[Laser] Proposed beacon

[Kerry Banke]

Paul - 
  Interesting you should bring up the subject or an IR beacon. A couple of weeks ago Lee, KD0IF and I installed a 200 LED 940 nm  weather proof beacon on top of his work building about 7.5 miles NLOS from my QTH. I have been monitoring the forward scatter signal from it's crystal controlled 450 Hz tone a number of nights when possible. It has a timer which turns it on for about 1 hour after dark.  So far the signal has always been detectable using Spectrum Lab although the level has varied from maybe  5-20 dB above the noise in a 1 Hz BW depending on the moisture/polution content.  This is using my 12" cast Aluminum 39 GHz dish lined with shiney foil tape,  7mm area pin detector, and 790 nm long pass optical filter. As I have always found in the past  when monitoring forward scatter, the signal is strongest when pointed at the optical horizon The next step is to install an MP3 player in the beacon to send   text in several digital modes including PSK and Jason formats.  Let
 me know if any of what we're doing here might be of use to your project.
   - Kerry N6IZW with the San Diego Microwave Group

Paul Cianciolo <Paulc at snet.net> wrote:
  Hello Folks,

Kerry Banke's experiments with NLOS LED arrays, along with finding my
original 816 diode array seems to have revived my interest in the same.

At my house located at 41.77485 N and 73.05395 W is sitting at 1010 feet
ASL with an excellent unobstructed horizon to the south and 40 degrees
either side.
In addition the LED array can be located at 100' about the ground level.

My home coordinates have been include to give anyone interested parties to
do a feasibility study

I could with a little work get the old array going, and with a little more
work make an even larger array.

Any one on Long Island or somewhere in between have a shot in this
direction?

The beacon could run CW, QRSS or one the PSK variants

Let me know.

Paul Cianciolo W1VLF
Rescue Electronics Surplus

Please visit our website:
http://www.rescueelectronics.com

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