4 X class solar flares to impact this weekend.

[MTM98290]

Not sure, we haven't heard from @AlaskanNoob since he decided the best way to prevent problems from his 650 feet of cable was to connect to the grid, but then he's a few hours out, so barely morning there.

I would guess that it was amazing up there. Hope he got his wire squared away.

 

[JoeHam]

The A and K indices are crazy high :

Station K and A Indices | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

www.swpc.noaa.gov

 

[wpns]

I decided the best way to prevent problems was to connect to the grid? I'm off grid, I don't have the option of connecting to the grid.

My mistake, must have been someone else who disconnected their solar arrays and inverters and stuff and connected to the grid to save their solar system.

 

[AlaskanNoob]

My mistake, must have been someone else who disconnected their solar arrays and inverters and stuff and connected to the grid to save their solar system.

Must have been.

 

[SparkyJJO]

The A and K indices are crazy high :

Station K and A Indices | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

www.swpc.noaa.gov

I don't even know what that means

 

[wpns]

I think you're likely right. This morning we disconnected our PV and our batteries. Shut off all c/bs and disconnects and equipment.

This is what confused me, what did you do for power if you shut everything off?

 

[AlaskanNoob]

This is what confused me, what did you do for power if you shut everything off?

I went to my condo in Florida, or at least tried to, turned out it had moved to a new location so I couldn't find it.

 

[Hedges]

My mistake, must have been someone else who disconnected their solar arrays and inverters and stuff and connected to the grid to save their solar system.

Yeah. Me Worry!

(several others here did too.)

Forgo a day or two of backfeed credits, don't have grid or even PV wires connected to inverter electronics.
Just took throwing a few breakers and switches.

Also shut off and unplugged office copier.
Have MOV at main panel, help protect PCs and the like.
I'm fed by an underground transformer so don't think any risk at one place anyway. Other place is overhead (couple thousand feet to transformer.)

This is what confused me, what did you do for power if you shut everything off?

When off grid, what do you do for power when your inverter gets blown up by CME or lightning?

 

[AlaskanNoob]

When off grid, what do you do for power when your inverter gets blown up by CME or lightning?

We just switched to some portable Goal Zero stations for our power while the main system was shut down.

From the attempt to learn about this over the past day or so, it seems that our 650 feet of wire is not considered a long wire. We found some research paper that leads us to that conclusion (largest observed from a storm was 20V/Km). So flipping our breakers and switches and disconnecting our panels wasn't likely needed with the storm adding 4 volts to our 650 foot cable.

MPPT wouldn't care about the even lesser voltage on shorter cables. But there is some question of DC power introduced to the AutoTransformer that might damage it (apparently it's not the voltage, but the DC power on an AC line that messes with transformers). Transformers seem to be particularly vulnerable to these events and most off-grid folks don't have transformers. But we have several so it might affect us more.

At any rate, better safe than sorry given the expense of our equipment and the pain of getting it to our homestead and installing it. Next time here in Alaska when the NOAA is issuing G5 "extreme" warnings I'll probably do the same thing as a precaution, if I can bring myself to suffer the humiliation the next morning when the world doesn't end.

 

[AlaskanNoob]

So far, seems like no big issues with this storm. From this article:

There were also some harmful effects. According to NOAA, there have been some irregularities in power grid transmissions, and degraded satellite communications and GPS services. Users of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet constellation have reported slower download speeds. Early on Saturday morning, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company's Starlink satellites were "under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far."

This is the most intense Solar storm recorded in more than two decades. The last G5 event—the most extreme category of such storms—occurred in October 2003 when there were electricity issues reported in Sweden and South Africa.

Should this storm intensify over the next day or two, scientists say the major risks include more widespread power blackouts, disabled satellites, and long-term damage of GPS networks.

 

[MTM98290]

First time seeing them here for us here. Glad nothing is known to have been fried!

 

[JoeHam]

I don't even know what that means

When those get high (no jokes please) it generally means that radio signals get absorbed by the atmosphere and don’t travel as far as they usually do.

These numbers are almost unbelievably high.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Thanks for the info.

I still have noticed almost no effects here. One brief internet hiccup last night, but that could be anything.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Well, did anything bad happen?

Must not have, the interwebs are still working.

 

[robbob2112]

I plan to go into a subterranean bunker and become a morlock in 100k year. You can come visit if you bring the right two books and invent a time machine.

Ok, well I still plan to become a Morlock, yall can all come to be dinner.... uhm I mean for dinner...

 

[JoeHam]

For a quick experiment, around 11AM Ohio time, I transmitted using FT8 on various frequencies.

There is a worldwide monitoring system, PSKreporter, that has folks all around the world monitoring and immediately reporting to the internet if any signal is heard.

For this test I aimed my signal towards Europe using a transmit power of 10 Watts. The antenna was a 2 element Yagi on 28-14mHz and a single element on 7 mHz. This would normally get me heard all over Europe and plenty of other places.

Here are the results over about a 25 minute time period.

28 mHz. No reports at all !

21 mHz. Heard in CT, VA, FL and the island of Angulla.

14 mHz. Heard in Quebec, a number of states along the eastern seaboard, and AL, LA, MS, OK, MO, KS, SD, MN, AZ and ID.

7 mHz. Heard in VT, NY, NJ, MD, IN and IL.

This is far from a controlled experiment but the virtual lack of propagation above 21mHz at this time of day in the midwest is very unusual. The lack of my signal being heard on any of these frequencies outside of North America is EXTREMELY unusual.

I plan to leave my system on 28mHz monitoring the rest of the day and will check it periodically to see if conditions recover prior to sunset as that band is typically dead overnight.

 

[rhino]

Exploded in purple at 3:30AM central time:

 

[Crowz]

Fairly cloudy in Alabama last night and couldn't see anything different at all.

We miss all the cool stuff

I wonder if that means this area would be immune from really bad flares in the future.....

 

[wpns]

Yeah. Me Worry!

(several others here did too.)

Forgo a day or two of backfeed credits, don't have grid or even PV wires connected to inverter electronics.
Just took throwing a few breakers and switches.

Also shut off and unplugged office copier.
Have MOV at main panel, help protect PCs and the like.
I'm fed by an underground transformer so don't think any risk at one place anyway. Other place is overhead (couple thousand feet to transformer.)

When off grid, what do you do for power when your inverter gets blown up by CME or lightning?

It's not the length of the wires between the transformer and your house, it's the length of the grid lines.

I fire up the generators, I was just wondering what you folks who turned everything off did for power...

 

[wpns]

the next morning when the world doesn't end.

I hate it when that happens! Me after the stroke of midnight at Y2K: "Anyone want to buy a generator?" 8*)