Comparison of Two Solar Flares as Observed on QRSS Signals

The past two days there were M-Class Solar Flares the effects of which were observed on the Pensacola  QRSS grabber.  I present the data here just to document the effect as a starting point for further obversations.

The first two pictures are the grabber images and the last two the measured x-ray flux.

Figure 1.  08JUL12 Solar Flare on 30m

Figure 2.  09JUL12 Solar Flare on 20m

Figure 3.  08JUL12 X-Ray Flux Observed by GOES Satellites

Figure 4.  09JUL12 X-Ray Flux Observed by GOES Satellites

In the first event there was a rapid dropout of signal called a Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance (SID) but no noticable frequency shift.  The SID lasted about 20 minutes.  The X-Ray flux was 7x10^-5 W/m^2 and the Sun was almost directly over the skip point.  The transmitting stations were to the east of me at distances of about 300 miles/482 km.

In the second event there was only a modest drop in signal strength but a noticible upward shift in frequency indicating an upward movement of the reflecting layer.  As the signal began to recover there was a noticable broadening of the frequency with a return to normalcy after about 30 minutes.  The X-ray flux was 1x10^-5 W/m^2 or about 7 times weaker than the first event.  The Sun was low in the sky to the west relative to the skip point.  The transmitting station was 1164 miles/1872 km to the west of me.

It makes sense that the difference in the x-ray flux caused the difference in observed effect but at this point I just want to save the observations and numbers in a safe place for comparison to, hopefully, future observations.  We've seen these effects in the past but I haven't written down any numbers.

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