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Solar Activity Exerts Influence on Telecom
A recent spat of high solar activity has reduced China's shortwave communications to a frequency range less than half of its usual range.
"Luckily today is Sunday and most people are not at work. We have not received any reports of technical breakdowns caused by this, but what tomorrow will be like is hard to say," Wu Jian, director of the Beijing Research Centre of the China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, said yesterday.
The interruption is caused by the collision of solar and terrestrial atoms high in the atmosphere, also known as the aurora borealis.
Wu and his colleagues were busy yesterday monitoring the 11 shortwave testing stations across the country and sending warnings to contracted units. China can predict the effects of solar activity outbreaks one or two days in advance.
Wu said the interference of shortwave communications is expected to ease up after today, though more solar activity was observed yesterday afternoon.
"Compared with the one we observed last Tuesday, the most severe in four years, this new one is 90 per cent smaller," he said.
"As far as Beijing is concerned, the effects of the severe solar activity outbreak are much relieved by heavy cloud cover and the light rain yesterday."
Wu said atmospheric interference should end today.
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