Maps of all LW NDB’s Logged as of 2013-05-10

I created a couple of maps plotting all the non-directional beacons I’ve logged thus far.

NDB – Non-Directional Beacon BE 332kHz – Concord MA USA

Location:  42.479767, -71.388970

City:  Concord, MA USA

Freq:  332 kHz

Call:  BE

Power: <25 Watts

Associated Airport:  BED

Deep in the mosquito infested woods of historic Concord MA is a locator outer marker associated with Hanscom Airport/AFB (BED) in Bedford MA.  There are two different services emanating from the site.

First, this is the transmission site for non-directional beacon ‘BE’.  The site utilizes a flat top multi-wire T-aerial consisting of three wires strung between what looks like a pair of extra tall utility poles.  In the center of the span is a drop wire that connects to the actual transmitter located at the shack.  The station constantly sends out the letters ‘BE’ in morse code which is received by airplane pre-gps navigation equipment which uses it to calculate location.

Secondly there is an outer marker co-located at the site (see above picture).  This sends out a signal received by a plane’s ILS landing system to notify the pilot of his location on the path toward the runway.

WX RadioFax 2013-02-22

I decoded my first weatherfax back on February 22nd.  The frequency tuned was 4235 kHz and I used Black Cat Systems’ HF Fax app for iPad.

The most exciting NAVTEX broadcast received so far…

This morning 22-feb-2013 around 05:00 local (10:00 UTC) I received the most exciting NAVTEX broadcast so far….. a ship taking on water!   I mean….that isn’t something one should celebrate… but it was still kind of cool!

Apparently the ship is called the Megan-Marie and at one point it was about 85 miles east of Nantucket island taking on water.  A link to the news story is here.

LWDX NAVTEX Loggings 2013-02-17

First off……what is NAVTEX?

NAVTEX (navigational telex) is a radio transmitted telex data signal that, when received by special equipment, is translated into text and either printed or displayed.  Its purpose is to provide a marine forecast for boats on the open sea.  All over the globe, these text forecasts are provided in english on 518kHz in  sideband (SSB) mode.  To the naked ear, these data streams sound like this.  Stations are grouped together geographically and cover between 200-300 nautical miles from their location.  They also transmit on an alternating schedule so each area forecast has a chance to be received.  Broadcasts seem to last anywhere between 2 and 25 minutes depending on how much information needs to be disseminated.  Now that we have that out of the way….

Yesterday I received my Tecsun-PL660 today which is the first radio I’ve ever had that covered 518kHz and had SSB modes for LW/MW.  This is the first time I’ve been able to DX and decode NAVTEX transmissions!  I then downloaded Black Cat System’s NAVTEX decoder for the iPhone.  The two work great together – hold the iPhone up to a headphone speaker about two feet away from the radio (phone causes interference when close) and the phone will display the text being transmitted.  Nerdgasm!

I first decoded the local transmission from Camp Edwards, Cape Cod MA.  The transmitter is about 60 miles away so it’s not really DX.  It was more of a practice run to get acquainted with the decoder app and the radio.  Later that night I went into DX mode.  Here is what I found!!  Be sure to check out the full texts!

There was one faint unidentified broadcast that mentions the Caribbean and Puerto Rico.  Also i received a broadcast that I could hear but was unable to do any decoding on.  Based on the time it came on the air, it probably was Goose Bay Labrador.  I will target this one in the near future.

NDB – Non-Directional Beacon OW 397kHz – Stoughton MA USA

Location: 42.119598, -71.128304

City: Stoughton, MA USA

Freq: 397 kHz

Call: OW

Power: <25 Watts

Associated Airport: OWD

Today I visited the transmission site of non-directional beacon OW in Stoughton MA.  I knew I was going to be in the area so I allocated a little extra time for this nerd-venture.

The antenna on the left with the “top hat” is the NDB.  It sends out a transmission on 397 kHz consisting of the repeating morse code of the NDB’s identification call.  In this case it is sending  “OW” (dash dash dash, dot dash dash).  Navigational equipment on a plane receives signals from NDB’s and uses them to triangulate location.  Back in the day pilots did this manually with a directional antenna at their control.

The v-shaped antenna on the right is a separate navigational aide co-located at the site called an “outer marker”.  It sends a signal on 75 mHz straight up which is received by a plane notifying that it is in direct line for runway approach.

Here is a YouTube video of the audio transmission from OW.