You can have solar information refreshed using data from the Geophysical Alert Message, prepared by the Space Environment Center of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA SEC), and published at www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/wwv.txt .
On the Tools menu, click Refresh Solar Information, or right‐click either the Solar Flux field, the A Index field, or the K Index field on the status bar, and then click Refresh Solar Information on the context menu.
If refreshing is successful, the solar information fields on the status bar will be updated to display values from the Geophysical Alert Message.
Otherwise, a dialog box will be displayed with specific information about why refreshing was not possible. In such a case, make sure that you are connected to the Internet. You may also want to specify a proxy server to be used for connecting to the Internet.
To specify proxy settings, use Java™ Control Panel, which is installed as part of Java software. On Windows, Java Control Panel is available via Windows Control Panel.
Of all solar information values refreshed and displayed in Radio Explorer, only the solar flux value is used in calculating MUF values for estimating propagation.
In addition to refreshing solar information from the Internet, you can also Set solar information values manually.
See also
About estimating propagation
About using the map
Solar Flux glossary article
A Index glossary article
K Index glossary article
Options dialog box, Solar Information tab
Status bar