Cycle 25 is coming

Saturday 27 July 9am start - Branch 42 Used Equipment Sale - Onepoto Speed Boat Club (Onepoto Road). For more information contact ZL2ABC (Bruce Packer)  zl2abc@gmail.com  or by phone to 04 938 7147.Saturday 3 August 2019: 9.30am - noon - Winter DV Talk by John ZL2TWS Start Time: 10:30 am (clubrooms open 9:30 am - morning tea/coffee at 10:00 am). At Upper Hutt Clubrooms Branch 63, Park Street, Upper Hutt.A registration fee of $5.00 applies to cover expenses. Please register with mark@foxtrot.co.nz Finishes no later than 12:00 pm. Learn about D-Star G3 Plus2 and ircDDB variants followed by a demonstrations of BlueDV for D-Star, DMR and Yaesu System Fusion (YSF). Instant D-STAR registration available on the day for new users of Peanut or BlueDV. The talk will then continue about Hotspots and Dashboards. Following the session many of the group will have lunch at the Cosmopolitan Club (pay your own way).Regional Councillor Meet Up at Branch 42 Clubrooms in Titahi Bay - Date and time to be confirmed - The combined regional meeting will be on either Tuesday 10 September or Wednesday 11 September. Both ZL2 councillors are expected to be present.

The current Solar Cycle has proved to be a bit disappointing for amateur operators and will descend to a minimum within the next 2 to 4 years. We are already seeing dead bands in most daily forecasts. But how does our current cycle compare to earlier cycles? The following diagram shows peak sunspots from all observed solar cycles since the 1600's when sunspots were first recorded by astronomers. It turns out that cycle 24 is not particularly unusual in the scheme of things! And for an even longer perspective ... The last 12,000 years of sunspots! So what will happen in the next cycle (cycle 25)? You will find a number of predictions online. Because of the peak sunspot number in our current cycle there seems to be a growing consensus that we are unlikely to see the really nasty outcome of a second "Maunder minimum" (a period of almost 70 years with virtually no sunspots at all). It is likely, however, that we are exiting from the "Grand Maximum" period. We may well be entering a regular period that will look a bit like the period from 1724 to 1924 (a whole two centuries in duration!) in which sunspots are OK, but not good enough to make the record…

Table sales coming up: Saturday 7 November, 9am: Kapiti Branch 69 Clubrooms Saturday 21 November, 9am: Wellington Power Boat Club, Titahi Bay