[NLRS] Beacon Void

[Bill Davis Jr]

 ARGH..  

   As I am sure all have been reading, the beacon news is bleak. With the WB9BGA EN53 beacon (144.297) OFF and the WA9HCZ EN43 beacon (144.290) "Off and On", trying to get an idea of 2m conditions is now more difficult. With Dave's beacons off the air and Jon's 222 beacon off, there is little left other than 6meters. The EN15 beacon at Johnson,MN is still active (144.277MHz) and does well
 even at 10watts. The Buffalo Ridge location allows it to be heard here 
all the time even over the top of my local 450ft mountain.

  Station to Station activity is all that is left to access the propagation during our short tropo season. If you aren't aware
the "real time" APRS based Propagation Maps at http://www.mountainlake.k12.mn.us/ham/aprs/path.cgi?map=mn can be helpful for conditions "now". But these are based upon APRS repeaters that often have antennas much higher than those of our "amateur" antennas.

  Thanks for the feedback guys, I was "going nuts" trying to figure out what was wrong here. Lets hope that in the near future some of these valuable tools will return. A summer (or more) without reliable beacons on 2m and above makes for "opportunities undiscovered and lost". 

73  Bill K0AWU  EN37ed