[CCF] FW: [CQ-Contest] 3Y0X, topband, and propagation - can you help?

[jukka.klemola at nokia.com]

vapaaehtoiset kirjoittaa HEP !

73,
Jukka

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
> [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com]On Behalf Of ext Eric Scace
> K3NA
> Sent: 16 December, 2004 17:12
> To: Cq-Contest; YCCC; PVRC
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] 3Y0X, topband, and propagation - can you help?
> 
> 
> Hi everyone --
> 
>    After the 3B9C DXpedition earlier this year, Eric K3NA 
> built some animated views of interesting 160m openings to 
> North America.
> These have been shown during presentations at Dayton, HamCom, 
> and W9DXCC.  The animations revealed some interesting subtleties of
> spotlight propagation and potential skew paths over the very 
> long haul between Rodrigues and North America, especially to the west
> coast.
> 
>    But a string of logged QSOs does not fully reveal what was 
> experienced by the many topband operators who were receiving (or
> trying to receive) the 3B9C signal at any given moment.
> 
>    Next month Eric will be one of the topband operators at 
> 3Y0X.  We want to develop, and report back to you, a fuller picture of
> 160m propagation during that DXpedition.  To this end, we are 
> planning to provide a standardized reporting form on the
> www.peterone.com website with which any 160m operator can log 
> what he or she hears during the course of an opening.  A more complete
> description of the reporting features is attached below -- 
> and we welcome your comments on this concept.
> 
>    In developing this concept, we came to realize that all 
> topbanders would be interested in a real-time display, on an
> automatically-updating webpage, of what reception reports 
> have been recently logged.  Alex VE3NEA (author of the awesome DXAtlas
> program) has developed a display that can form the basis of 
> an animation showing, minute-by-minute:
>    -- the grayline
>    -- an icon for each reporting station, indicating received 
> signal strength and the range of azimuths from which the signal is
> arriving (if suitable antennas are present at that station).
> 
>    However, we find that we don't have all the resources we 
> need to implement a real-time, animated webpage.  So we are now
> appealing to the Topband community for help.  Here is what we need:
> 
>    1)  A Windows-based web server on the Internet with a 
> static IP address.  Because DXAtlas and the mapping programs 
> can not run on
> a virtual server, this may need to be a dedicated machine 
> between now and the end of the DXpedition (about Feb 6).  The accrued
> database of reports should be archived and can be removed 
> from the machine in mid-February when the team has returned home (we
> hope!).
> 
>    2)  A person who can install and configure our application 
> on that server during both the development/testing phase and the
> DXpedition itself.
> 
>    3)  Someone (or group) who can design an appropriate set 
> of web pages so that reporting stations can:
>    -- describe their receiving setup (once, before the start 
> of the DXpedition)
>    -- submit one or more reception reports.
> [Alex VE3NEA can write a script to save this data in a file 
> format suitable for generating the DXAtlas map images.]
> 
>    4)  Someone (or group) who can design a web page that will 
> display the most-recent 10 minutes (or so) of map images in a loop, in
> a manner similar to weather radar on-line displays... or a 
> range of times (for non-real time viewing, perhaps after more reports
> have been received).
> 
>    If you can assist in any of these 4 areas, please contact 
> us at the email addresses listed on the cc line.  (While it may be
> possible to implement this with Linux/Unix servers, we don't 
> have a map/grayline software tool for that environment, so porting to
> Linux seems even more complicated -- unless a very talented 
> individual steps forward, hi!)
> 
>    Thanks for your attention to our little dream project.  We 
> wish we had started this a bit earlier... but there were some other
> things do to first (build antennas, pack the shipping 
> container, etc.)  We hope this sounds as exciting to you as 
> it seems to us.
> We're keeping our fingers crossed that the right assistance 
> is available for the real-time display feature!  Feel free to 
> circulate
> this appeal to others outside the topband reflector community.
> 
> 73,
>    Eric K3NA
>    Don N1DG
>    Alex VE3NEA
>    David VK4GL
> 
> ===================
> 
> Reporting features:
> 
> A.  Station description:  provided once only.
>    -- callsign.
>    -- email address (for follow up questions after the DXpeditions).
>    -- latitude/longitude of station site.
>    -- list of antennas used to receive on 160m.
>    -- for each antenna listed above, the range of azimuths 
> over which this antenna hears better than the other similar 
> antennas tthat
> cover adjacent ranges.  In other words, if you say the 3Y0X 
> signal is loudest on your beverage #1, and you've reported hear that
> beverage #1 hears best over the azimuth range of 90-180° 
> compared to your other similar antennas, then we will assume 
> the signal
> from 3Y0X is probably arriving from this general direction.  
> A large 160m station may have antennas with overlapping 
> ranges; e.g., a
> 4-square (four sets of azimuth ranges) and various beverages 
> (one of which will be the best at a particular moment compared to the
> other beverages).
> 
> B.  Reports:
>    -- callsign
>    -- date/time (Z)
>    -- antenna with best reception (from the list provided in 
> the station description above).
>    -- current noise level on that antenna (S units or dB over S-9).
>    -- 3Y0X signal level on that antenna (S units or dB over S-9).
>    -- is this the first moment 3Y0X has been heard this opening?
>    -- is this the moment that 3Y0X's signal peaked at your 
> location during this opening?
>    -- is this the last moment 3Y0X was heard during this opening?
> 
>    Each station may report as frequently as they wish, up to 
> once per minute.  Note that multiple openings might occur during a
> particular night, so it can be entirely appropriate to report 
> more than one set of start-peak-end times.
> 
>    We will try to design the form so that multiple reception 
> reports can be entered at one time.
> 
> 
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