Preliminary Study of Space Weather Effects on the HF and VHF Communications at Low Latitudes during an Early Stage of the Solar Cycle 25

The Sun is a decisive element for the control and development of several natural processes on the Earth, and, in addition, the solar activity can also have certain effects on some human activities, as per example, the radiofrequency communications. In this paper, results about an experiment developed in Mexico in collaboration with the radio ham community, during 17 days of spring 2020 are exposed and discussed the main objective of the experiment is obtaining a record of possible effects of the solar activity on the habitual radio links classified into two groups: between radio ham stations inside and outside Mexico, and between a couple terrestrial ham stations and two radio ham satellites operating at the low earth orbit the evaluation of the performance for each link between radio ham stations is compared with the evolution of variables that describe the Space Weather conditions in the same time span such as planetary k-index, interplanetary magnetic field, solar wind speed and solar wind density, under very low Sun activity as result of an early stage of the solar cycle 25. Thus, the results analyzed and shown in this paper are the basis for future studies about the relationship of possible effects of the solar activity on radio communications, particularly at radio ham frequencies bands, taking as baseline the evolution stages for the current solar cycle. Moreover, these results can provide reference data for further development or complement of indirect techniques to understand and keep records regarding the relationship between geophysical phenomena on the Earth and the solar activity.