A flood of reports came in during an RNW broadcast this morning; short wave reception was extremely poor and some listeners reported being unable to hear anything at all. A huge solar flare that started at around 0800 UTC was responsible for the reception problems and fade out.
Solar flares disrupt the way a shortwave signal bounces off the ionosphere. Normally, a short wave signal bounces and, despite the fact that the Earth is round, can travel thousands of kilometres.
RNW’s medium wave frequency – 1296 kHz – has not been affected by the solar flare as medium wave is not dependent on an ionosphere bounce during daylight hours. Around an hour after the solar flare started, shortwave reception began returning to normal.
(Radio Netherlands Programme Distribution Department/jric)
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Flairs from the sun does not effect on my radio because I use the radio for weather tool because of the cut back on short wave, and reception on short wave is more for fun and peering in the past.Because of web radio, I can lisition to FM radio in holland and other country,s and have hi fi and not all the effects of short wave. Because of digital tv in the US, I feel it is time for digital radio and short wave is overdue for it and mw also.
I believe I heard one of your African broadcasts as it signed off. It was amazingly strong in the USA.
I wish I had logged the time and frequency.