Opera Beacon takes Route 66
500KHz Opera Beacon takes Route 66, spanning the USA coast to coast, and beyond.
Bob running his USA Experimental 500 KHz station WE6XGR in New York, is being decoded regularly by N6RY, just north of San Diego on the WEST coast. And, not only is the Opera beacon reaching coast to coast USA, its also reaching the west coast of England at the same time, with G4WGT, G8HUH and G0KTN as regular customers.
The elegance the coding in the beacon system and the relevance of the PA0RDT min-whip e-probe antenna used by Gary G4WGT for the decodes, all serve to dispel the myth that you need high powers and substantial antenna systems to use MF effectively. Valuable test data is being gathered by the system and is now showing the real potential of the 500 KHz band for DX propagation, not only are the band characteristics being revealed as never before.
After establishing that the decodes were reliable, a test using the ROS-MF data mode later confirmed that a qso would be quite possible to W6 or to the UK, 2200 or 3400 miles respectively.
The show goes on, with the recent addition of a CW ID to support the requirement of the USA experimental licences, to decodes via aircraft reflections on 50 MHz by Eddie G3ZJO.
http://rosmodem.wordpress.com/
http://www.radiopassioni.it/pdf/pa0rdt-Mini-Whip.PDF
Graham, G0NBD
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