So yes, we're amidst Solar Cycle #25. The weather that's being screamed about by empty-heads is the direct result of solar activity from just a few weeks ago.
This cycle is already looking pretty energetic, and it looks like it'll last a little longer.
Solar storms have a variety of interesting phenomena to radio. Enhancement is what happens when solar energy alters the troposphere (think sky... clouds low and high) and the magnetosphere (the earth's magnetic field).
SOME circumstances cause SOME frequency ranges to reflect between earth and sky, bouncing their way around the globe.
SOME circumstances cause SOME frequency ranges to get absorbed. Sometimes, the enhancement is so great, that noise (both from man made sources, and natural sources) becomes so great, that the signal you WANT to hear, is swamped by noise.
Sometimes, enhancement bounces the signal right over your head.
If you're an AM radio listener, you'll notice that during the night, your signal is different from during the day.... that's the action of the sun, doing just as noted above. It occurs naturally ALL the time, but during the peaks of the sunspot cycle, it is downright extreme. To combat this variation, radio stations are often granted license to run higher power, and/or directional antennas to reach their coverage area during the day, then dial it back at night.
Radio engineers have, for almost a hundred years now, understood the presence of, and the acting character of our solar cycles... in many ways, they understand solar cycles better than most meteorologists... alas, there's an overwhelming number of loud voices that know very little, but spout much falsehood.
For decades, analog television managed through solar cycles and the propogation variables that followed. Your TV signal problems now, are a result of executive actions that forced this 'modern digital' upon us without significant understanding of the physics involved, and the result is loss of robustness and reliability.
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