250 Net

10 Meter Synchronized Propagation Beacon Project

Welcome to the 10 Meter Synchronized Propagation Beacon Project. This was started by several 10 meter beacon operators in an ad-hoc fashion to experiment with operating 10 meter beacons similar in concept to the IARU beacon project on the other Amateur HF bands and to help with the crowding of recent years in the 10 meter beacon band.

NEWS

November 1, 2006

It has come to my attention that Gary, K7EK has been up on the net for a while and I missed it! Gary is at the :40 after the minute. Sorry for the delay in getting it posted Gary.

June 4, 2006

It has been a while since any real news to post, but no news is good news! Shortly we should have a new member on board the 250 Sync Net. Gary, K7EK is about to join from Spanaway, WA. Gary has been tentatively assigned the :40 after the minute position. Welcome Gary!

June 6, 2005

The N4ES beacon Clearwater, FL went on air with a north/south dipole at 8.5 meters (28 feet). N4ES beacons at :50 seconds every minute running the call sign followed by the power reduction steps.

June 5, 2005

The WB4WOR beacon went on line in test mode. This test mode is to test the radio and Sync Freakin Beacon controller. The power reduction function is not completed yet so the beacon is running 20 watts continuously until the power reduction function can be installed. The beacon is running for 9 seconds at the 30 sec mark of every minute. There are three rotating IDs, two being the call sign followed by the currently non supported power reduction steps and the last being the call sign followed by the 6 character Maidenhead locator.

The antenna is a retuned 75 meter loop. The planned permanent antenna is a horizontally polarized turnstile antenna.

May 30, 2005

As we are closer to launching the first beacon on the new 250 Net, we welcome N7LT, Bozeman, MT at the :20 slot. It has been decided that we will use a 2 minute cycle. This will allow a total of 12 stations to participate in the net, 6 per minute. It has also been decided that N4ES will operate odd minutes at :50, N4ESS even minutes at :00, N7LT at :20 even and WB4WOR at :30 odd. Until more stations can be added, these stations will operate every minute with permanent slots as outlined above. These stations will operate with rotating formats of call sign power steps and then call sign/Maidenhead 6 character location and these will rotate. The group has decided that for equipment, we recommend the Expanded Spectrum Systems synchronized version of the Freakin Beacon, their Beacon Attenuator, BA1 and a Radio Shack HTX-100 radio. Of course as long as a beacon can conform to the characteristics of these devices, the beacon should be allowed to join.

May 22, 2005

We are in the process of getting several beacons on the air at this time. N4ESS beacon Tampa, Florida is operational in a test mode on 28.237 MHz. N4ES beacon Clearwater, Florida and WB4WOR beacon Greensboro, North Carolina are planned for testing in the next few weeks. The proposed frequency is 28.250 MHz.

Currently, N4ES is scheduled to transmit at 50 seconds past the minute for 10 seconds and then N4ESS will transmit for 10 seconds starting at the top of the minute. WB4WOR will transmit at the bottom of the minute at :30 seconds for 10 seconds. It has not been determined at this point if the repeat cycle will be every minute, every two minutes or every 3 minutes like the IARU beacons. See below for the current network configuration since is likely to change very quickly as stations come on the air and we work the wrinkles out of this.

To join the sync beacon list go to http://fernblatt.net/mailman/listinfo/beaconsynch_fernblatt.net

Participating stations and their configuration: