Dick, K1HC has been in touch to say that his new 144 MHz beacon in the state of Maine in the USA is now operational. It has been transmitting since the 6th of July 2025 and it's significant because it is beaming towards Europe!
The beacon uses the callsign K1HC/B and is located in Harpwell, Maine... grid FN53at.
It transmits on 144.291 MHz with 10-watts into a stack of 16 x 5-element Yagi antennas. The modulation mode is CW.
The beam heading is 60-degrees or approximately north-east towards Nova Scotia and Europe.
The beacon has a claimed frequency stability of about 10 PPM which suggests it would be best to try to listen for it with a wider SSB filter rather than a narrow CW one.
The sixteen Yagi antennas are spaced about 1.5m apart (5ft) and one above another. They are mounted on a 36m high tower (120ft) and the lowest Yagi is about 14m (45ft) above ground level.
The base of the antenna is about 52m (170ft) above sea level and the antenna array is overlooking a salt marsh.
Another beacon operating on 50.0735 MHz is planned with a power of 10-watts. Both beacons will be off-air when K1HC is operating.
Analysis of the antenna system... Let's do some rough calculations for the antenna system and what the overall effective power output might be.
For a 5-element Yagi, we might estimate that the gain might be roughly 11dBi or 9 dBd. The beamwidth of the antenna looking down from above would be around 60 degrees. i.e. at plus and minus 30 degrees, the effective power output will be half (-3dB points).
For a single 5-element Yagi, the beamwidth in the vertical plane will be about the same. As the antennas are stacked, the beamwidth get squashed and more focused.
A stack of two Yagi antennas is 3dB, four is 6dB, eight is 9dB and sixteen is 12dB.
That gives an effective antenna gain of 11dBi plus 12dB which is 23dBi. In reality, the capture area of each Yagi will slightly overlap so let's take 1dB off so we have an overall antenna system gain of 22dBi.
The antenna array is on an elevated site over a salt marsh so there might be some additional ground gain but let's keep things simple for now.
We also have to add in the feed loss of the coax and all those connectors. Let's take 1dB off and we have a rough estimate for about 21dBi for the overall antenna system.
We know there is 10-watts going into it so we can estimate that the effective radiated power is in the region of 31dBw or 1,250 watts into an isotropic source. In the real world, that's the equivalent of about 800 watts into a dipole.
Potential Coverage Area... Let's have a look at where the beacon is and where it might be heard.
The antenna array is beaming at 60 degrees which is towards north-west Europe as can be seen above.
Let's start closer to the beacon. For example, anyone in say Halifax, Nova Scotia (VE1) is about 500kms from the beacon and it should be an excellent indicator of any tropo conditions.
Likewise, tropo conditions may extend out as far as Newfoundland (VO) at times but the problem here is if there is anyone there to listen to a beacon on 144 MHz?
At times, there is surely Sporadic-E openings east from Maine but a single hop might account for about 2000kms. That's still a long way short of the 4500kms or so to Ireland (EI).
We can dream of chordal hop Sporadic-E with two hops and we might look at something like 3000-4000kms but it still comes up short. The biggest problem here is just the sheer distance.
For example, consider this from a European perspective. Would you put a 144 MHz trans-Atlantic beacon in Dusseldorf, Germany? Obviously not but that's what we are talking about here in terms of a path from Maine on 144 MHz across the North Atlantic.
In an ideal world, a beacon like this would be great in say St, Johns, Newfoundland but in the real world, Maine is where it is.
Southerly path???... I think a much more interesting path is the one from Maine to the likes of the Azores (CU), Madeira Is (CT9), Canary Is (EA8) and possibly Spain (EA1) and Portugal (CT).
We know that there are some spectacular marine ducting paths in the eastern part of the North Atlantic between say the Azores and the UK and Ireland. On my 144 MHz page, I have plenty of examples of paths from Cape Verde (D4) up to Ireland and the UK.
The big unknown is how far west and out into the Atlantic does this marine ducting go?
Again on the 144 MHz page, there are plenty of examples of the amazing ducts from Cape Verde across to the Caribbean on 144 MHz. How far north does this duct go?
A more southerly path would also mean that Sporadic-E should be more likely. We have examples of Larry, VO1FOG in Newfoundland hearing FM radio stations from the Azores around 100 MHz every Summer. (See my 88-108 MHz page).
Is a path on 144 MHz across the North Atlantic really possible from Maine?
In summary... This post ended up being way longer than I intended! 😊I hope however that some of our colleagues in more suitable locations try to listen for this beacon and report what they hear if anything.
