Wednesday, February 17, 2021

2020 Report for the 60-MHz EI1KNH beacon

The EI1KNH beacon on 60.013 MHz is currently the only operational 5-metre beacon in the world and has been on air since December of 2019. In this post, we'll look at how many times it was spotted on the DX Cluster in 2020.


A total of 6 stations spotted the EI1KNH beacon on 60 MHz during 2020 and the number of spots per individual were... EA3ERE (3), EI7BMB (3), F6HTJ (1), GW0GEI (1), NL8992 (2), SP7VVB (1).

As the map shows above, most were in the region of 800 to 1800kms from the beacon which is a typical distance for Sporadic-E signals at 40 MHz during the Summer season.


Note the reception report by GW0GEI in West Wales at a distance of 175 kms by tropo.

DX Cluster... If you do hear the beacon then make sure to report it on dx-clusters like DXSummit or DXMaps as some of the other clusters ignore spots for 60 MHz as they assume they're a mistake.

More information about the EI1KNH beacon can be found here... https://www.qrz.com/db/EI1KNH/

For more information on the 60 MHz band, go to this page... https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/p/60-mhz.html

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonder what effects the nearby tall dense trees visible in the photo would have on the coverage pattern of the beacons? These appear to be 'in the way' for coverage westwards. Would be interesting if field strength measurements were done maybe 1km (or so) behind the trees, compared with the same distance in unobstructed directions.

John, EI7GL said...

I suspect the mountains to the west may have a much bigger impact than the trees. The view to the east is great which is towards central Europe.

It might be interesting to do say a test mobile on 2m and seeing the difference between a line of sight path and one obstructed by trees.