The Voice of America Coverage Analysis Program (VOACAP) is a modified version of IONCAP version 04.85 (the Ionospheric Communications Analysis and Prediction program written at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, Boulder CO). Currently, VOACAP for point-to-point link analysis and its sister program VOAAREA for area coverage with global mapping exist for use with Windows 95 or NT and are available at no cost from ITS. Both programs are very similar to IONCAP in terms of input and output parameters. Numerous program errors have been corrected and the radio noise model has been upgraded.

IONCAP documentation is lacking and scattered. One of the reasons for this site is to provide users of the IONCAP family of programs with a point of contact for finding needed information about these programs. George Lane assisted in writing the statement of work for IONCAP in 1975 and has worked with the authors [ John Lloyd, George Haydon, Don Lucas and Larry Teters ] of the program until further development work stopped at ITS in 1985. From 1985 until 1996, development work on VOACAP was preformed by Frank Rhoads at the Naval Research Laboratory and by George Lane at the Voice of America in Washington DC. The new RF noise model was developed for the Voice of America by Don Spaulding and Frank Stewart at ITS. NOTE: Questions pertaining to the running of the program, desired changes to the program or other programs available at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences should be addressed to Greg Hand. Greg is the sole individual left at ITS with a background in the use of these programs. He has also written all of the code for the interactive input screens, output screens, graphics and global mapping. His services can be acquired easily using the procedure given at this site: http://flattop.its.bldrdoc.gov/crada2.html.

George Lane has acquired copies of the documentation used by Don Lucas, George Haydon, John Lloyd and Miles Merkel in the development of IONCAP and the earlier programs, ITSA-1, ITS-78, RADAR and HFMUFES. These includes the notes and correspondence by Tim Shaw and Al Silva at the US Army Signal Radio Propagation Agency, as well as a nearly complete library of all the Tech Reports from RPA (1946 - 1964). Also George Lane has a complete set of all documents pertaining to the changes made to IONCAP in the creation of VOACAP.

In the future it is expected that questions sent to George Lane will be posted on this page along with the answer, if there is one. Much of the success in HF sky wave communications is more art than science. However, if you really want success over the long haul, you will be really impressed with the accuracy of the IONCAP family of prediction programs. Let us not lose this half century of development in the knowledge, design and operation of HF radio.