HF Contesters Hope 2009 Brings More Sunspots After Record Low Year; 260+ Spotless Days in '08

By Jamie Dupree NS3T  radio-sport.net 
Posted December 29, 2008

By all predictions, 2008 was to be the year that Solar Cycle 24 would start churning, bringing forth new sunspots and heating up high band propagation for ham radio contesters.

Instead, 2008 proved to be a complete dud for sunspot watchers and those who like the 10 and 15 meter bands during contests.

In fact, August 2008 was the first month without a visible sunspot since June of 1913.

"Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age," read a headline on a release from the US space agency NASA in September of 2008. A few weeks later though, US government scientists declared that things were changing.

"I think solar minimum is behind us," said sunspot forecaster David Hathaway on November 7.

But not long after that, the sun went spotless for 22 straight days into December and then for much of the second half of the month as well, as 2008 recorded over 260 spotless days on the sun, the second most since 1900 in a calendar year.

"Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," said Hathaway. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

But it wasn't so long before then that scientists were singing a much different tune.

"Is a New Solar Cycle Beginning?"

That was the headline of a NASA release in December of 2007, as scientists were confident that Cycle 24 was ready to burst forth.

On January 4, 2008, it was supposedly official, the first spot of Cycle 24.

"This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of the US Space Weather Prediction Center.

Two months later, the story had shifted. Sunspots from Cycle 23 were back. "Old Solar Cycle Returns," said the NASA headline.

Now, 2009 is beginning, and the sun does not seem to be exactly charging into the New Year.

The average daily sunspot number for 2007 was just under 13, while the average for 2008 was less than half of that.

Fewer Sunspots = Shrinking Ionosphere?

Any ham radio operator worth his or her salt knows how important the ionosphere is when it comes to radio waves and communication, so a recent study raised even more questions about lackluster HF propagation.

US scientists expected to find lower than normal altitudes for the ionosphere, "However, the size of the actual contraction caught investigators by surprise," said a NASA release.

The study said the "transition between the ionosphere and space was found to be at about 260 miles (420 km) altitude during the nighttime, barely rising above 500 miles (800 km) during the day."

The NASA report said those altitudes were "extraordinarily low."