Posted: 8/21/2017 9:36:59 PM EST
Didn't notice any difference on the bands today. If anything, they seemed worse than ever.
Built my crappity-ass bino viewer a couple of days ago. Crappy bino's, but damn if it didn't work good enough to see sunspots (verified by looking at interweb sunspot data from the same hour as my photo). 
Only 61% occultation here. I shot this photo at max. occultation. A few sunspots visible. Obviously no real difference noticeable outside. 39% sunlight is still a million times more than just a single cloud obscuring the sun. 
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Posted: 8/21/2017 10:59:00 PM EST
We drove to the north side of Columbia, SC. We decided to park in a hotel parking lot. I set up my radio and got a couple of quick contacts around 2pm. Then, a cloud came and seemingly stopped directly in front of the sun.
Since we'd driven 500+ miles to get to this point, we decided to make a hasty pack up and drive like crazy to get to sunny skies. Only took about 5 minutes. Hopped out, set up the radio again, and when the totality finally showed up, it was awesome! Tried a few stations that couldn't hear me, which was no surprise given I was using the mobile vertical. At least PSK reporter was showing my existence. I only saw one station on 40m and he couldn't hear me either. I did more sun gazing than radio playing but at least I did my bit as one of many "citizen scientists" to help the Virginia Tech folks collect propagation during eclipse data. BTW, driving afterwards was obnoxious. There were millions of people on the roads simultaneously leaving the totality band all at once. It sucked. Bigly.
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Posted: 8/21/2017 11:08:08 PM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By aa777888-2:
Built my crappity-ass bino viewer a couple of days ago. Crappy bino's, but damn if it didn't work good enough to see sunspots (verified by looking at interweb sunspot data from the same hour as my photo). |
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WI, USA
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Posted: 8/22/2017 7:28:14 AM EST
Here is my viewer:
Worked pretty well. We were around 85-90%. 
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Posted: 8/22/2017 4:01:12 PM EST
[Last Edit: 8/22/2017 4:03:24 PM EST by Frank_B]
96% here. I quickly scanned the AM broadcast band at max eclipse, but heard nothing unusual.
It got about as dark as when the sun is just at the horizon, but the shadows were all in the wrong places. The sky had an unusual silvery cast to it. The temp dropped 6* in ~15 minutes and a very slight cool, clammy breeze came up -- had visions of zombies . Wife and I amused ourselves looking at it through a filter I usually put on my 'scope to check sunspots. Also checked out the crescent pattern in the shade beneath trees, and did the crossed fingers projection thing.
We recorded the local TV station and got a big laugh out of Al Roker's antics when he had a thunderstorm in the background at totality. He was as excited as Jim Cantore and his thundersnow event. I'm going to check my game camera later and see if the deer/'coons/turkeys/rabbits came out. |
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Posted: 8/22/2017 6:11:07 PM EST
We made a short video of the eclipse with my DSLR Canon camera. It ain't much but I'm no CNN either.
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Posted: 8/22/2017 7:31:36 PM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By Gyprat:
We made a short video of the eclipse with my DSLR Canon camera. It ain't much but I'm no CNN either.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDzmbODzSOk
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Posted: 8/23/2017 3:51:52 PM EST
Fantastic! Thanks for posting!
It's amazing how little of the sun has to be exposed to produce usable light. |
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Posted: 8/23/2017 7:19:55 PM EST
[Last Edit: 8/23/2017 7:20:09 PM EST by BroncoGlenn]
Overcast conditions here prevented seeing much of anything.
Ended up down at the nursery and picked up a curious looking venus flytrap looking like plant. |
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Posted: 8/23/2017 11:50:01 PM EST
Quote History Originally Posted By Frank_B:
It's amazing how little of the sun has to be exposed to produce usable light. |
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