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SARL/HMO 40m BEACON PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT
12 April 2009
Many interested parties will have noticed that things appear to have been very quiet with regards to the 40m Beacon Project over the last 6 months.
We would like to thank all those Hams and other people who have continued to show interest and sent us emails during this period.
The purpose of this notice is to announce a temporary suspension in the Beacon project with immediate effect until further notice.
The main reasons behind this are as follows:
1)       There have been numerous issues associated with placing continuously operating beacons at the QTH of operating HAMS and therefore further installations of the beacons needs to occur in collaboration with clubs across the country. This has licensing implications which still needs to be looked into, as well as consultation with the various clubs that will be involved.
2)       The new HAM 40m band allocation will move the beacon operating frequency, and therefore, it is necessary to avoid further expense and inconvenience to wait until this issue has been resolved and then apply for a new frequency for the project.
3)       At the end of the test session for the beacon project it was decided to rework the antenna design for the beacons to make it more robust and easier to install (particularly with a view to permanent club house installations). This has been done but now the antennas will need to be re-built.
In addition, the major role players in the project have been hectically busy with saltmine work, and with many other projects for the SARL.

We stress that the project is only temporarily suspended and we will be working on the issues mentioned above, and will have a re-launch when all has been sorted out and we are ready to roll out the beacons.

We extend our sincere appreciation to all those HAMS who offered to host beacons and have been so positive about the project. Please continue to be positive and supportive!!

On the HF propagation front we are pleased to tell you that the HMO has a number of students working on improving HF propagation predictions over the Southern African region.
A monitoring station for the international beacon project has been set up at HMO and the results from this can be viewed on a new Space Weather website, http://spaceweather.hmo.ac.za

The beacon email address, beacon@hmo.ac.za, will continue to operate and as soon as there is any exciting news this will be posted to the websites.

73s
The Beacon Project Team