Stuart, K5KVH wrote: "The great Sunspot cycle peak in 1957 was the greatest ever recorded." ========== That was my first sunspot cycle peak -- the peak was actually in 1958 when the smoothed sunspot number exceeded 200. Among other things then, I vividly remember, as W8DGP, running three watts output from my homebrew 10-meter mobile on AM phone with a bumper-mounted 8-foot whip when I worked a ZL from my driveway in Detroit on 29610 kHz (then the "calling" frequency for 10-meter mobiles). 1958 was named "The International Geophysical Year" (IGY) by scientists studying the sunpot cycle.
A local ham friend, W8RLT, ran a KW on 6-meter AM then and proudly displayed a framed letter on his shack wall from the BBC he received back then which asked him to either turn his beam another way or to reduce power because he was causing TVI to all of the sets in England on the BBC channel which was on 48 to 54 MHz. Although sunspot cycles are described as 11 years long, since the 1958 peak the average length has been about 10-1/2 years. The rise from minimum to maximum is about 4 to 4-1/2 years and the decline from maximum to minimum is about 6 to 6-1/2 years. 73, de Earl, K6SE _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
