Beacon Coordination to gain maximum benefit Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ

Beacon Coordination What is a beacon? A transmitter sending out periodic omnidirectional signal 24/7 for the purpose of doing propagation research. A beacon can send out a CW or MGM signal.

Beacon Coordination Why is a Beacon Important? Reception of a beacon signal is an indicator that a RF path is open in a certain direction. When and where a beacon is received will allow amateurs to study propogation in order to better understand propogation.

Beacon Coordination Current State of Beacons in SA SARL unmanned devices Ronald ZS6RVC ZR6N Leon Uys list of beacons IARU Lists all seem to be outdated as well Who is the SARL VHF Manager? Honest Answer…

Beacon Coordination Beacon Requirements Good Resource is IARU-R1 VHF Handbook V8.02 August 2018 For a coordinated beacon, the only essential information in the beacon message is the callsign. The locator or other information is not essential The callsign should be sent in plain CW at least once per minute, not exceeding 60 characters per minute Beacons should include a period of plain carrier of approximately 20-30s, sufficient for frequency checking purposes

Beacon Coordination Beacon Requirements For mixed mode beacons, the MGM mode should start on the even minute, whilst the odd minute includes the plain carrier period. Effort should be made to ensure good timing accuracy of the even/odd minutes. It may be helpful to indicate a forthcoming change of mode by a short CW symbol (such as an ‘S’ or ‘X’) For beacons that are MGM only (which should only be exceptions to the other recommendations) then the message should be MGM at the start, followed by the CW ID within a minute period. The VHF Handbook provides examples of messages

Beacon Coordination Beacon Operation Operation should be 24 hour continuous. If beacons change parameters during the transmission this must be reflected in the message transmitted. IARU Region-1 encourages best practice for both timing/frequency accuracy and phase noise to enhance general performance for the benefit of all. That development of new modes optimised for beacons are encouraged, which may either enhance DX reception or permit more efficient equipment (and thus lower electricity costs) to enhance sustainability That National Societies and IARU-R1 coordinators be kept updated on such developments.

Beacon Coordination Beacon Spectrum Should MGM be implemented on a beacon, a standard 1kHz tuning offset should be adopted as per the example in the diagram. In any given frequency band, the specific MGM selection should have regard to the beacon frequency spacing and MGM bandwidth

Beacon Coordination IARU R1 beacons: a guide to good practice Coordination procedure Beacons > 10W ERP IARU-R1 Beacon Coordinator Uncoordinated beacons responsibility of national societies Local Beacons In the microwave bands, local beacons, which should be 10W ERP max preferably be placed in the x.750-x.800MHz range of the relevant narrowband segment, adjacent to, but outside of the exclusive propagation beacon segments Transmission mode Amplitude or Frequency shift keying (A1A or F1A)

Beacon Coordination IARU R1 beacons: a guide to good practice Frequency spacing

Beacon Coordination IARU-R1 Synchronised 50 MHz Beacon Project New system adopted in 2011 at the Sun City meeting Required the existing beacons to migrate by August 2014 to 50.4-50.5 MHz in order to leave space for the new system at the bottom of the 50MHz band. Basic parameters for beacons in the SBP are 1kHz frequency spacing, 1 minute CW/MGM and a 4 minute repeat period In the 2014 meeting in Varna it was further agreed that Coordination of new beacons below 50,4 MHz shall no longer be possible, except for the members of the Synchronised Beacon Project (SBP) Synchronised beacons will now use – ‘once every 5 minute’ slots, instead of ‘once every 4 minutes’

Beacon Coordination IARU-R1 Synchronised 50 MHz Beacon Project All the IARU regions have been allocated a 10 kHz slot on 6m OZ2M has everything sumarised on http://rudius.net/oz2m/sbp/ There is also a proposal on Next Generation Beacons that could be implemented at http://rudius.net/oz2m/ngnb/ Project makes use of PI4 software which has been developed as digital modulation (MGM) software for beacon purposes. LZ2HV has written software MSHV which has also implemented PI4 PI4 source code and encoding programs available. Timing and frequency accuracy is critical to this project

Beacon Coordination Where to from here Baby Steps Appoint a VHF Manager / Beacon Co-ordinator for VHF and Above Put a workgroup together to run with the project Get a definitive list of current active VHF/UHF beacons Convert to IARU recommendations Start building a Beacon Monitoring System

Beacon Coordination Build a Beacon Monitoring System Keep it simple & keep costs down Omnidirectional Horizontal Antennas Start with simple CW beacons Beacon Transmitter could be standard modern Amateur radio Do we need GPS time Sync what about local NTP time servers? Receiver system. Something similar to Noise monitoring system writing data to a server