International Beacon Project

The International Beacon Project (IBP) is a worldwide network of radio propagation beacons. It consists of 18 continuous wave (CW) beacons operating on five designated frequencies in the high frequency band.[1][2] The IBP beacons provide a means of assessing the prevailing ionospheric signal propagation characteristics to both amateur and commercial high frequency radio users.[1][2]

The project is coordinated by the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) and the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU). The first beacon of the IBP started operations from Northern California in 1979. The network was expanded to include 8 and subsequently 18 international transmission sites.[1][2]

History

The first beacon was put into operation in 1979 using the call sign WB6ZNL. It transmitted a 1 minute long beacon every 10 minutes on 14.1 MHz using custom built transmitter and controller hardware. The beacon consisted of the call sign transmitted at 100 watts, four 9 second long dashes each at 100 watts, 10 watts, 1 watt and 0.1 watt, followed by sign out at 100 watts.[3]

NCDXF and seven partnering organizations from United States, Finland, Portugal, Israel, Japan, Honolulu and Argentina operated the first iteration of the beacon network. Due to difficulties encountered in building beacon hardware, each site used a Kenwood TS-120 transceiver keyed and controlled by a custom built beacon controller unit. The network operated on 14.1 MHz and the beacon format remained unchanged.[3]

In 1995, work began to improve the existing beacon network, so it could operate on five designated frequencies on the high frequency band. The new beacon network used Kenwood TS-50 transceivers keyed and controlled by an upgraded beacon controller unit. The number of partner organizations were expanded to 18 and the new 10 second beacon format was adopted.[3]

Frequencies and transmission schedule

The beacons are transmitted on the frequencies 14.100 MHz, 18.110 MHz, 21.150 MHz, 24.930 MHz and 28.200 MHz.[1][4] Each beacon transmission site operates around the clock. Beacon is transmitted once on each frequency, from low (14.100 MHz) to high (28.200 MHz), followed by a 130-second pause after which the cycle is repeated.[4] Each transmission is 10 second long, and consists of the call sign of the beacon transmitted at 22 words per minute (WPM) followed by four dashes. The call sign and the first dash is transmitted at 100 watts of power. Subsequent three dashes are transmitted at 10 watts, 1 watt and 0.1 watt respectively.[4]

All beacon transmissions are coordinated using GPS time. As such, at a given frequency, all 18 beacons are transmitted once every three minutes.[3]

Hardware

As of today, beacons are transmitted using commercial HF transceivers (Kenwood TS-50 or Icom IC-7200) keyed and coordinated by a purpose built Beacon Controller unit.[2]

Beacons

IBP operates the following beacons as of March 2017.[5]

Slot Beacon Call Sign Location Grid Square Operator
1 United Nations 4U1UN New York City FN3Øas United Nations Staff Recreation Council Amateur Radio Club (UNRC)
2 Canada VE8AT Eureka, Nunavut EQ79ax Radio Amateurs Canada (RAC) / Northern Alberta Radio Club (NARC)
3 United States W6WX Mt. Umunhum CM97bd Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF)
4 Hawaii KH6RS Maui BL10ts Maui Amateur Radio Club (Maui ARC)
5 New Zealand ZL6B Masterton RE78tw New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART)
6 Australia VK6RBP Rolystone OF87av Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA)
7 Japan JA2IGY Mt. Asama PM84jk Japan Amateur Radio League (JARL)
8 Russia RR9O Novosibirsk NO14kx Russian Amateur Radio Union (SRR)
9 Hong Kong VR2B Hong Kong OL72bg Hong Kong Amateur Radio Transmitting Society (HARTS)
10 Sri Lanka 4S7B Colombo MJ96wv Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL)
11 South Africa ZS6DN Pretoria KG44dc ZS6DN
12 Kenya 5Z4B Kariobangi KI88ks Amateur Radio Society of Kenya (ARSK)
13 Israel 4X6TU Tel Aviv KM72jb Israel Amateur Radio Club (IARC)
14 Finland OH2B Lohja KP2Ø Finnish Amateur Radio League (SRAL)
15 Madeira CS3B Santo da Serra IM12or Rede dos Emissores Portugueses (REP)
16 Argentina LU4AA Buenos Aires GFØ5tj Radio Club Argentino (RCA)
17 Peru OA4B Lima FH17mw Radio Club Peruano (RCP)
18 Venezuela YV5B Caracas FJ69cc Radio Club Venezolano (RCV)

Notes and references
  1. "Beacon Project". International Amateur Radio Union. Retrieved 2017-03-19.
  2. VE3SUN. "International Beacon Project Introduction". www.ncdxf.org. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  3. VE3SUN. "International Beacon Project Early History". www.ncdxf.org. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  4. VE3SUN. "International Beacon Project Transmission Schedule". www.ncdxf.org. Retrieved 2017-03-17.
  5. VE3SUN. "International Beacon Project Locations and Information". www.ncdxf.org. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
gollark: In any case, it doesn't seem like there's much to be done with a single micro:bit other than bad gimmicky games and hooking it up to other stuff.
gollark: I don't know.
gollark: > This work is based upon the amazing reverse engineering efforts of Sebastian Macke based upon an old text-to-speech (TTS) program called SAM (Software Automated Mouth) originally released in 1982 for the Commodore 64. The result is a small C library that we have adopted and adapted for the micro:bit. You can find out more from his homepage. Much of the information in this document was gleaned from the original user’s manual which can be found here.
gollark: Though 32KB's enough for something like a second of MP3.
gollark: It can output arbitrary audio.
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