Tap a monitor station in the list to view the current web page for that monitor station without leaving BeaconAid-HF (Internet connection through WiFi, 3G, or Edge required). Use familiar iPhone/iPod touch web page gestures to zoom or pan around the pages.
You also see the latest solar flux, A-index, and K-index values as retrieved directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
View Monitor Reports Inside BeaconAid
Tap the headphones icon to see a list of active official beacon monitor stations around the globe. The monitor station closest to you is listed at the top. Current operational status (as retrieved dynamically from a central server) is shown by indicator light. Use these monitors to see where the bands are open, even in locations far away.
As monitor stations join or leave the network, BeaconAid-HF retrieves updated lists from the internet automatically — you don’t have to download an updated App Store version.
Locate the Nearest Monitor Station
Store the five beacon frequencies in your radio’s memories (or tune each band’s VFO to those frequencies). Choose the “By Beacon” view and select the beacon nearest the desired DX location. Then watch for the beacon to start transmitting on 20 meters (the right two columns adjust themselves in sync with the beacon network). As the beacon moves to higher frequencies each 10 seconds, select the next receiver memory (or VFO). If you hear the beacon on any band, you know the band is open between you and the beacon location.
Find the Band Opening to the DX
Set your receiver mode to CW and tune your receiver to the beacon frequency for a band you select in the left column. Listen for the next three minutes as each beacon transmits (within in a 10-second window) its callsign and one-second tones at 100, 10, 1, and 0.1 watts. As each beacon transmits, you see details of its location, distance, beam headings (short and long paths), and operating status. When you hear the beacon, you know the band is open to that world location.
BeaconAid-HF retrieves current beacon status information from the internet automatically.
Check Conditions for One Band
Send bug reports, suggestions, or anything else you’d like to say about this program to me at:
Notes, Comments, Field Reports
The Northern California DX Foundation (with the International Amateur Radio Union) operates a global network of 18 beacon transmitters designed to help HF radio users determine propagation conditions on the 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meter bands (14-28 mHz). Cycling through all transmitters and all bands within three-minute blocks, the network reveals band openings around the clock. Beacons identify with 22 wpm Morse code, but BeaconAid-HF takes all the guesswork out of knowing which beacon you’re hearing at any given moment.
About the Beacon Network
In addition to providing built-in help summaries, BeaconAid’s Help screen includes links to additional web resources (including the DXSummit’s Last 50 HF DX spots, all viewable within the BeaconAid-HF app), user preferences, and a clock synchronization screen.
User preferences allow you to set whether the distances displayed for beacons are shown in miles or kilometers.
Access Help and Preferences
In case your iPhone or iPod touch clocks are not in perfect sync with WWV, you can set BeaconAid’s program clock to make the correction. Choose the minute setting to be announced next by your radio time signal (WWV, WWVH, CHU, etc.). At the sound of the tone for that minute, tap the “Synchronize” button. The rollers for the main By Band and By Beacon views will turn just as the beacon in the next 10-second cycle begins.
(Don’t worry: The program does not touch your device’s system clock. That wouldn’t be nice.)
Synchronize with WWV
Thu, 17 Dec 2009. Version 1.2 of the app has been approved. Further support messages and tips will be delivered directly to the app.
Fri, 18 Sep 2009. The NCDXF web site is down. This affects only the red/green signal lights for monitor site availability (all of them show red all the time). Every other part of the app runs normally.
Sat, 12 Sep 2009. To celebrate the start of the DX season here in the Northern Hemisphere (and to boast of my CQ WW DX SSB Contest win for 15 meters, low power in the US 6th call district from last year), BeaconAid-HF is on sale for only $0.99 (US). If you’ve been waiting to give it a try, now is the time.
Fri, 22 May 2009. Version 1.1.1 is in the hands of the App Store reviewers. One repair is to scrolling of Monitors web pages, allowing easier access to the bottoms of those pages. The other main fix affects users who elect to keep Location Services off on their devices and use the Manual grid entry option in BeaconAid-HF. You’ll no longer be pestered by the Location Services prompt at launch time.
Tue, 19 May 2009. I’ve created a Twitter account to keep in touch with users of my iPhone/iTouch apps. Follow me @iappsbydannyg to get the latest info. Eventually I will blend application-specific tweets into each application.
Tue, 21 April 2009 (1545Z). The third-party server supplying monitor station status appears to be down at the moment (so is ncdxf.org). Thus, the status lights in the Monitors list remain grey. Monitor station graphs not relying on the same server are still accessible (if they are reporting current activity). Beacon operational status is supplied by my own server, and is not affected by the outage.
Mon, 20 April 2009. Version 1.1 is now available on the iTunes App Store.
Thu, 16 April 2009. Version 1.1 has been submitted for approval. The two noticeable changes to the program are: 1) You have the option of applying a manually-entered location (grid square) to use in the event location services aren’t available at your location (affecting some iPod touch users); and 2) the “By Band” screen has changed the order of the bands shown in the leftmost (user-controlled) wheel so that even away from the central selector, the display correctly shows which beacon is transmitting on adjacent bands — helpful if you have more than one receiver tuned to different beacon frequencies at once. The App Store approval process seems to have quite a backlog these days, so I can’t easily predict when 1.1 will be released.
Tue, 7 April 2009. Another point about the lack of location services (either because of your ISP or perhaps your WiFi router isn’t passing through the IP address assigned by your ISP), you have the option of registering your WiFi access point with the database that location-aware, WiFi-based wireless devices use in the processing of determining one’s location. Visit http://www.skyhookwireless.com/howitworks/submit_ap.php to learn more and register your access point. I did it for my Airport some time ago, and my location at home is always right on the money. Prior to that, the WiFi-only location was determined from my ISP’s home base, dozens of miles away.
Mon, 6 April 2009. I’ve heard from some users in the UK that their ISPs do not seem to let devices determine their locations when connected via WiFi. This might be the way some ISPs have decided to handle privacy concerns in various parts of the world. Unfortunately, this means that BeaconAid-HF users are confronted with the “Current Location Unavailable” warning each time they launch the program. At the suggestion of one user, I will incorporate into the next revision the ability to enter as a preference your default home grid square manually. The program will then use that information as its “location service” when the real thing is not available. Some other users’ suggestions are also being incorporated into future versions. Let me know what you’d like to see.
If your device does not have Location Services available (e.g., you’ve carried your iPhone out of its service area or your iPod touch is connected to the Internet via an unregistered WiFi router), you have the option of manually entering a grid square location that the program uses for distance and beam heading calculations. As you spin the grid square dials, the latitude and longitude are displayed, in case those measures are more convenient for you.
Automatic or Manual Location
