X Flare

[pwdrive]

Lawrence, for those that do not know (me aherm) where do you get this kind of information?

cheers Mark

Hello Mark, I've been having my dinner....Your question seems to have been answered.
space weather com, solar ham com etc there are loads of others but space weather com is usually the one that is most up to date, there are many links on that site to the official organisations that study and monitor the space weather as it is called.
X flares are at the high end of the classification, preceeded by M class and C class etc. If they are earth directed then there effects will normalyl be noticed in the radio spectrum especially for regions that are still in daylight in the form of a full or partial radio blackout depending on the severity of the event
I am sure there are many that have been caught out by it's effects when working on radio receivers, me included but now with the advent of PC's and obsevatory sattellites it is easy to check as was the case with me late this afternoon, I had shut down a receiver to do some fiddling when I switched it back on some time later I went straight to the 40 meter band to do a reception check as I know from experience that the European broadcast stations that set the upper limit of the amature band start to come through quite strong at around 4.30 pm but when I tried I could only get an extreamly weak hetrodyne, subsiquent cruising of tjhe amature band returned ansolutely zilch it was then that I suspected a radio blackout, a quick check on the space weather revealed the X1.4 event so no problem.

It is beleived by many, including myself that the sun spot cycles can affect the weather, the effects of sun spots,solar flares etc is still to a certasin extent an unknow science.

Lawrence