Beacon Assistant is a simple little program that just points to the spot on a world map where a radio beacon is transmitting. At least where one is supposed to be transmitting. There may be times and places and frequencies where they are not transmitting due to extraordinary circumstances but this program has no way of knowing that. It just shows you whose turn it is whether they are transmitting or not. If it isn’t transmitting then you can think of it as planning for the future.

If you are not familiar with NCDXF / IARU beacons then you will want to look for information on the Web. IARU.ORG and NCDXF.ORG are good places to start. In a nutshell, there are 18 stations around the world that take turns transmitting on a specified frequency on each of 5 Amateur bands. Each of the stations will ‘own’ a particular frequency for 10 seconds. During that time each will ID in Morse at 22 w.p.m. then send 4 dashes (those are long sounds for you no-coders, lo-coders and other non-hams) of 1 second each at 100 watts, 10 watts, 1 watt and 0.1 watt. With this information you can tell within a few moments to where your band of choice is open and the expected quality of signals of various power levels.

This version of Beacon Assistant has a public registration key. All registered features are available without charge. Simply right click on the map and enter your name and call sign.

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