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Re: Topband: Moonlight & K-sums

To: <topband@contesting.com>, "Bill Tippett" <btippett@alum.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Topband: Moonlight & K-sums
From: "Ford Peterson" <ford@cmgate.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 12:00:54 -0500
List-post: <mailto:topband@contesting.com>
Bill wrote:

> When conditions were very good last
> week, someone mentioned to me the "moonlight"
> theory of enhanced conditions, which has been
> discussed here from time to time.  Seems like
> we have an opportunity to test this theory since
> moonlight peaked on October 17, and yet the K
> index has varied quite a bit over the past week.

Bill, and others...

What is interesting about October 17th has to do with what lore refers to as 
the "harvest moon."  It happens once per year that a full moon appears on the 
eastern horizon at the exact instance as the sun sets in the west.  I am told 
there was a partial eclipse of the moon that night too (for what it's worth).  
On Monday night, I stood on my porch admiring the moon.  It had an almost 
halogen color to it.  The light was brilliant white and bright enough to read a 
newspaper at this rural QTH.  

If there was a database of historical information, it would be possible to 
examine the records over many years of instances like this.

What would be really entertaining is to find access to LOTW records.  Of 
course, topbanders would have to start using the services of Logbook of the 
World in order for any sort of meaningful information to be captured.  And the 
ARRL would have to provide some sort of facility to search the collective 
records for trend information.  All of this is possible.  But the political 
winds would have to be harnessed to make it all happen.

Ford-N0FP
ford@cmgate.com



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