Being a Ham for over 50 years I have experimented with about all the perks of the hobby This included all digital modes such as SSTV, RITTY, JT65, Jt9, WEFAX, and more. I worked all over the world with QRO and QRP. I tried just about all the antennas in the ARRL books. I even was successful bouncing signals off the moon (EME). One day I read an article about a 10 meter beacon station, and wow a light bulb lit in the 'ol knogan. I had never tried that. There were lots of articles written on the web, I read about all I found and found out its not to costly or hard to get one on the air. I had a couple of tranceivrs that I could use but I did not want to dedicate one of these to full time 24 - 7 use. Most beacon transmitters use the Radio Shack HTX100. This little rig is no longer produced, but many were sold and still going strong. You can find them on eBay, eHam, and Ham Fests. I bought mine from a wanted to buy ad on eHam. This is a 12 volt radio so you will need a power supply. I had a 12 amp that I used on it. This is a little over kill but it is what I had. Now you need some way to key the CW transmitter. I found an ID-O-Matic repeater IDer that was already put togeather and the Ham pre-programmed it for me. Now you need an antenna, I started out with a dipole but I wanted the antenna to be non-directional. I soon bout a 1/2 wave CB antenna and mounted it at ground level with 3 1/4 wave radials. I soon found the antenna worked just as well with out them, so they were removed. The coax I had on hand was RG58 and was berried from the house to the antenna, about 50 foot. Yes, I know RG8 would have had less loss but I knew several beacons were running only millowatts of power so my 5 watts at the transmitter and the gain of the antenna would do fine. Now for the fun part, getting the reports. The first month I only received reports from East and West. I was being heard almost daily in Europe and California, even in Japan, but never North and South like Canada or Florida. But as the season changed the E skip in November and December came to be and my little beacan with F2 & E prorogation became readable in all directions. I can tell you it became fun getting the mail and finding QSLs from the people that hears it. If you want to copy some beacons, listen from 28.1 to 28.3 most run about 10 WPM CW and on a good propagation day you will hear many - may be me at 28.2033.
Jack Demaree Versailles, Indiana WB9OTX/B Grid EM79ib
