Skimmer Station Operational in South Central Alaska
Have you heard of the Reverse Beacon Network or RBN? If not, you might find it very interesting and helpful if you are an HF DXer or contester. With the RBN, instead of beacons actively transmitting CW signals like on the NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Project, a network of stations listen to the bands and report what CW stations they hear, when, and how well. It is a great way to see how you might be heard in locations around the world, but also a great way to see what stations might be heard in your local area in case there is an RBN network station in your vicinity.
If you live in South Central Alaska, you now have an RBN network station available! In the past few months, we’ve set up an RBN receiving station at KL5T’s Nikiski residence which is reporting to the RBN under callsign KL7RA. Here is a screenshot of the activity noted in the last hour before writing this post:
You can see from this screenshot that you can set all types of filters. In this case, the filter was set to only show stations spotted by KL7RA within the last hour and limited to 100 rows. You can filter by band, modes, type of transmission, CW speed, and more.
Here is a link set up to show the RBN with spotter station KL7RA reporting pretty much all CW signals heard (it generally reports stations calling “CQ”). This link is also provided under the HF Propagation Tools page on our website.
But there is more! The KL7RA receiving station ALSO reports what it hears on FT8. You can see the results of what it hears on the PSK reporter. Here is a screenshot of what the KL7RA station heard in the last hour before writing this post:
Again, from this screenshot, you can see that you can set all types of filters. When you hover over a station listed on the map, that station’s information is presented on the screen. In this case, I clicked on the marker for the Seychelles station, S79KW. It indicates it was heard on 14.076.078 MHz, FT8, at -12dB.
Here is a link set up to show the PSKReporter with spotter station KL7RA reporting FT8 signals heard within the last hour. This link is also provided under the HF Propagation Tools page on our website.
Good DXing and 73!
You must be logged in to post a comment.