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60M propagation experiment

This weekend I decided to become part of an interesting 60M propagation experiment being led by a bunch of keen Albertan hams.  The image at left shows which beacons I heard, and which monitoring stations heard my beacon, over the past 24 hours.

From Al, VE6RFM: "The objective of our 60M Experiment is to evaluate the band as a viable HF communications link between remote communities and larger centers throughout the Northern Canada Auroral Zone.  To accomplish this, we are gathering a team of interested individuals in various locations to beacon, and to monitor beacons from other stations throughout the region.  Beacons heard will be spotted to PSK Reporter and the PSK Reporter data will automatically update our central data base every 15 minutes.  Solar weather data will also be updated in our central database every 15 minutes.  Beacons heard, and solar conditions observed, will then be displayed graphically on a common time base.  The graphs will show us beacons heard by any station and the existing solar conditions at any given time.  From this information we are hoping to learn what solar conditions need to exist to support a reasonable communications path, and what conditions will not."

For club members active in HF digital this is pretty easy to set up, especially if you are already using FLdigi as your software suite.  It took me about an hour or so to work through configuring FLdigi and the FLdigi Beacon Scheduler and then I was on the air beaconing using Olivia 4-250 on 60M.  I plan to leave my station on for the next couple weeks (more use that it has probably seen in the past year!) and see how things go -- as we approach the solar minimum this should be a "worst case scenario" period of time to do the research.  If you are interested in giving this a try it is pretty simple to build a 60M dipole.

For a little bit of 60M allocation history see: http://www.ontars.com/Special%20Events/60meters/index.html

Introduction to NBEMS and Advanced NBEMS see: http://www.arrl.org/nbems

To see the stations participating in the research see: https://pskreporter.info/pskmap.html and select all 60M signals sent/recd by anyone using OLIVIA.

For information on 60M operating considerations and techniques see: http://hflink.com/60meters/

For more information on the 60M propagation experiment, please contact:

Al Parsons, VE6RFM
alparsons10@gmail.com

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