The obvious question is when will the next solar cycle start? When will conditions improve?
Some think conditions will improve in 2019 but my own take on this is why the rush? In terms of a solar cycle, we have only just got to the minimum and we will probably hop along the bottom for a while before things pick up.
As with all things associated with the sun, we can only make calculated guesses based on past observations.
Say we take an arbitrary figure of an average of 25 sunspots on the sun. This point is measured on the way down to the minimum and on the way back out again.
Looking at the chart below, the sunspot number was below 25 for roughly three years between solar cycles 22 and 23.
The next minimum between solar cycles 23 and 24 was deeper however and lasted longer. It was below the 25 sunspot mark for about five years.
If and that is a big IF this current minimum is deep like the last one and is below the 25 sunspot mark for five years then we get a chart like this.
This suggests that conditions for the rest of of 2019 will remain poor. It also suggests that it will be the second half of 2020 before the number of sunspots and conditions start to pick up. It will be mid-2021 before the sunspot numbers hit 25.
A sunspot number of 25 seems to roughly correlate with a solar flux of about 80 which isn't exactly huge. It should result in some more North-South openings on 28 MHz as well of course much better conditions on the lower bands.
Things after that however will only get better and it's anyone's guess as to how high the next peak will be.
In conclusion, if the next solar cycle behaves like the previous one then it was be mid-2021 before we see any dramatic improvement.
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