Reference Material

What the Numbers Mean -

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/k9la-prop.html

Lots of great information available from:

Propagation -

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/propagation.html

Propagation Planning for DXpeditions

- Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/propplan.pdf

Propagation Planning for Contests

- Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA

http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/pdf/propcontest.pdf

Strategies Using Propagation Predictions for DXing and Contesting

- Dean Straw, N6BV

http://www.kkn.net/dayton2005/dayton-2005-antenna-forum.html

Signal-to-Noise Predictions Using VOACAP

Written by George Lane under contract from Rockwell Collins

http://elbert.its.bldrdoc.gov/pc_hf/rockwell/

Here is an interesting and useful web site:

"Map of Effective Ground Conductivity in the USA"

http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/m3/index.html

More antenna information on use of VOACAP may be found here:

http://www.voacap.com/yagis.html

Jim Reisert AD1C compiled the original country prefix-data files. www.k1ea.com/cty

For our particular purpose - the country-file data was heavily modified using reference information from numerous other sources.

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Here are some books suggested by Bob, NM7M that would be helpful in regard to learning about propagation. They are listed in ascending order of scope and difficulty:

ARRL Handbook, American Radio Relay League

Antenna Book, American Radio Relay League

The New Shortwave Propagation Handbook, by Jacobs, Cohen and Rose, CQ Communications, Inc. (1995)

The Little Pistol's Guide to HF Propagation, by Robert R. Brown, Worldradio Books (1996)

Radio Amateurs Guide to the Ionosphere, by Leo F. McNamara, Krieger Publishing Company (1994)

Ionospheric Radio, by Kenneth Davies, Peter Peregrinus Ltd. (1989)

Credits:

This GIF tools in this software are based, in part, on the work of Anders Melander.

One of the issues surrounding the GIF format is that the LZW algorithm was protected in the USA by a patent held by the company Unisys. The Unisys LZW patent expired in the USA on June 20, 2003. LZW patents are expired in Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan.