I am in favor of any beacon in a ham band. The more beacons the merrier.
You are establishing a "presence" in a infrequently used ham band.
My estimate is that less than 10% of the users of a beacon ever report their use of a /B.
If I had my way, I would have a /B on every hamband 900 MHz and above, thru 240 GHz.
Just be sure to keep out of the passband of a satellite downlink or uplink.
Beacons are valuable and best considered a "labor of love".
We appreciate your /B.
Stan, W1LE Cape Cod
On 2/4/2011 6:55 PM, Charlie -K3VDB- wrote:
Hello AMSAT-BB;......I am trying to determine if theW3HMS beacon on 2401MHZ is being use by the Satellite community located in South/Central PA. We have not received any reports for some time and will not continue to support it if not needed.
It Is located in FM19qv (S/E of York PA.) It has been heardin MD and NJ.
For those who are not familiar with it, it has been on 24/7for>3 years and located at 1000ft on a 130ft tower. Its output is 1W to a RHCP Lindenblad Ant. Its CW Message contains 4 Telemetering channels and about 15 sec of solid carrier (then it repeat). A spread sheet decoder is available on request. The beacon is useful for Receive system testing and propagation analyzing etc.
The 2401MHZ beacon is co-located with a 1296MHZ beacon and a 5760MHZ beacon. The ID message and telemetering is common to all 3 beacons.
More info is available from k3vdb@amsat.org Please Let me know if any of these beacons are useful to you!!! TNX Charlie K3VDB
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