Wednesday, 21 February 2024

New worldwide 10m beacon list issued

RSGB’s Propagation Studies Committee (PSC) has released a new HF beacon list, with the 10m listings completely revamped.

The old list, which was started by Martin Harrison G3USF (SK), had been added to over the years, but was getting out of date. The only way to make it more accurate was to start again.

Use was made of the Reverse Beacon Network (RBN), which wasn’t available when the list was originally created, plus listeners’ contributions from around the world. 

I started by removing around 60 beacons that had not been heard for some time. Delving deeper it seems that a lot had been taken off the air, the owners had died, or their frequencies had changed.

Using the RBN gave a pretty good indication of what beacons are actually on air, plus help from a list compiled by Gary ZL2IFB filled in some of the gaps.

Beacons that are temporarily off-air have been left in, but marked in black.

While no list will ever be complete as changes take place around the world, I think the list is now far more useable. I’ll endeavour to make changes as and when they are needed.

The new beacon list can be found at:

https://rsgb.org/main/technical/propagation/propagation-beacons/