Do you have a ham radio or
other shortwave/HF radio website and want to display
propagation information to your visitors? PropagationStats is a small bit
of code that can be easily added to your radio-related website
to display current radio propagation condition information. Once
installed, your website will have a graphical indicator showing
the current radio propagation indicies (A-Index, K-Index, and
Solar Flux Index) and will also show HF radio propagation
blackout alert information. Ham Radio operators, shortwave
enthusiasts and others interested in high frequency (HF) radio
propagation conditions will appreciate this addition to your
site. PropagationStats is free of charge - my only request is
that if you do use it on your site, that you keep the links back
to
www.n0hr.com
in-tact.
PropagationStats grabs its data from the
same place as the WWV radio propagation transmissions. These
broadcasts originate from the U.S. National Institute of
Standards and Technology radio station WWV in Ft.
Collins, Colorado at 18 minutes past each hour on shortwave frequencies of
2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. The same information is broadcast at
45 minutes past each hour on radio station WWVH in Hawaii on
2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz.
Once loaded in your visitor's browser,
current propagation indices are displayed in the bottom of the
window. Radio blackout information is presented after the image
has completely loaded and will scroll across the screen from
right to left.
Radio blackout information is presented on two
lines:
- The top line presents the expected
radio blackout information
- The lower line presents radio
blackout information for the past 24 hours.
Radio blackouts are graded on a scale of
R1 to R5 as follows:
Radio Blackouts |
Descriptor |
R5 |
Extreme |
R4 |
Severe |
R3 |
Strong |
R2 |
Moderate |
R1 |
Minor |
Solar flux is a measurement of the intensity of
solar radio emissions with a wavelength of 10.7 cm (a
frequency of about 2800 MHz). The value broadcast is in
solar flux units that range from a theoretical minimum of
about 50 to numbers larger than 300. The A and K indices are
a measurement of the behavior of the magnetic field
in and around the earth. The K index uses a scale
from 0 to 9 to measure the change in the horizontal
component of the geomagnetic field.
A static image of the PropagationStats tool is shown below and the current real-time
PropagationStats tool should appear in the left part of this
page.