Solar Flares

I should have made this posting a few days ago when it was bad. Radio reception was very good this morning.

"Effect of solar flares: For most solar flares, the main effect felt on Earth is an increase in the level of solar radiation. This radiation covers the whole electromagnetic spectrum and elements such as the ultra-violet, X-rays and the like will affect the levels of ionisation in the ionosphere and hence it has an effect on radio communications via the ionosphere. Often an enhancement in ionospheric HF propagation is noticed as the higher layers of the ionosphere have increased levels of iononisation. However if the levels of ionisation in the lower levels start to rise then this can result in higher levels of attenuation of the radio communications signals and poor conditions may be experienced. Additionally an increase in the level of background noise at VHF can also be detected easily."

https://www.electronics-notes.com/articles/antennas-propagation/ionospheric/solar-flares.php

FM radio is in the same frequency band as VHF. A strong FM signal is immune to static. A certain minimum signal to noise (SNR) is necessary for the receiver to lock into an FM signal.

I have always lived where the music I liked best was always a relative weak signal. Therefore, the FM signals have relative static immunity compared to AM signals but they would not be considered to be "immune" from static.

I do know about skip. Back in my ham radio days the skip at night allowed ham contacts, Voice of America, Radio Moscow, various international stations and that annoying Russian Woodpecker to come in. In a previous life I would watch the scope as skip would creep in and threaten or disrupt our lock onto LORAN-C signals.

When I hear "solid" Miami or "bits and pieces of Miami" and it shouldn't be there then that is skip. When I hear nothing but soft static on multiple frequencies where my weak stations should be I am without a strong opinion on what is happening. When I hear multiple and frequent bursts of loud and random noise on top of a signal that is strong enough to receive then I have a strong lean toward either the direct flare burst or CME. It is pretty rare that this happens and there always seems to be a corresponding news report of flares and CME. (no thunderstorms, yes weak FM)

Very strong solar activities not only affects the ionospheric conditions which interferes with the skywave propagation but also the ground conditions as utilized by groundwave propagated signals. Which together in my view will have a net effect on both wanted and unwanted signals, like noises and statics alike, together with the inherent electronic noises within the receiver itself...

Its interesting, even though I first heard about this with this post, I looked into it a bit.

Here's a little information about the satellites handling this situation.

It is the ionization levels of the D, E, F ionosphere layers that actually makes it possible for the radio signals to reach farther distance from where they are being transmitted.. The RF signals that are refracted and being bounced back to earth at great distance known as "skip distance"..

Skip distance that mostly rely on the ionization levels of the sky, which increases and moves farther up creating several layers in the E and F region of the ionosphere, mainly due to the sun's activities like the so called "CME" coronal mass ejections..

Ionosphere - Wikipedia

I wonder if this is why the fire department frequencies on my scanner are getting more static recently? Frequencies 453.3375, 460.575, and 453.6625 are the ones I get, because I don't have a MARCS scanner (yet.)