I thought Morse Code Was Dead

[woodyrr]

This is a little outside scanning, but it is radio.

On my way to Norman this morning around nine, I was listening to KRMG 740 kHz out of Tulsa. About when I got to Sooner and Tecumseh Road and all the way to my destination in west Norman, I heard what sounded like a repeating morse code mixed with the AM signal. It was running slowly enough that I was able to determine that if it actually was morse code, the letters were O S N. It was still going on at three PM or so when I returned home. Just as it had in the morning, I lost it at Sooner and Tecumseh. The radio in my truck tunes in 10 kHz steps and it was not present at 730 or 750. Any idea what it could have been? I regularly listen to KRMG in the mornings, including when I go to Norman, and this is the first instance of this.

 

[nd5y]

You were probably hearing OUN, not OSN. The OUN NDB on 260 kHz is located at the Norman airport. Your car radio was probably getting intermod or an image or something. Try the 2nd or 3rd harmonics of 260 kHz which would be 520 or 780 kHz and see if you hear it better.

Except for ham radio, morse code is pretty much dead for communications purposed but it is still used for station identification quite often.

 

[xerb1962]

Geeze man, enough with the acronyms already nd5y.

woodyrr, NDB stands for non directional beacon, that is no doubt what you were hearing on the low end of the AM broadcast band.

More info here: Non-Directional Beacon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[woodyrr]

Thanks.

I guess that's what it was. I have never heard it before and I hope that it is gone by the time I drive down that way again.

 

[K4IHS]

Rotflmao

 

[poppafred]

....I hope that it is gone by the time I drive down that way again.

It won't be.

The FAA is not about to get rid of a non-directional beacon because it interferes with a broadcast station's reception in a car radio.

Too many aircraft rely on NDB's for safety.

Just one of those things we have to learn to live with.

 

[crayon]

In extreme situations a pilot could tune a broadcast AM station on the NDB radio and use it for navigation.

An obviously high risk choice, but still doable.

 

[woodyrr]

Wirelessly posted (Woody\'s iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C144 Safari/528.16)

I wasn't suggesting that the beacon be turned off. I was hoping that whatever anomaly that was making it audible on my radio would go away.

 

[dbestfirefighter]

Fyi

NDB's are being phased out by the FAA due to GPS approaches. NDB approaches are not used near what they used to be 40 years ago. Automatic Direction Finder's (this is instrument that picks up the NDB signal) will be required for any international flight. This process was started in 2000 and like any other government project is slow going.

 

[xerb1962]

That's right, the NDB at the Guthrie airport (LCY) was shut down over two years ago.

 

[KE5CCA]

The OUN NDB is not maintained by the FAA. Could need some tuning or it could be second harmonic bleeding ..

 

[plaws]

The OUN NDB is not maintained by the FAA. Could need some tuning or it could be second harmonic bleeding ..

Who does? OU? If you go to Norman and visit the SuperMegaTarget, you can see the antenna right across the street. Horizontal wire suspended between two poles.

 

[KE5CCA]

Who does? OU?

Someone contracted by OU that has something to do with television. I know that does not make a whole lot of sense, but the answer that I got was a rambling one ..

 

[n5bew1]

Back when Dean Waddell owned TD's Radio and TV in Norman which was actually a full service Motorola service shop they used to work on the radio stuff at the Westheimer control tower. Now Leon Matula owns it but they still service Two way's. They may still work on the NDB stuff.

 

[Sparky_one]

Morse

There is still a lot of Morse Code out there on the bands especially in a time of minimal solar flares and sunspots affecting band conditions. They lower ends of the bands are usually quite busy. But as the old hams go silent key you see more PSK because it can occupy the same space as Morse and fit in at least 3 times more traffic. You can fit 3 PSK transmissions in the bandwidth of a Morse transmission. You can set up PSK with a cheap computer and the simplest transceiver.

As for OUN their Id is dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dash, dash. I believe they asked for a waiver to keep the NDB operating but that is not new info.

 

[robynsjw]

Shouldn't that be
dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dash, dash-dot

 

[plaws]

Shouldn't that be
dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dash, dash-dot

On a Sectional, yeah, but on the air, it's dadadah dididah dadit.

 

[woodyrr]

I drove downTecumseh road again yesterday and the OUN signal was still present at 740 kHz. The radio in my truck only goes down to 530 kHz, but there was nothing there or on 780 kHz.

 

[plaws]

I drove downTecumseh road again yesterday and the OUN signal was still present at 740 kHz. The radio in my truck only goes down to 530 kHz, but there was nothing there or on 780 kHz.

Nothing I can find online says that the OUN NDB has moved off of 260 kHz, but it sure has ... it's on 370 kHz. Loud at my station in East Norman.

370 x 2 = ...

Having opened 260 kHz (for whatever reason), I could copy YAT ... on the shores of James Bay. Not bad for LF and probably not many watts. And on an 80-m dipole, at that.

 

[n5bew1]

Nothing I can find online says that the OUN NDB has moved off of 260 kHz, but it sure has ... it's on 370 kHz. Loud at my station in East Norman.

370 x 2 = ...

Having opened 260 kHz (for whatever reason), I could copy YAT ... on the shores of James Bay. Not bad for LF and probably not many watts. And on an 80-m dipole, at that.

I can't copy anything on either frequency???