Solar Radio Interference

[Bruce MacMillan]

Google provides a bit of info on this. Try "sunspot cycle 17 WW2". There is the story of east coast US being able to receive Rommel's North African tank communications but have seen no hard evidence.

Solar cycle 17 peaked in 1938 and had bottomed out by 1944. There were flares though that did have strong effects. https://eos.org/features/the-geomagn...september-1941

There are reports of the wireless intercept station near Winterpeg receiving both German & Japanese sigs.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi David

You might want to check the archives and some of the technical forums related to BBC, CBC, ABC. Over the years I have dug into particularly the BBC archives online and found a lot of information of interest to me. One comment I would make is if you find something of interest save the whole page, take a screenshot etc. saving links to stuff in the archives is an often futile exercise and the links may not work several years later.

As to listening to shortwave out of Africa in the United States my parents had a Multi Band Radio in the living room which included Shortwave and they told stories of listening to broadcast on a fairly regular basis. (I wasn't born until 1948) My father work for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC on various types of Radar and Radio equipment. My first radio as a kid was a Military Aircraft Radio multi band. I can remember listening to shortwave from all over the world.

Bruce the link to the article is a great one some interesting reading. Was there a major solar flare cycle that coincided mid 50s Geophysical Year. I remember my dad talking about it and taking us out to see the Aurora Borealis one very cold night we drove over to the Chesapeake Bay to get away from the city lights.

Cheers Phil

[maple_leaf_eh]

Something sticks in my mind that during Gulf War 1, just when the sneakies needed to speak to the mothership(s), the solar flares disrupted their comms. Several teams got into trouble with shepherds and other locals and couldn't get extracted.

[Bruce MacMillan]

[QUOTE=Phil Waterman;244871rom all over the world.
Bruce the link to the article is a great one some interesting reading. Was there a major solar flare cycle that coincided mid 50s Geophysical Year. I remember my dad talking about it and taking us out to see the Aurora Borealis one very cold night we drove over to the Chesapeake Bay to get away from the city lights.
Cheers Phil[/QUOTE]

Hi Phil, Yes, solar activity was strong as the IGY of 1957 was chosen because it was the peak of Cycle 19. For those unfamiliar with solar activity, sun spots and coronal mass ejections can greatly disturb the ionosphere for radio propagation.

I recall the peak of cycle 20 was when I got my first CB set. I could "hear" stations from the Yukon down to southern California.