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BeaconClock by KW7KW

BeaconClock, written by Stan Huntting, KW7KW, can be found at http://www.huntting.com/. This is a 32-bit program which runs under Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT. I downloaded and tested version 2.01 which Stan says corrects bugs in the earlier versions and supports regional system differences. You can contact Stan at stan@huntting.com.

One picks one of the five bands to monitor using radio buttons and BeaconClock shows the beacon that transmitted previously on that band, the beacon currently transmitting on that band and the next three beacons which will transmit on that band. For each beacon it shows the short-path and long-path beam headings from your QTH and the short-path distance in kilometers.

The callsigns of W6WX and KH6WO are grayed out on the WARC bands because these beacons are not transmitting on the WARC bands at this time. The information about which beacons should be grayed out is built into BeaconClock. Stan asks users to alert him about changes so he can update his program.

Clicking the "Clock" button brings up a separate window for setting the clock on your computer which is nicely designed for people who adjust their clocks by a small amount using a signal that occurs once a minute like the one from WWV. BeaconClock displays UTC in its window, even if your computer clock keeps local time.

Clicking the "QTH" button allows you to enter your own latitude and longitude and specify the offset of your clock from UTC. It also allows you to check a box which keeps the BeaconClock window on top of all the other windows which can help to keep it from getting lost.

Clicking the "List" button produces a window with a list of all the beacons, their short and long path beam headings and their distance from you in kilometers. A button in this window allows you to print the list, however when I tried it, BeaconClock crashed. Stan assures me it doesn't crash on most people's systems.

BeaconClock uses an ellipsoidal earth model and double-precision math to calculate great circle paths between station and beacon. The distance from station to beacon is rounded to the appropriate precision for each beacon based on the precision of the location data available for that beacon.

(Review by N6EK)

BeaconClock Screen Shot

Addendum

ZL2IFB points out that BeaconClock is now at version 3.31 and that it runs well under Windows XP.