RadioActive wrote:

The latest extreme solar flares that have led to the beautiful Northern Lights being seen as far south as Florida is causing havoc for DXers. For at least the past three days, long distance AM radio signals have been non-existent for me. Nothing is coming in, not even regulars like WABC New York or WTAM Cleveland...When I needed to re-set a number of clocks to the second on WWV, I found that time had stopped as far as getting its signal on any of its multiple frequencies. If you're having similar issues, you're not alone. One DXer in Minnesota found his long distance listening was totally disrupted. The good news is this shouldn't last much longer. But for those into DXing, for now, it's the sounds of silence

The last few days have been AM DX heaven, actually. It's rare for the likes of WABC and WTAM to get wiped out in this neck of the woods, and when that happens the DXer's glass should be half full not half empty. This was an especially intense event, so some channels didn't cough up replacements too easily. I found the upper part of the AM band easier to work, and busy enough most of the time, so I stayed there. When 1090 WBAL Baltimore was reduced to zero I was able to snag TalkSport from the UK on 1089 all alone and audible enough to understand the lottery ad mentioning "Million pounds" and the talk that followed. A religious station from Barranquilla Colombia made an appearance on 1310, with the usual suspects in Michigan and Ohio wiped off the map. (It helped that HJAK's engineers run the station on 1309.66, strangely off-frequency). 1480 regulars from Michigan and Ohio gave way to KQAM Wichita KS. This morning, with the aurora pretty much done for, 1270 Niagara Falls and Detroit disappeared, leaving a Spanish Mexican-formatted station that happened to be running Spanish hiphop/rap parallel to the website of a station in Claremont OK. An Ontario DX in London nailed multiple 'graveyard' channels from FL. These were on the likes of 1230, 1240, 1340... which max at 1000 watts. Instead of WFAN 660 NYC he heard the 660 in Altamonte Springs FL. A DXer in Quebec couldn't get WCCO 830 , the clear channel station in Minneapolis so had to settle for Ecuador.
It's fun to hear stations like WSM Nashville loud and clear at night and be amazed at how it can so readily reach out hundreds of miles. But what's even more fascinating, for me at least, is digging out what's underneath. Sometimes it takes an empty space to make room for a new voice, and so it goes with DXing.
FM was a riot, too, btw. Au DX is much rarer there, and this storm offered one of the best sessions in my 45 years at the dials, with stations coming in from up to 900 or so miles away (and not the usual e-skip or tropo).

Not sure if history will repeat itself, but scientists report there has been another solar eruption on the sun, and there's a good possibility it will again interfere with DXing radio signals. For some here, it's been a boon. For others, a vast wasteland. I haven't been able to get any distant signals in the last 24 hours, and this may explain why. How long it lasts is another question. 

North America hit by radio blackouts caused by powerful solar storm - and more disruptions may be on the way

There was a brief blackout reported below 30 MHz across the Americas. This happens quite often with flares. K index now is 2, which is very normal-minor. They forecast a minor-moderate storm, with most impact missing earth. So it's possible given some leeway that this one will miss earth entirely. There's some reported Es activity in the old tv channel 2-3 range... anyhow, I'd expect news reports to jump all over this just because we're on the coattails of a good strike a few weeks back. My sense - nothing to get excited about. As for DX, I almost never listen to AM dx this time of year - lightning crackles drive me nuts on the open channels. Aurora seems to both hinder and cause interesting propagation.