[DSP-10] Hearing Tehachapi Beacon in DM05!

[Courtney Duncan]

Hey Guys,

Listening to the calling frequency, 144.200, on the eve of the ARRL QSO 
Party, I overheard somebody mention the Tehachapi Beacon up on 144.292. 
  The story and the screen dump are at the bottom of my DSP-10 page:

http://home.earthlink.net/%7Ejccool3/dsp10.html

What is remarkable here is that I'm blocked by mountains to the north 
and have never heard anything in DM05 or DM15 or CM95 or further north 
than that from home before.  I knew I could work San Diego and Tijuana 
from here, having a good view to the south, but I didn't think anything 
north of Saugus was possible.  This is something like a 100 km shot over 
mountains in the 2000 meter range.  (Elevation here is about 390 meters.)

Does anyone on the list know if this beacon is "permanent" or if it's 
just up for the contest?  Does anyone know of other beacons that should 
be hearable regularly or occasionally from Southern California?  There 
is talk of hearing the Hawaii beacon from here and I hear other people 
trying but haven't copied it myself (even in the waterfall, which is 
_great_ for this sort of thing!).

Unfortunately, it's not quite loud enough to use to get a good beam 
pattern for my new M^2 2M12, but you can sure tell the beam is working 
while it rotates around on this!  Maybe there will be a tropo opening 
sometime.  (Maybe this _is_ a tropo opening.)

n5bf/6