AG fuer technische Informatik Meystre
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HF_MAP the graphical short-wave propagation’s
On this page you will find monthly the actual short-wave propagation’s and other facts concerning
Short-wave communication forecasts, computing and views. The first graphical output was created 1981
using print-plot technique. Currently I am using animated GIFs to display the 24 hour maps
of the medium day of the month. As next step, VRML will be used to navigate around the world
and view the different frequency areas from space.
The critical frequency f0F2 seen from space
is just the preview of a single picture created with the OpenGL library.
Short-wave propagation depends mainly from the sun spot number ssn, the date and daytime.
In the last years the ssn values was on their minimum, but this will change, even slowly,
in a cycle of about 11 years. At low sun spot numbers the intercontinental short-wave
propagation’s are rather worse. Watch the sun spot number of the last years
on this chart. Sun spot numbers are registered since 1610. The value go from 0 to about 300.
the actual conditions of the month and the past: Maximum Usable Frequency MUF from/to base location Switzerland, valid as base of
central Europe, displayed as animated GIF of about 44K. Each month sequence is a collection of 24 hourmaps of a day,
starting at 12utc. To see all maps at the rate of 1/second, you need a browser supporting animated GIFs as
Netscape Navigator 2 and above or MS-IExplorer 3 does. Other browsers without this support will display the
first map of 12utc only. ( utc Universal Time Coordinated, same as GMT )
This maps was produced with the software program HF_MAP.
A free 16-Bit demoversion can be downloaded to run on Windows 3.x , Win95, Windows_NT ( and even on DEC Alpha AXP ).
Get it now and free ---> 16-Bit-Demoversion of HF_MAP (325K)
With the 16-Bit HF_MAP Version, the only one currently available, you can create such maps for
any base location. For computing time reasons the MINIMUF computation functions are used,
a fine and simple algorithm in 50 BASIC lines only, presented by Robert Rose K6GKU 1982 in QST-Magazine.
The real frequency coverage is much more complex and needs several thousand codelines in FORTRAN or C++
to compute a more realistic view of the conditions. This computation are very time intensive and
will require hours or even days of continuous computing for the map creation. 144 precomputed maps of the complex
types are delivered with HF_MAP for the base location central Europe and the sun spot numbers
10, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150, for each month.
TO ORDER THE FULL VERSION OF HF_MAP OR TAKE A LOOK AT EBAYclick here
