A Simplified Sounding System for Finding NVIS Channel Availability to Support Government Radio Networks in Indonesia

Abstract

Mostly  natural disasters in Java Island such as landslides are within the vicinity of not more than 200 Km from the district capital. Cellular communications require complex systems and rather vulnerable  to cope with disasters. NVIS mode is considered as a simple radio link during disaster mitigation initiation process. It needs a valid estimation to figure out the condition of the ionosphere. There are two purposes of this study, the first of which is an attempt to find out a fact the existences of authorized HF users who still work in the band of 3 MHz – 10 MHz.  The second is to integrate low cost HF radio communication, commonly available small single board computer hardware, and opensource software, to build a sounding system to evaluate the quality of NVIS channels. Prediction system such VOACAP give hourly prediction data, however it has an inherent limitation because of   nature the underlying databases is monthly average based, therefore, the estimation could not be made in a daily bases. However, a real-time channel evaluation (RTCE)  able to purify maximum observed frequency (MOF) estimation, and consequently, its able to select the best available frequency for short term  and real time operation. In this study, we used WSPR to perform a simple RTCE technique. Furthermore, we also reviewed the current regulatory status regarding  the availability of sub-10 MHz band for NVIS radio operation. The results show that discrepancies between simulation and measurement are occurred mainly because of sporadic data in the band of 60m and 80m. However, all of the measurement results and simulations almost have the same agreement regarding the quiet period between local midnight and local sunrise. The results of measurements show that 60m band is the most reliable NVIS channel between local sunrise and local midnight. Furthermore, 100 watts is a proper transmitter power to reach the required SNR for reliable voice communication.