The recent unsettled weather is continuing to dominate the big weather picture for the coming week or two. With such a complex pattern, be prepared for big changes in timings of these big weather systems at longer lead times.

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It’s worth keeping a watch on forecasts from day to day to pick the bigger storms out in time to make sure your antennas are secure. Having said that, in propagation terms, this type of pattern is poor for any Tropo prospects, and the best benefit is again likely to be potential rain scatter from heavier rain.

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Last Wednesday saw some interesting dry-weather 24GHz propagation over the North Sea. At the Margate 24GHz WebSDR, the newly-repaired Flanders beacon ON0HVL was copiable all day until around 2000, until a band of humid air hit the path from the West, taking out both ON0HVL and GB3PKT. The latter returned to normal on Thursday morning.

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We are now exiting the broader span of the Leonids meteor shower with a gap driven by random meteors until mid-December when the Geminids arrive. There have been a few minor auroral moments, although not particularly noteworthy in a radio sense. But in the absence of any Tropo, perhaps it’s still worth keeping an eye on the Kp index going above Kp=5 to provide a little excitement. Lastly, we had some more out-of-season Sporadic-E on 50MHz last week, so keep an ear open for that.

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For EME operators, Moon declination is rising and goes positive again on Saturday, the 11th so that means more Moon time and higher peak elevation in the upcoming week. Path losses are low and falling further as we approach perigee on Thursday the 4th. 144 MHz Sky noise is low all week, climbing to moderate at the end of the week

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And that’s all from the propagation team this week.