I didn't have a good Windows answer to this question until this week.
 In the process of reading about the intense geomagnetic activity on
  http://prop.hfradio.org
I came across an ARRL propagation forecast bulletin where they
mentioned and gave a hyperlink for w6elprop.

I used to use Miniprop by W6EL, written in 1987, in DOS.  I still
have it and use it in a DOS box of Windows 98.  W6elprop is a Windows
95 version of the program.  Its displays of MUF and signal strength
versus time look similar to the DOS version.  It must be in a
fixed-pitch font, because I could put Window-Eyes in a mode where it
reads one word at the mouse pointer as you go up and down the screen,
and it tracked perfectly.  You need to use the mouse pointer (JAWS
cursor) to read much of the information, but the program seems to use
quite standard controls for taking input.

My experience with Miniprop was that it lost accuracy as you got
beyond about 4,000 miles, especially on polar paths and on the long
path.  I don't know whether accuracy has improved during the past 16
years, but it may have.

On the ARRL web site I found a link to "ITS HF Propagation" software
from NOAA in Boulder, Colorado.  This includes the well-respected
Ioncap and other programs used by the Voice of America and other
government agencies to predict optimum frequencies for various paths.
 This software is also accessible with Window-Eyes.  But it takes a
huge number of parameters, and some of the defaults don't make much
sense for amateurs, so I didn't have the patience to set up what I
wanted from it.  You could in principle do just about anything with
that set of programs.  One very useful part of that download is a
number of .geo files which provide latitude and longitude for tens of
thousands of cities in the U.S., and a couple thousand cities outside
the U.S.  That feature is quite educational.


On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:10:38 -0000, Kevin Nathan wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>Has anyone on the list using JFW experimented with any of the propagation
>prediction software; and, if so, how accessible have you found any such
>packages to be?
>
>Thanks much and very 73.
>
>Kevin :)
>Amateur Radio:  K7RX

Braille is the solution to the digital divide.
Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, Maryland
home: <http://lras.home.sprynet.com/>
Work:  <http://www.loc.gov/nls/>