Never been thru an eclipse before, what can I expect that I normally wouldn't see on HF?

Outdoors » Ham Radios

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Never been thru an eclipse before, what can I expect that I normally wouldn't see on HF?

Posted: 8/3/2017 9:19:35 PM EDT

Will I see a few minutes of easy DX to Europe? Will the bands be lousy with contests?

Posted: 8/3/2017 9:24:35 PM EDT

[#1]

You won't notice any difference at all.

Posted: 8/3/2017 9:42:06 PM EDT

[#2]

Quote History

Quoted:
You won't notice any difference at all.

View Quote

Untrue. The eclipse path is a grey line and makes possible grey line and nighttime-like propagation.

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.

Posted: 8/3/2017 11:11:24 PM EDT

[#3]

Might be some "Doomsday" type pirate HF stations on.

Posted: 8/4/2017 5:44:00 AM EDT

[#4]

http://www.reeve.com/Documents/Articles%20Papers/Reeve_2017SolarEclipse_VLF.pdf
A bit of info in the above link, VLF and LF.

Posted: 8/4/2017 10:03:37 AM EDT

[#5]

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.

Posted: 8/4/2017 11:30:06 AM EDT

[#6]

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.

Posted: 8/4/2017 11:48:39 AM EDT

[#7]

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).

Posted: 8/4/2017 12:17:50 PM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:
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).

View Quote

"Virtual" propagation!

Posted: 8/4/2017 2:50:59 PM EDT

[#9]

No joke. It's amazing how the 10M "Wasteland" always seems to have excellent "propagation" during contests.

Quote History

Quoted:
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).

View Quote

Posted: 8/4/2017 3:15:47 PM EDT

[#10]

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.

Posted: 8/4/2017 5:32:56 PM EDT

[#11]

Quote History

Quoted:
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.

View Quote

It'd be interesting for someone far to the northwest to listen for the blowtorch AM station KMOX in St Louis, as it's right in the path of the totality and close to the maximum time.

Posted: 8/4/2017 8:15:19 PM EDT

[#12]

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.

Posted: 8/4/2017 8:54:03 PM EDT

[#13]

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.

Posted: 8/4/2017 8:59:26 PM EDT

[#14]

im in on one

Posted: 8/5/2017 10:39:30 PM EDT

[#15]

Quote History

Quoted:
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.

View Quote

Go QRP/P and Get Both?

Posted: 8/21/2017 6:18:12 PM EDT

[#16]

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?

Posted: 8/21/2017 6:22:16 PM EDT

[#17]

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

Posted: 8/21/2017 6:38:59 PM EDT

[#18]

Pretty much a non-event, here.

75% coverage, I think. About as unimpressive as the one I saw 33 years ago.

Whoopee.

Posted: 8/21/2017 6:54:02 PM EDT

[#19]

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?

Posted: 8/21/2017 9:24:30 PM EDT

[#20]

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.

Posted: 8/21/2017 10:36:59 PM EDT

[#21]

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.

Posted: 8/21/2017 11:59:00 PM EDT

[#22]

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.

Posted: 8/22/2017 12:08:08 AM EDT

[#23]

Quote History

Quoted:
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).

View Quote

I made a similar viewer, just in one large box. Worked great. Could easily see the sunspots.

Posted: 8/22/2017 8:28:14 AM EDT

[#24]

Here is my viewer:

Worked pretty well. We were around 85-90%.

Posted: 8/22/2017 5:01:12 PM EDT

[#25]

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.

Posted: 8/22/2017 7:11:07 PM EDT

[#26]

We made a short video of the eclipse with my DSLR Canon camera. It ain't much but I'm no CNN either.

2017 Total Eclipse in real time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDzmbODzSOk

Posted: 8/22/2017 8:31:36 PM EDT

[#27]

Quote History

Quoted:
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

View Quote

awesome

Posted: 8/23/2017 4:51:52 PM EDT

[#28]

Fantastic! Thanks for posting!

It's amazing how little of the sun has to be exposed to produce usable light.

Posted: 8/23/2017 8:19:55 PM EDT

[#29]

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.

Posted: 8/24/2017 12:50:01 AM EDT

[#30]

Quote History

Quoted:
It's amazing how little of the sun has to be exposed to produce usable light.

View Quote

Consider that a typical sunglasses tint is something like 12~15%, and dark sunglasses can be 8% or less.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Never been thru an eclipse before, what can I expect that I normally wouldn't see on HF?

Outdoors » Ham Radios

Warning

Confirm Action

About AR15.COM

Stay Connected

Newsletter

Contact Us