2024-06-10

Field Ops Planning

Weather Forecast

• NOAA/NWS/Kirkland-WA
• Ground Conductivity

Solar Conditions

• NOAA Radio Comms
• NOAA Space Weather
• HamWaves
• SolarHam
• solar.w5mmw.net
• SpaceWeatherLive
• HamQSL
• LightningMaps

Indicators:

• SFI (Solar Flux Index) higher is better; measures Sun’s 2.8 GHz emissions
• Ap (A-Index) lower is better (quieter); measures geomagnetic over 24 hours
• Kp (K-Index) lower is better (quieter); measures avg deviation of the horizontal component of Earths magnetic field over 3 hour period
• Sunspot Number — higher is better
• Solar Wind Speed & Density — lower is better; stable conditions also better, resulting in less disturbance to the ionosphere and less disruption of signal propagation

Signal Propagation

• hf.dxview.org
• MUF
  • Maximum Usable Frequency — highest frequency that can be used for skywave propagation between two specified locations on the Earth’s surface under given ionospheric conditions
• f0F2
  • Critical freq of F2 layer, measure of the ionization density, indicates highest frequency that can be used for NVIS
• Winlink
• VOACAP
• pskreporter.info
• WSPRnet

Maps

• https://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html
  • AzimuthalMap-global-1
  • AzimuthalMap-global-2
  • AzimuthalMap-us-cities
  • AzimuthalMap-us-states
  • AzimuthalMap-us-centered
• https://what3words.com/poetic.poem.winter
• https://f5len.org/tools/locator/
• https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Maidenhead_Locator_Map.png
• https://www.heywhatsthat.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITU_Region

Spots / DX Cluster

• Parks On The Air
• Summits On The Air
• sotl.as
• dxheat
• dxwatch
• qrz.com/dxcluster

Frequency Allocations

• chart-11x17-color.pdf
• chart-8x11-bw.pdf
• ICOM-AmateurBandPlan_USA.pdf
• ICOM-AmatuerGridSquareMap_USA.pdf
• icom_grid_square_map.pdf

Intl Beacon Project

18 Beacons around the world. Each beacon transmits once on each band every three minutes. Transmisions include call sign and four dashes in Morse Code. Dashes are sent at 100W, 10W, 1W, 0.1W.

20m  14.100
17m  18.110
15m  21.150
12m  24.930
10m  28.200

• NCDXF Beacons
• Transmission: (callsign, 100w dash, 10w dash, 1w dash, 0.1w dash)
• Beacon Monitoring (use ’ncdxf’ checkbox)
• See also Getting Spotted on the RBN

General class frequency privileges for SSB mode:

40m   7.175 - 7.300   LSB
20m  14.225 - 14.350  USB
17m  18.110 - 18.168  USB
15m  21.275 - 21.450  USB
12m  24.930 - 24.990  USB
10m  28.300 - 29.700  USB
6m   50.100 - 54.000  USB

Note: avoid 14.300 Maritime Mobile Service Net

Note: avoid 7.200 Wild West