I found this on one of the propagation sites ...
http://www.nwra-az.com/spawx/sec_situation.html
... I visit regularly and found it very disturbing.
Apparently there is a good chance (maybe a done deal) that NOAA will not be
funded
to do data collection or RD on space weather, i.e. solar data which drives
hf propagation
predictions. It seems like it is a matter of $10M that a senate committee
is withholding from the
funding for NOAA. If you are as disturbed about this as I am, maybe you
could
let your representatives in congress (especially your senators) know you
appreciate
the work done by NOAA and ask them to review their spending/taxation
policies
if they result in valuable government services, such as NOAA is providing,
disappearing.
Here is a summary of the cuts to NOAA ...
==
SUMMARY For Fiscal Year 2004, starting October 1, 2003,
the House Appropriations Bill for Commerce, Justice,
and State continues Space Environment Center's funding
at $5.2 M (a reduction of 40% below the FY02 level).
Worse, the FY04 Senate Appropriations Bill zeroes Space
Environment Center and all space weather in NOAA, so
services, data and observations, and archiving would
all disappear if the final appropriation is at the
Senate level. At the House funding level, starting
October 1 SEC will rapidly lose about half its staff,
negatively affecting its ability to serve the Nation
with operational products, data collection, and RD.
Unless the appropriation level for Space Environment
Center is restored to the level of the President's FY04
Budget Request, $8.3 million, the Nation's civilian
space weather service is in trouble. At the President's
requested funding level, Space Environment Center can
almost return to FY02 level of services, data, and RD.
=
I hope I'm interpreting the senate appropriations bill incorrectly ...
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/T?report=sr144dbname=cp108;
but what they are doing seems to be a sign of the times.
73, Ted, W2ZK
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