The International Beacon Project, sponsored by the North California DX Foundation, is an important network of propagation beacons, 18 in all, spread all around the world on 14100, 18110, 21150, 24930 and 28200 kHz.
These beacons have been operating since the 1980s, and so important are they, in practical terms, to propagation awareness, that they have been granted a protected exclusion zone, meaning NO other transmissions, not even CW, is to take place there so as to avoid interference.
Online tools for propagation prediction are certainly useful, but the real world live situation can best be found by listening on one of these 5 frequencies to see which beacons can be heard: they are not only spaced out in 18 locations around the world, but also transmit down to QRPp levels.
Each of the Beacons stations transmits for 10 seconds on one frequency before moving to the next, and the next beacon then does the same. This means that on all five frequencies there is always one beacon transmitting for 10 seconds at any given time.
This is best demonstrated by viewing the official IBP Page at ncdxf.org/beacons and scrolling down, where you can see live which beacon is transmitting on these frequencies at any given moment. This tool allows those who aren’t proficient in CW to know which you are hearing.
The format of the 10 second long transmission of each of the 18 beacons, meaning a full 3 minutes before the same beacon will transmit again on the same frequency, is interesting and helpful too: first the callsign is given in CW and a first dah, at 100W power, into an elevated Ground Plane.
Each station has the exact same set up, ground plane antennae being universal low angle and high angle radiators in all directions, so that you can truly compare signal strengths from different directions. But there’s more: the second dah is sent at 10W, the 3rd at 1W and the 4th at 100mW!
That’s right: the 3rd CW dah is only 1W QRP, 10dB down on 100W. The fourth is a mere 0.1W and you will be surprised how often you can hear such QRPP over long distances especially if your noise level is low.
Speaking of noise, unfortunately, from time to time an ignorant SSB operator — ignorant that is, either of the existence of these beacons, and the IARU mandated total exclusion zone 0.5 to 1kHz above and below (depending on IARU region), or how CW receivers have an offset.
CW Operators who aren’t familiar with SSB may also be a little confused about how that works, so we’ve also created a page which explains why SSB operators need to be at least 2kHz ABOVE the beacon frequencies to avoid QRM to these beacons.
If you hear an SSB operator who is preventing you from hearing the beacons due to splatter or being within the CW passband of the beacon, or want to know yourself how this works, please refer them to the page no5nn.org/ssb which will explain everything in detail.
This can be a better option than attempting to confront them live on air, since you may be angry at the QRM, or they may not be understanding of your good intentions. Instead, as a first option, see if they have a public Email on QRZ and if so send them an Email referring them to no5nn.org/ssb.
If they do not, of course you should attempt to inform them on the frequency after preferably asking them to QSY UP 2, and then inform them that their transmissions 2 kHz below were causing interference to the International Beacon Project, and refer them to no5nn.org/ssb for more info.