Space Weather

You may have tuned in NCPR yesterday, and instead gotten hiss, or KDOO, Whackadoo Radio from Mellow Marsh, California. Radio Bob said to put the "ducting" notice on the front page. It's the season for tropospheric ducting, a kind of wormhole in the ionosphere that has unpredictable results on broadcast signals. I hope they enjoyed The Splendid Table in Kyrgyzstan. Now you know how I feel when the mechanic tells me my trapezoidal phlostigen wickets are "iffy." As it turns out, it was not tropospheric ducting, but an even more obscure phenomenon called Sporadic E, caused by--I kid you not--wind shear in the E-layer of the ionosphere, and it is less sporadic near the equinox. If you also had email problems yesterday--that was caused by maser-induced cyberspatial vortices over Fairfax County VA. And sp am, as everyone knows, is the result of spontaneous generation, like maggots in meat. Though some claim it is more Biblical, like the rain of toads.