E51USA/b 6M Beacon

[ZL1RS]

E51USA/b BG08ct, Rarotonga in the south Cook Islands, 20W on 50.051MHz (nominal frequency).

Perhaps this is "putting the horse before the cart", but even before the E51 6M beacon is installed I have received suggestions to improve it

1. Ideally it would be located at a separate site to Victor's QTH so he can operate on 6M simultaneously.
This seems very logical, and Victor and I will look at this next week anyway.

2. Arrange several antennas:
a) the supplied Halo
b) a yagi to the NE for TEP to KH6 and TEP scatter to North America
c) a yagi to the W for the southern hemisphere Es season
These would be switched according to the expectations of the propagation seasons and times
e.g. b) during July-October ... especially from 0600-0900z, c) from Dec to Feb, a) at other times

Apparently this is similar to the K6FV/b antenna arrangement.

What comments and/or other suggestions do you guys have that I can discuss with Victor and potential site owners next week?

Note: QRO is not an option unless there is a sponsor for electricity at $0.70 per kwhr as charged in the Cook Islands. As it is, the 20W beacon is going to cost about $300 to run a year if it is not on a time switch

[VK6KXW]

Its getting too complicated Bob; use the kiss methodology ...
If its a can do ... then stack 2 of those halo's with low loss coax fittings etc.
Any half descent station will hear it, even us sand groppers
Peter
VK6KXW

[VK4GHZ]

Just thinking aloud Bob...

Halos, being extremely narrowband, can be problematic in the wet.
If there is much rain on Rarotonga (?), then this may not be the best choice.

I would go one further, and suggest two stacked Moxons, but one facing WNW (for VK and Asia/Japan) and one NNE (or NE?) for Hawaii/W6.
With the lowest one mounted 20' or so above ground, there is a nice amount of gain to be had.
They are lightweight, low windload, exhibit wider bandwidth than a halo, and can be built from scraps.
6M Moxons were discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8562

[VK4GHZ]

Re hours of operation, and using the only solid data we have (based on openings to A35RK), it appears the earliest A35 has been worked (from ZL) was around 19:00UTC.
The latest was around 07:30UTC (again from ZL).
Opening to VK start later, and finish earlier.
It would not be unreasonable to expect similar times +/- to Rarotonga.

The few spots Victor has made (actually, he posted them as chat lines, but I modified them into spots so the info would be easier to find later), say that his openings to KH6 are just after 07:00UTC.

The E51 beacon operation could be limited to 13 hours between, say, 19:00 - 08:00 UTC.
The trouble with part-time beacons is, you never know if they're actually running or not, so people tend not to listen for them, and this diminishes their value significantly.
Even worse are the beacons manually operated by individuals on a whim.

Given the high cost of power, a time switch is worthwhile, but the actual operating schedule should always adhere to the published times... otherwise nobody will bother listening for it... thus becoming a waste of any power.

[ZL1RS]

We will have the E51USA/b 6M beacon running on 50.051 at Victor's place from tomorrow afternoon ... initially into the 6M yagi at 58ft beaming to the west. If anyone hears it, you are welcome to e-mail Victor or give him a "one-ringer" The address and phone number are listed in his E51CG Operator Info on this site. If we are around the house we will come up on 50.110 !

The omni directional Halo will go up sometime this week. Another update will follow at that time along with the operating hours time schedule, but 1900 through to 0800UTC (following Adam's suggestion) looks likely. (I bought a battery backed up mains timer switch for it).

Alternative site enquiries to follow ... more info when we have some news (one way or the other).

73 from "Raro", Bob ZL1RS/E51EME and Victor E51CG/E51USA

[ZL1RS]

As reported via VKLogger spots, the beacon is installed and running!

Initially we set the timer for the beacon to operate from 1900 UTC until 0700 UTC.

It seems 0700 UTC may be too early to have the beacon switch off and this may be
reviewed (but also keeping in mind the high cost of electricity in the Cook Islands).



The E51USA/b Beacon.



The beacon's Halo antenna at 11 meters high on Victor's tower.

More pix at:
http://www.qrz.com/db/e51cg

and

http://www.qsl.net/zl1rs ... follow "The E51USA/b 6M Beacon" link.
(You may need to refresh the page if that link doesn't appear).

Victor and I discussed other sites for the beacon, but for various reasons decided to keep it at his home QTH.


Many thanks to the following for their input:
Dave N3DB and The 6M Beacon Project, Inc. in the USA for supplying the beacon and Halo antenna.
Chris ZL2DX for the 12V Switch Mode Power Supply.
Victor E51CG/E51USA for hosting the beacon.
Barbara for not getting cross with me for dragging her to Raro on the pretext of an "anniversary
holiday" to help Victor get the beacon set up

I must say I derived great pleasure from this little project and was absolutely thrilled to work
several stations in ZL and VK to 5000+km on 6M just before we left for the airport on the 19th!

It was also a great pleasure to catch up with Paul A35A, Warwick E51WL and John 5W0KY/VK2ZKY
several times via short Es skip with tremendous signals coming into the 5 element yagi that Victor
and I had installed earlier this year ... I know, it is horrible "work", but someone has to do it

73, Bob ZL1RS

[ZL3TY]

Bob thanks for your good work on this beacon. Great to work you and Victor - first time for me to South Cooks. This beacon will be extremely useful when (if?) we get some trans-pacific DX

73, Bob ZL3TY