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A Real Time Hf Beacon Monitoring Station for South Africa

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A Real Time Hf Beacon Monitoring Station for South Africa A REAL TIME HF BEACON MONITORING STATION FOR SOUTH AFRICA A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE of Rhodes University by Courage Mudzingwa June 2009 i Abstract High frequency, HF (3 - 30 MHz), radio communications are greatly affected by ionospheric conditions. Both civilian and military users need reliable, real time propagation information to show at any time the feasibility of communicating to any part of the world on a particular frequency band. For this thesis, an automa- ted receiving/monitoring station for the Northern California DX Foundation (NC- DXF)/ International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) International Beacon Project was setup at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, HMO (34.42oS, 19.22oE) to monitor international beacons on 20 m, 17 m, 15 m, 12 m and 10 m bands. The beacons form a world wide multiband network. The task of monitoring the beacons was broken down into two steps. Initially the single band station, at 14.10 MHz, was installed and later it was upgraded to a multiband station capable of automa- tically monitoring all the five HF bands. The single band station setup involved the construction and installation of the half-wave dipole antenna, construction and installation of an HF choke balun; and the choice of Faros 1.3 as the appropriate monitoring software. The multiband monitoring station set-up involved the insta- llation of an MFJ-1778 G5RV multiband antenna, construction and installation of a Communication Interface - V (CI-V) level converter and configuring the Fa- ros 1.3 software to monitor the beacons on all five HF bands. Then a web page was created on the HMO space weather website (http://spaceweather.hmo.ac.za). Here, the real-time signal to noise ratio (SNR) and short path (SP)/long path (LP) plots are uploaded every 3 minutes, showing real time HF propagation conditions on the five HF bands. Historical propagation data are archived for later analysis. A preliminary data analysis was done to confirm the operation of the monitoring station. The archived data were analysed and compared to ICEPAC (Ionosphe- ric Communications Enhanced Profile Analysis and Circuit) predictions. Results show that the real-time signal plots as well as the archive of historical signal plots, convey information on propagation conditions to users in terms that are easy to interpret and understand. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Dr. L.A. McKinnell and Mr. Lindsay Magnus for providing all the necessary insights and guidance throughout the project to make it a success. I also extend my gratitude to my parents and family for their unwavering support during this period of study away from home. I would like to express my appreciation to the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP), South Africa for funding my studies. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.1.1 Long distance HF propagation . 1 1.1.2 The International Beacon Project (IBP) . 2 1.2 Aims of study . 3 1.3 Significance of study . .4 1.4 Thesis layout . 4 2 Theory 6 2.1 The Ionosphere . 6 2.1.1 The D layer . 8 2.1.2 The E layer . 8 2.1.3 The F layer . 8 2.1.3.1 Spread F . 9 2.2 Ionospheric variations . 9 2.2.1 Regular variations . 9 2.2.1.1 Diurnal variation . 9 2.2.1.2 Seasonal variation. .10 2.2.1.3 Solar cycle variation. .10 2.2.1.4 Latitudinal variation . 11 2.2.2 Irregular variations . 11 2.2.2.1 Sporadic E . 11 2.2.2.2 Sudden ionospheric disturbance (SID) . 11 2.2.2.3 Ionospheric storms . 12 2.3 Ionospheric HF radio propagation . 12 2.3.1 Ionospheric refraction . 13 2.4 Antenna fundamentals. .15 iii iv 2.4.1 Properties of antennas. .15 2.4.1.1 Gain . 15 2.4.1.2 Reciprocity . 16 2.4.1.3 Directivity . 16 2.4.1.4 Polarisation . 17 2.4.2 Types of antennas . 17 2.4.2.1 Half-wave dipole antenna. .17 2.4.2.2 Inverted-vee dipole antenna . 18 2.4.2.3 The G5RV multiband antenna . 19 2.4.3 HF choke balun . 20 2.5 HF radio transceiver (IC-728) and computer interfacing. .21 2.6 The NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Project. .22 2.6.1 Beacon monitoring software . 24 2.7 HF propagation prediction models . 24 2.8 Summary. .25 3 ZS1HMO monitoring station 26 3.1 Single band set-up. .26 3.1.1 Construction and installation of the half-wave dipole antenna . 27 3.1.2 Construction of the coaxial HF choke balun . 28 3.1.3 Monitoring software . 28 3.1.4 Monitoring the beacons on single band . 30 3.2 Multiband set-up . 30 3.2.1 Installation of the G5RV multiband antenna . 30 3.2.2 Construction and installation of the CI-V level converter. .32 3.2.3 Multiband beacon monitoring . 34 4. Results........................................................37 4.1 Real-time propagation conditions . 37 4.1.1 Single band signal plots . 37 4.1.2 Multiband signal plots. .39 4.2 Worldwide beacon reception . 40 4.2.1 Africa . 41 4.2.2 Asia. .41 4.2.3 Europe . 42 4.2.4 North America . 43 v 4.2.5 South America . 43 4.2.6 Analysis of worldwide beacon reception . 44 4.3 An application: Validation of ICEPAC model . 45 4.3.1 5Z4B - ZS1HMO circuit path. 45 4.3.2 RR9O - ZS1HMO circuit path . 50 4.3.3 Analysis of the results of validating ICEPAC . 52 5. Conclusion ...................................................56 5.1 Possible future work . 57 6. References ....................................................59 List of figures 1.1 HF propagation through the ionosphere (after Carr, 2001b). .2 2.1 Definition of the ionospheric layers based on the vertical distribution of elec- tron density (after Banks and Kockarts, 1973) . 7 2.2 The ionospheric layers during the day (A) and night (B) (Laster, 2000) . 10 2.3 Refraction and reflection phenomenon between two media of different densities (after Carr, 2001a) . ..
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