Looks like Solar Cycle 24 might just have begun. We have been at the bottom of a sunspot cycle for a good number of  years now, making ham radio communication very difficult (because long range propagation requires bouncing signals off the ionosphere, which needs the solar wind of ionized particles coming from sun spots to stay opaque enough to be usable in the 3-30MHz range.)

If this is all true and the cycle has just begun with sunspot 10981, then in another year or so I may be able to dust off my transceiver and reconnect with my radio friends in Japan, Russia, and Europe.

These days turning on my radio brings in just noise from every direction. The occasional ham I do hear is usually somewhere in Texas running 500+ Watts. I can hear him sorta, but he'll never hear my measly 100W signal coming off my poor vertical antenna.

So I wait for the peak of Cycle 24, coming in 3 to 5 years from now, when, as they say, you can get long distance with just duct tape and bailing wire. 

All it takes is patience.

(No, this is not the JAVA stock chart) 

So, Springtime on old Sol. A good birthday present. Things are looking up.

Read more at: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/01/07/100/