The NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Network is an excellent resource for Dxers interested in assessing "actual propagation", as distinguished from "predicted propagation". Described in http://www.ncdxf.org/beacon.htm, this network comprises 18 stations around the world that continuously transmit on the 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m bands. Given a receiver, an accurate clock, an omnidirectional antenna, and a quick wrist, one could listen to each of the 18 beacon station's 10 second broadcasts on each of 5 bands over a 15 minute (18x10x5 => 900 seconds) interval.
In practice, manually monitoring all of the beacons takes longer than 15 minutes. The expedient approach is to pick a band and listen for each of its beacons before moving on to the next. If your antenna is directional, pointing it at one set of beacons and then listening to each band of interest will be more efficient, though harder on your wrist. There are several beacon monitoring software applications that will tell you where and when to listen; for such applications to be effective, your PC clock must be accurate to the second -- easily achievable using freeware utilities (e.g. AboutTime, available via http://www.arachnoid.com/abouttime/index.html) that use the internet to synchronize your PC's clock with accurate time standards. MFJ recently announced a hardware device that uses WWVH to maintain an accurate timebase and LEDs to indicate which beacon is currently active on what band. Last year, I released an application called PropView that uses the IONCAP engine to generate graphical propagation forecasts. When used in conjunction with DXView, such forecasts can be produced by entering a callsign or clicking on a map location. A sample PropView forecast can be viewed at http://www.qsl.net/propview/propview.jpg . The purpose of this note is to publicize a new set of capabilities recently added to PropView. One can now create a beacon monitoring schedule, either by band, by bearing from your QTH, or by choosing an arbitrary set of beacons; see http://www.qsl.net/propview/beacons.jpg, for example. PropView computes the optimal schedule for the beacons you choose. If Commander (a transceiver control application for Icom, Kenwood, TenTec, and Yaesu transceivers) is running, PropView can automatically QSY your radio to monitor the specified beacons; if DXView is running, PropView can direct it to appropriately rotate your antenna as required by the monitoring schedule. Together, these applications make it easy to quickly assess "actual propagation". PropView, Commander, and DXView are all members of the freeware DXLab suite, and are available via www.qsl.net/dxlab; given the relatively rapid release frequency, please review www.qsl.net/dxlab/download.htm before attempting to download or install any of these applications. If you have suggestions for improving the new beacon monitoring (or any other) functionality, please post them on the DXLab reflector at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlab/ . In the meantime, I will be extending PropView to - use a soundcard to permit continous capture and analysis of the specified beacon transmissions - use IONCAP to continuously generate forecasts for each beacon/band combination, contrasting these forecasts with monitored beacon performance to improve overall forecasting accuracy 73, Dave, AA6YQ ------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems, etc DX-NEWS http://njdxa.org/dx-news DX-CHAT: http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX NEWS items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Archives http://www.mail-archive.com/dx-news%40pro-usa.net -------------------------------------------------------