NAME
ibp - show which of the International Beacon Project beacons is
transmitting
SYNOPSIS
ibp [arguments]
DESCRIPTION
IBP shows which of the beacons of the International Beacon Project is
transmitting now.
The following arguments can be used:
a band expressed either in MHz (14, 18, 21, 24 or 28) or in meters (20,
17, 15, 12 or 10); if no band is specified, the program starts in
multi-band mode.
a Maidenhead locator (like JO32KF or JO32), to be used for the
calculation of distance and azimuth (both short and long path) to each
beacon.
-c, --nocolour
don’t use colour, even on a colour terminal.
-m, --morse
display callsign of active beacon in morse code (not in multi-
band mode).
-x, --nograph
don’t open the X11 window (showing a world map with the beacon
locations, and short and long paths) even if the DISPLAY
environment variable is set. This option is only available if
X11 support has been compiled in.
Note: since each beacon transmission lasts only 10 seconds, your
computer’s clock should be set reasonably accurately for the results to
be valid.
Note: no net connection is required to use ibp.
THE INTERNATIONAL BEACON PROJECT
The International Beacon Project is a set of 18 amateur (ham) radio
transmitters around the world, each of which transmit every 3 minutes
on a set of 5 short-wave frequencies. This allows short-wave radio
users to quickly assess the current worldwide propagation conditions.
Much more information can be found on http://www.ncdxf.org/beacons.html
AUTHOR
Pieter-Tjerk de Boer <pa3fwm@amsat.org>; via amateur packet-radio:
PA3FWM @ PI8DAZ.#TWE.NLD.EU.
The X11 display code is heavily based on the ’sunclock’ program by John
Mackin <john@cs.su.oz.AU>.