QRZ! Ham Radio 6

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ QRZ! Ham Radio 6 / QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 6.iso / pc / files / misc / dx_w2iol.doc < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-11-27 | 31.2 KB | 735 lines

NOTES for Amateur Radio "DX Gazetteer" & "DX Bearing & Distance Tables" w2iol 06 April 1993 CONTENTS 1. General Information on the ``DX Bearing'' & ``DX Gazetteer'' Tables................................. 2. Paper, Pictures and PCs............................ 3. Amateur Radio Prefix References.................... 4. DX QTH Latitude & Longitude Coordinates............ 5. Short Path Bearings, Returns & Distances........... 6. Long Path Data from Short Path Data................ 7. VUCC Grid Locators................................. 8. ITU Regions........................................ 9. Continents......................................... 10. Amateur Radio Zones................................ 11. ``STATUS''......................................... 12. DX Awards.......................................... 13. USA Third Party Traffic Treaties & Reciprocal Licensing/Operating Agreements..................... 14. Time & Time Again.................................. 15. HF Time & Frequency Standard Stations.............. 16. National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ)................... 17. Northern California DX Foundation's (NCDXF) HF Beacons............................................ 18. Suggestions and Errors............................. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. General Information on the ``DX Bearing'' & ``DX Gazetteer'' Tables a. The Amateur Radio DX Gazetteer includes latitude and longitude coordinates, and status in DXCC, United Nations, ITU, etc. This is the version at ARRL as "dxcc-w2iol-a-p" and "dxcc-w2iol-q-z" and "dx_wiol.dat" on the Ham CD-ROM. b. The DX Bearing Tables include Great Circle bearings, returns and distances, time differences (DX - local), DXCC status, etc. The Bearing tables can be produced for worthy causes at no cost. c. CONTENTS for BEARING & GAZETTEER TABLES DATA SET ______________________ DXCC "Country", "City" Antarctic Bases Continental U.S.A. NCDXF HF Beacons d. The Gazetteer and Bearing tables are available in prefix or "country/city" order. The prefix order is 0-9-A-Z. The "country/city" order is used for the gazetteer at ARRL and on the CD-ROM. For a handy prefix order list see K2DI's DXCC list. e. A special "Field Day" bearing version in prefix order that covers the US and Canada by ARRL sections and divisions is also available. 2. Paper, Pictures and PCs Someone once said that a picture is worth 30 dB words. All the bearing and distance information, accurate enough for almost all ham radio purposes, can be found graphically very easily from an azimuthal-equidistant global map centered on or anywhere near (by many, many miles) the home QTH. Such maps are much more enlightening as to what is happening than tables, such as DX Bearing Tables. They also make a nice wall decoration and a good introductory discussion piece, especially for non- (potential) hams. The ARRL Operating Manual has about 20 such maps that are centered on various parts of the world. Suppliers of personalized A-E maps advertise in the ham magazines. The ARRL and the Callbook sell multi-colored versions centered on Kansas, the center of the continental USA. Other versions, centered on major cities such as New York, are available from the US Government Printing Office and elsewhere if you look around. Great circle bearings from point A to point B do not take into account other propagation paths such as the "Gray Line" or the sunrise/sunset terminator path possible between some locations. Computer DX aids such as "Gray Line Advantage" by MFJ, "The DX Edge" by Xantek or Geoclock by Ralph Alghren, can show such paths (and start conversations). The latitude and longitude coordinates from these tables can be used as input to any of several "Maximum Usable Frequency" (MUF) programs to determine the best probable frequencies to attempt contact between two points on earth for given solar flux and sunspot conditions for a given day of the year and time of day. See the ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook and ARRL Antenna Handbook. A number of personal computer programs combine bearings, distance, MUF and gray line propagation calculations and the day/night map display. Thus, the value of this set of tables is not in providing bearings, which can be obtained easily from the maps or calculated using any one of dozens of available calculator and computer programs, but in gathering a variety of DX data together in one place. 3. Amateur Radio Prefix References For general references for amateur radio prefixes, see: The ARRL Operating Manual, "DXCC" By ARRL, Callbooks, "Worked-100-Nations" by Worldradio, "DX Dynasty Award" by 73, and the Directory of Islands by RSGB. For the latest prefixes see the DX columns in the magazines (QST, Ham Radio, CQ and 73) and the many DX newsletters, such as the DX News-Sheet. Geoff Watts, Norwich, England, publishes a number of detailed reference guides including, "The ``DXNS'' Prefix-Country-Zone List," "The ``DXNS'' DXCC Countries Guide," "The ``DXNS'' CQ & ITU Zones Guide," and "The ``DXNS'' Soviet Oblast Guide." To identify the home country for new, strange prefixes that appear without notice, see the ITU prefix allocation tables for each country in the ARRL Operating Manual, the ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook, or in the Callbooks, etc. 4. DX QTH Latitude & Longitude Coordinates Latitude & Longitude - In Bearing tables, printed to 0.01 degree (truncated, not rounded) - In Gazetteer tables, printed to nearest minute For references for latitude and longitude coordinates, see: US Department of the Interior Geological Survey (USGS) topological maps, The National Atlas of the United States, Polar Regions Atlas by the Central Intelligence Agency, and also various atlases by Rand McNally, Prentice-Hall, The Times, and other publishers. For a capsule description of political and geographical points of interest, see Chapmans World Gazetteer. The Rand McNally College World Atlas, is a pocket size paperback for 5 dollars. Another compact reference is The Portable World: A Complete Pocket World Atlas, (in the United Kingdom sold under the name Philips Small World Atlas) by Willett, Gaylard and Prince-Smith, published by Avon Books for 9 dollars. These altases all have an index of locations with latitude and longitude coordinates. Not all atlases list coordinates. The USGS USA Place Names data base is now available on IBM PC-compatible disks and CD- ROMs. Recommended Reading for DX'ers: George J. Demko, former director of the U. S. Office of the Geographer, with Jerome Agel and Eugene, has a book, Why In The World: Adventures in Geography, (Anchor Doubleday, 1992) that should be read by any DX'er. In addition, Jon Fisher has two little books called Uninhabited and Deserted Islands and The Last Frontiers on Earth - Strange Places Where You Can Live Free, (Loopanics Unlimited, 1983 & 1985). These books describe the location, geography, climate and general living conditions of many of the obscure little islands and odd spots on Earth that we call "DX countries." There are very good reasons why many are normally uninhabited by sane folks (read non-hams) and why DX-peditions are necessary to put them on the air. 5. Short Path Bearings, Returns & Distances a. "BRNG" = Great Circle Bearing from local QTH to DX QTH. = Short Path Bearing (degrees) (measured clockwise from geographic or true North) b. "RTRN" = Return = Great Circle "Reverse" or "Reciprocal" Bearing from DX QTH to local QTH = Short Path Return (degrees) (measured clockwise from geographic or true North) c. "DSTNC" = Great Circle Distance for Short Path in "km" = kilometers, "sm" = statute miles, or "nm" = nautical miles. 6. Long Path Data from Short Path Data a. (Long Path Angles) = (Short Path Angles) + or - (180 degrees) c. (Long Path Distance) ~= (Earth Circumference) - (Short Path Distance), Where Earth Circumference = Average = 40030 km = 24874 sm = 21614 nm Earth Earth Radius Circumference __________|____________|_______________ | 6378.16 km| 40075.2 km Equatorial| 3963.20 sm| 24901.5 sm | 3443.92 nm| 21638.2 nm __________|____________|_______________ | 6356.77 km| 39940.8 km Polar | 3949.91 sm| 24818.0 sm | 3432.38 nm| 21566.3 nm __________|____________|_______________ | 6371.02 km| 40030.3 km Average | 3958.77 sm| 24873.7 sm | 3440.08 nm| 21614.7 nm __________|____________|_______________ The bearing and distance calculations are for an idealized spherical earth with the "average" circumference. If the truer oblate spherodial shape were used instead, the distances could change by 10-20 miles for the longer ranges (about 1 part in 300 depending on distance and direction) and the bearing and return bearing, to the nearest degree anyway, may not change at all. Unless you are building a big rhombic antenna, you will never know the difference. 7. VUCC Grid Locators "VUCC Grid" VHF/UHF Century Club grid location in IARU "Maidenhead" format by Folke Rosvall, SM5AGM (QST, W1XX, Jan & Oct 83) Characters Type Area (Long. by Lat.) Name _____________________________________________________________ 1, 2 letters 20d by 10d "field" uppercase A-R, S* 3, 4 numbers 2d by 1d "square" 0-9 5, 6 letters 5m by 2.5m "sub-square" lowercase|- a-x * - Grid Locators define an area while latitude and longitude define a point. Unofficial W2IOL conventions (not approved by SM5AGM) for Grid Locators treat the North and South geographic poles1 as small "point" grids. The South Pole "grid" is large enough to cover the Amundsen-Scott base, KC4AAA.2 The North Pole "grid" would cover a polar expedition camp site. "Grid" Pole Notes ______________________________________________ AS00aa North Pole "S" unique to North Pole AA00aa South Pole KC4AAA |- - Another unofficial W2IOL convention is the use of lowercase letters for characters 5 and 6, as a means to better distinguish them from the uppercase letters for characters 1 and 2. __________ 1. The north and south magnetic and geomagnetic poles are in the data base. They move around by many miles. 2. The geographic poles wiggle around a little, too. Someone usually is assigned to move the real pole stuck at the South Pole a few feet every so often. __________ Examples: Latitude Longitude Grid Locator _________________________________________ 40d 46.9m N 074d 41.4m W = FN20ps 40d 46.9m S 074d 41.4m E = ME79if 40d 46.9m S 105d 18.6m E = OE29pf 40d 46.9m N 105d 18.6m W = DN70is Only the first four characters that are used for VUCC awards are printed in the tables. There are 32,400 distinct 2d by 1d grid squares. (If we counted the unofficial "point" grids for the North and South poles, there would be 32,402.) The ARRL World Locator Atlas by SM5AGM has maps showing all the grid squares and also Basic language programs that can be used to calculate the grid locator from latitude and longitude and vice versa, as well as bearings and distances given grid locators. See also: The ARRL Grid Locator (for US and Canada) map. The "VHF Plus" column in CQ magazine for December 1992 discusses the history of grid square locator systems. 8. ITU Regions "ITU" = International Telecommunications Union, Geneva "ITU rgn" = ITU "Frequency Allocation Regions" ITU REGION AREA (Brief Description) ________________________________________________________________________________ 1 Europe, Africa, Iceland, "Middle East", Turkey, U.S.S.R., Mongolia 2 North America, South America, Greenland, North Pacific 3 Asia-not-in-1, Iran, Australia, South Pacific. For more precise boundaries, see the ITU Region map in QST, October 1988. 9. Continents The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) "Worked All Continents" (WAC) awards program uses the following definitions for "continents." CT Continent _________________________________________________________ Af Africa An Antarctica (not used for WAC) (Af, As, SA & Oc used for Antartica.) As Asia Eu Europe NA North America SA South America Oc "Oceania" = Australia + (most of Indian and Pacific Oceans) See Callbook maps for continent boundaries. The Callbook has the Egyptian Sinai peninsula in Africa, while the encyclopedias have it in Asia. Amazingly, the normal "civilian" atlases rarely show continent boundaries. 10. Amateur Radio Zones "CQ" "CQ" Zones (1 to 40) Used for CQ Magazine "Worked-All-Zone" awards "IT" "ITU" Zones 1 to 75 defined by the ITU = ITU "Geographical Broadcast Reception Zones" + "IARU/Callbook" Zones 76 to 90 for ocean areas not specified by ITU|-. Used for the IARU "Radiosport Contest" & for "World ITU Zones" awards by K6YK |- - These undefined-by-ITU areas usually have no land area above water. One exception is Minami Torishima (JD) that is located in the Pacific in Callbook-defined zone 90 and near-but-not-in ITU-defined zone 45. It is sometimes listed as ITU zone 45 and sometimes 90. See the ARRL Operating Manual and Callbook maps for "CQ" and "ITU" zone boundaries. 11. ``STATUS'' # ABRV RELATIONSHIP Entities _________________________________________________________________ UN United Nations member* 180 IT ITU member* 165? DX DXCC by American Radio Relay League 330 = "DX Century Club" Is "Island DX Award" (IDX) by 169 Whidbey Island DX Club 73 "DX Dynasty Award" = DXDA by 73 Magazine 402 WR "Worked-100-Nations" = W-100-N by Worldradio 226|- 3P USA 3rd Party Traffic Treaties 43 RL USA Reciprocal Licensing & Operating Agreements 71 * Almost all UN members are also ITU members, and vice versa. Exceptions include: Switzerland & Vatican City that are ITU members, but not UN. Switzerland is an Observer at the UN. Bhutan, Dominica, Namibia, Seychelles & Vanuatu are UN members, but not ITU. Radiosporting magazine's "DX Centurion Award" program uses the DXCC entity list. |- The W-100-N total does not include Malyj Vysotskij (4J1) or Rotuma Island (3D2) or many other amateur radio DX "countries." The W-100-Nation intention is to include only sovereign nations, with their own independent governments. Colonies, dependents, military or research bases, and properties of the sovereign entities are counted as the same as the home nation. Thus, the W-100-N entity total is the smallest of the worldwide DX awards. The Whidbey Island DX Club's "Island DX Awards" program uses the DXCC entities that are defined as islands by the National Geographic Society. The Directory of Islands by the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSBG), that is used for the "Islands on the Air" (IOTA) Award, lists 12 pages of islands for the world. Most of the deleted DXCC entities, those that still have a recognizable geographic location, appear in the tables under the current valid entity. During 1990, North and South Yemen joined, East and West Germany re-united and East and West Berlin re-united. In 1991, the Soviet Union (USSR) broke up into 15 separate countries. Ten of them have formed a loose "Commonwealth of Independent States" (CIS). Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia and Lithuania are going their own ways for now. "CIS" has replaced "USSR" in the tables. In 1992, Yugoslavia disintegrated into four entities. In January 1993, Czezhoslovakia peacefully broke into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. Several other groups are trying to claim their own territories within existing countries or lapping across two or more nations. Several of these potential new "countries" are listed in the tables under the existing entity. During the '70s and '80s the former Canadian Northwest Territories (NWT) districts of McKenzie and Franklin were divided into the districts of Baffin, Invuvik, Keewatin, Kitikmeot and Ft. Smith. Most of the eastern part of NWT is now becoming the new Inuit (Eskimo) territory of Nunavut with the capital at either Resolute or Iqaluit. The western NWT may be given a new name, perhaps Denendeh. The DXCC Advisory Council is continually reviewing petitions for acceptance of new places for DXCC status. 12. DX Awards For information on: AWARD TITLE SPONSOR ___________________________________________________ DXCC DX Century Club ARRL IOTA Islands on the Air RSGB, G3KMA WAC Worked All Continents IARU WAZ Worked All Zones CQ WITUZ World ITU Zones K6YK WPX World Prefixes CQ "WUN"? Worked UN(?) Kansas Radio Club? and many, many, many more amateur radio DX award programs see: the ARRL Operating Manual, The DX Awards Directory by K1BV, and the "Awards" columns in 73, CQ, Worldradio, and many DX newsletters. 13. USA Third Party Traffic Treaties & Reciprocal Licensing/Operating Agreements "3P" "3PTT" USA Third Party Traffic Treaties "RL" "RLOA" USA Reciprocal Licensing / Operating Agreements These agreements and treaties usually also include territories of the given country. For example: British and French territories follow the home country. For Antarctic base stations, see individual home countries listed for 3PTT or RLOA. For Emergencies or Special Events, temporary agreements are sometimes arranged with countries other than those listed. Otherwise: Third Party Traffic, even an informal greeting, is illegal. For the United Kingdom, Third Party Traffic is legal only with pre-arranged "GB" prefix stations. "GB3" prefixes are excluded from this agreement! An example is GB8SD, ("Scottish Day") (Kilmarnock or Glasgow, Scotland) arranged for message traffic to and from the annual Bellcore Pioneers "Scottish Day at Bonnie Brae" benefit event for the Bonnie Brae boy's home (Millington, NJ, USA). Pitcairn Island (VR6) follows an informal agreement for allowing handling of messages dealing with health, safety and vital supplies. See QST for June 1990 (page 58), and CQ for March 1990 (pages 90-92) and the Callbooks for more on 3rd Party Traffic Treaties and Reciprocal Licensing/Operating Agreements and late changes. 14. Time & Time Again One part of daily planning for DXing is figuring out when the hams of the world are likely to be on the air operating versus sleeping or working. The world daylight/nighttime maps by "Gray Line Advantage," "The DX Edge" and "Geoclock" and a number of other dx programs show this very clearly. You can see where hams are working noon-time DX on 20 meters or grayline at dawn or dusk, or sound asleep in the middle of the night. If you don't have either of these aids or an equivalent, you figure it out with a quick mental calculation with the time information in these tables. World "time zones", used for everyday living, "clock time," are defined as twenty-four one-hour-wide (15d) (usually) longitudinal slices. Clock time increases eastward of of the "prime" or "Greenwich" meridian (0d E/W) that passes through the Greenwich Observatory, Greenwich, England, and decreases westward. "Ideal" one hour zones are centered on a meridian of longitude that is a multiple of 15d longitude. Geographical and political boundaries don't match this ideal of time zones centered on 15d intervals, so most time zone boundaries zig and zag to reflect human needs and political realities. Several time sub-zones are offset x hours plus 30 minutes to better match local sunrises and sunsets. Liberia (-0045) and the Chatham Islands (+1245) are offset by 15 (or 45) minutes. The World Book Encyclopedia has one of the clearest world time zone maps. Saudia Arabia observes "Sun Time" that goes by actual sunset and sunrise times (in the +0300 hour time zone band). Arctic and Antarctic polar regions, with months of daylight and darkness at a time, usually observe GMT. Even though it spans 31/2 time zones, the People's Republic of China uses, or at least is supposed to use, only the time zone (+0800) for Biejing. For the Chinese in the far west, this is equivalent to the people in California trying to live on Boston time. The time zone at Greenwich has been commonly called "Greenwich Mean Time", or more often just "GMT." (In military jargon, the term "ZULU" time is also often used to refer to "GMT".) Local standard times are referred to as being "ahead" (+hhmm, east) of GMT, or "behind" (-hhmm, west) of GMT. The actual date changes at the "International Date Line" that zigs and zags near 180d E/W longitude where locations to the east of Greenwich are 12 hours ahead and locations to the west of Greenwich are 12 hours behind. When crossing the Date Line, one "gains" a day going west or "loses" a day going east. "Universal Coordinated Time" or "UTC" (from the French, "Universelle Tiempes Coordinate") is now the proper term for the reference time at the prime/Greenwich Meridian.3 UTC is adjusted every so often by a "leap second" to compensate for variations in the earth's rotation. Standard time stations, like WWV, follow these adjustments. There are other "standard times" that are used for astronomy and other scientific purposes. To make better use of available daylight as the sunrise and sunset times shift through the year, many locations shift their clocks one hour ahead of "Local Standard" time from mid-spring to mid-autumn to "Daylight Savings Time" (DST) or "Summer Time". The "DX Bearing" and "DX Gazetteer" tables use the following conventions: a. "Greenwich Mean Time" (GMT)/(UTC) "GMT" = (DX QTH Standard Time) - GMT "+hhmm" = DX QTH Standard Time ahead (east) of GMT by hh hours & mm minutes "-hhmm" = DX QTH Standard Time behind (west) of GMT by hh hours & mm minutes b. Time Differences: DX QTH Standard relative to Local (Home) QTH Standard "TMDF" = "Standard Time Difference" = (DX QTH Standard Time) - (Local QTH Standard Time). "+hhmm" = DX QTH Standard Time ahead (east) of Local "-hhmm" = DX QTH Standard Time behind (west) of Local c. "DST" = Daylight Savings Time or Summer Time "+N" Entities in the northern hemisphere that advance local standard time by one hour between March/April and September/October. "+S" Entities in the southern hemisphere that advance local standard time by one hour between September/October and March/April. __________ 3. UTC is one of family of "universal times" that also includes UT0, UT1 and UT2, that account for the variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun and are used for various scientific purposes. __________ England, France, Spain and Mexico observe "Summer"/"Savings" time year around. Several of the European ex-USSR countries have changed their time zone from +0300 to +0200. In the US, by state law, Arizona uses Mountain Standard Time (MST, -07:00) from October to April and Pacific Daylight Savings Time (PDST, -07:00) from April to October. However, Indian reservations in Arizona do observe normal Mountain DST. So the towns of Page, Tsaile and Whiteriver may observe DST. In addition, Kentucky allows local option for DST. The story on how the US time zone and savings time system came about is told in the article, "Standard and Daylight-saving Time," by Bartky and Harrison in Scientific American, May 1979. 15. HF Time & Frequency Standard Stations Twenty-seven high frequency (2-30 mHz) time and frequency standard stations are indicated in curly brackets ({}). For examples: { WWV }, { WWVH }, { CHU }, { JJY }, ... The "city" latitudes and longitudes used in the tables in these cases are actually the "standard" station coordinates, not the "city" center. For example, standard station RWM (55d 48m N 38d 18m E) is about 20 km east of downtown Moscow (Moskva), USSR (55d 45m N 37d 42m E). The radio based navigation systems, LORAN-C, Omega, Transit and NAVSTAR/Global Positioning System (GPS), and the CIS (ex-Soviet) GLONASS depend on maintaining extremely accurate time and frequency and can be used as standards for most purposes. See Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Electronics, Computer, and Communications published by H. W. Sams and Reference Manual for Telecommunications Engineering by R. L. Freeman, Recommendations and Reports of the CCIR, 1986, Volume VII, "Standard Frequencies and Time Signals," and also NIST (former NBS) Special Publication 432, "NIST Time and Frequency Services." 16. National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) a. NRQZ Boundaries: Parts of Virginia & West Virginia Bounded by 37d 30m N to 39d 15m N in Latitude & 78d 30m W to 80d 30m W in Longitude. b. The purpose of the NRQZ is to protect: NRAO National Radio Astronomy Observatory Green Bank, WV at 38d 26.4m N 079d 49.8m W & NRL Naval Research Laboratory Sugar Grove, WV at 38d 30.7m N 079d 18.6m W For more information on the NRQZ, see "Happenings," pages 53-54, QST, June 1981. 17. Northern California DX Foundation's (NCDXF) HF Beacons The Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) supports beacon stations on 20 meters at 14.100 MHz at various locations around the world. Whether the sunspots are hot or not, these beacons serve to indicate openings to various parts of the world, help calibrate your "S" meter, and act as in-band time and frequency standards. In early 1989, the USA FCC approved similar beacons for 21.150 and 28.200 mHz. Other countries have not acted as of yet. Schedule: Each beacon occupies a one-minute time slot on a rotating basis with the others. For example, 4U1UN/B at the U.N. headquarters in New York City is on the air at every "0" minute; i.e. at the top of the hour, at 10 minutes after, at 20 minutes after, etc. For now, there is no station for the nine minute slot. (Other stations may be off the air occasionally for maintenance, having been stolen, etc). Output sequence: Each message begins and ends with a CW id at 100 watts. In between, the beacon broadcasts a series of continuous tones at 100, 10, 1, and 0.1 watts. TIME CALL LOCATION _________________________________ 00 4U1UN/B New York 01 W6WX/B California 02 KH6O/B Hawaii 03 JA2IGY Japan 04 4X4TU/B Israel 05 OH2B Finland 06 CT3B Madeira Island 07 ZS6DN/B South Africa 08 LU4AA/B Argentina 09 _____/B [ None for now ] Also, at minute 02, the W6WX beacon at Stanford University broadcasts on 21.150 mMHz. At minute 03, it transmits on 28.200 MHz and it is then silent until its turn on 14.100 MHz at minute 11, etc. The other beacons will eventually follow on 21.15 and 28.20 MHz. Reports: The DX Foundation is eager to get reception reports. They've even worked up a way for individual stations to best evaluate day-to-day propagation changes. (It's based on assigning numbers to the different power levels and adding up the total you can hear.) For more information, contact: Northern California DX Foundation P.O. Box 2368 Stanford, CA 94309. Put "Beacon Info" or some such on the envelope so it will immediately be routed to the Beacon Manager without someone having to open your letter to find out what it's about. The foundation is more and more these days going by the name "The DX Foundation" to avoid confusion with the Northern California DX Club, which is an entirely separate group. So, the formal name is still NCDXF, but don't let it throw you if you hear the shorter version. Happy beaconing! [These "Beacon" notes are courtesy of Patty Winter, N6BIS.] See also: ARRL Operating Manual, "20 Meter Beacons Revisited" by W5AE, QST, December 1988., "Tuning the 20 Meter Beacon Network" by K4TWJ, CQ, March 1984, & "Worldwide Beacon Net: ..." by W6ISQ & K6RU, QST, June 1983. 18. Suggestions and Errors Please refer suggestions and errors to W2IOL, rcmcc@canis.bellcore.com. 06 April 1993