Thanks Brennan - Appreciate the summary of the good IARU and US government work being done. I'm thinking of the issue on a more practical side. I recall little, if any, focus on the general topic of preparing for such an event, either within the general ARES/Emcomm community or the technical community. I did talk to Dennis Bodson five years ago about a more modern version of the 1986 QST series that Marty Woll mentioned, but Dennis never got around to writing it. As far as I can tell, none of our equipment testing involves any assessment of RF hardening, and I don't recall any QST or QEX articles, or much in any of our books on the topic in the last twenty years. I guess the nuclear threat has declined so it isn't on our radar any more, but the growing knowledge of a solar storm threat is similar enough in consequences and atmospheric mechanisms that we might want to take some steps to be more aware of it organizationally, and to educate our members on how to build stations that can survive some level of significant solar storm. We have indirectly done that through focus on off-the-grid power, but the major threat may be the delicate devices used in every piece of equipment we use. Anyhow, food for thought. -- Tom At 07:57 PM 4/6/2016, Price, Brennan, N4QX wrote:
The "too long; didn't read" substitute for the response that follows is: Yes, we're doing something; and maybe we could do more.
The URL you cite suggests (rightfully) that this issue "merits a substantial push on several fronts: research, forecasting and mitigation strategy."
At WRC-15, the United States (with input from ARRL at the drafting stages and support from ARRL on the floor and in the hallways) successfully placed an item addressing the research and forecasting fronts on the preliminary agenda for WRC-23. The item calls on WRC-23 "to review the results of studies relating to the technical and operational characteristics, spectrum requirements and appropriate radio service designations for space weather sensors, with a view to providing appropriate recognition and protection in the Radio Regulations without placing additional constraints on incumbent services."
While 2023 is a long way away, it is not that far off in the world of ITU, and getting the agenda item at all was a bit of a coup, given competition from numerous high-profile allocation items that were broadly supported. The questions of technical and operational characteristics and appropriate service designations are slated to be answered by 2019, with any recognition in the Radio Regulations set for 2023.
The ITU group responsible for these studies (Working Party 7C) is actually meeting in Geneva this week. Former IARU Region 1 President Hans Blondeel Timmerman, PB2T, is representing IARU on this and other issues, most notably (in another, concurrently meeting group) the space operations service for cubesats issue that came very close to targeting 144 and 440 MHz before weeks of work took those bands off the table in the final hours of WRC-15. I anticipate that most of Hans's attention is being devoted to help solve the cubesats issue using the non-amateur spectrum identified for that issue, which is very much in our interest. However, there are contributions on the space weather sensor issue that are in their formative stages, likely to mature over the coming two or three years.
While IARU and her member societies (through their national delegations) have separate representation at ITU meetings where warranted, Hans covers this group effectively, and I can't recommend that ARRL also send a delegate at current staffing and budgetary levels, given the resources required for the bands on which we are playing defense at WRC-19 (5.8 GHz and 47 GHz). Covering the group well, in my estimation, would require about 1/2 FTE of someone at Jon Siverling's pay grade. That's a big expenditure for what at this stage is a tenuous risk. The calculus may be different in 2019.
As for mitigation strategy, this issue is a standing agenda item of the HF SHARES informal working group, in which ARRL participates, barring a conflicting obligation. It is receiving a fair amount of attention, focused on largely on efforts to harden electrical components against solar damage. Whether the nontrivial expense of such efforts is warranted by the small likelihood of a catastrophic event is a question on which reasonable minds differ, but that may change as more research is done.
===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444