How the Beacon Works
A Raspberry Pi 5 gathers data from about twenty public sources every half hour, writes the reports, and speaks them with Piper text-to-speech voices, with CW identification and section titles.
| Data | Source |
|---|---|
| Weather, forecasts, alerts | National Weather Service |
| Tides, bay temperatures, currents | NOAA CO-OPS |
| Ocean buoys | NOAA National Data Buoy Center |
| Air quality | OpenAQ and the Bay Area Air District |
| Earthquakes | US Geological Survey |
| Space weather | NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center |
| Maximum usable frequency | ionosondes, via KC2G |
| DX spots | DX cluster network and the Reverse Beacon Network |
| Tropospheric ducting | radiosonde soundings (Iowa State, University of Wyoming) and NOAA GFS model data |
| Satellites | CelesTrak orbits and AMSAT status |
Station: K6EEG, San Francisco, grid CM87. Current transmitter: 10 milliwatts into a discone antenna, 10 meters above ground, while the permanent transmitter and site are prepared.