BEACON by W2NN Art Glazar, W2NN, has written what I consider to be the most full-featured of the DOS programs. His program, BEACON, allows you to set your own latitude and longitude and then tells you the short-path distance and the short- and long-path beam headings to each beacon. I tested Version 1.08 in a DOS window under Windows 95. When one runs BEACON, one uses F1 to view the help file, F2 to change bands, F3 to correct the clock and F4 to edit your QTH information and the information about the beacons. You can also record the signal strength of any beacons you hear on the screen as you listen. BEACON has one feature which may make some Windows users prefer to use it instead of the Windows-specific programs: The information for all eighteen beacons is on the screen at all times and the currently transmitting beacon is highlighted. This would be important, for example, if you needed the beam heading of a particular beacon well before that beacon was to transmit so you could rotate your antenna to point at it. Also, Art has tested the program running from a floppy disk. The program does not explicitly keep track of which beacons are not in operation on which bands, but suggests the convention of placing a question mark after the call of a beacon that is not on the air at all and an exclamation mark after the call of a beacon that is transmitting on some but not all bands. You can request a copy of the program from Art by e-mail at aglazar@ieee.org. (Review by N6EK)