Listening to NDBs

[poltergeisty]

I'm thinking about getting back into shortwave listening and I would like to see if I can pick up NDBs around the country and world. Is this at all possible? And if so, how would I get a QSL card from these radio navigation sites?

I'd place this post in the shortwave section, but it's in reference to an aeronautical radio beacon.

 

[zz0468]

I've never heard of anyone getting a QSL for NDB reception reports. I guess you would start by determining who operates it. Not all are FAA facilities. I know of a couple of now shut down beacons that had been owned by a county department of airports. They were listed in FCC records.

 

[ka3jjz]

NDB's aren't on shortwave per se - they are generally in the LW, and a few MEDFers (1800 khz area) exist, altho they are a dying breed.

Shortwave is mostly considered to start around 2 Mhz, although you will find references that say it starts at 3 Mhz. But there is a broadcast band in the 2 Mhz range.

Mike

 

[mmckenna]

I'm thinking about getting back into shortwave listening and I would like to see if I can pick up NDBs around the country and world. Is this at all possible?

Yes, still possible and can be quite a bit of fun.

As others have mentioned, the NDB's are slowly going away, replaced by newer technologies. However, there's still a fair amount of them out there.

And if so, how would I get a QSL card from these radio navigation sites?

You can try contacting the owner, but don't expect much. Many are run by small airports, and they may not know what a QSL card is. These things are just another radio to them.
The local airport to me had their own NDB up until a few years ago, but it was shut down a while back. Knowing the guy who runs the airport for the city, they probably wouldn't know what to do if someone requested a QSL card. Since the NDB's just send a 2 or 3 letter CW ID, it's pretty easy to nail them, though. So as long as you don't need the QSL card, it's still easy to confirm what you are hearing.

As for hunting NDB's as a hobby, any radio that will cover the long wave band will work. You can do quite a bit with a basic radio with the built in ferrite antenna. I have an old Radio Shack DX-440 that worked surprisingly well for that.

Step up to a bigger antenna, especially a loop, and you can really have some fun searching them out. From where I am in California, I've heard NDB's from Hawaii, as well as up and down the coast up into Canada.

 

[ka3jjz]

NDBs do QSL - in fact the Longwave Club of America is where you can see a lot of information on DXing NDBs.

However it will take a bit of work. It's really OT here, but your standard HF receiver or portable won't cut it - and why this is true is discussed in another forum...Mike

 

[poltergeisty]

but your standard HF receiver or portable won't cut it - and why this is true is discussed in another forum...Mike

So A Radio Shack DX-394 attached to several cut band vertical dipoles won't do it? I find that hard to believe.

 

[ka3jjz]

As discussed in another thread, there are issues with trying to hear anything, much less NDBs on longwave using most any US manufactured receiver;

Because there is no broadcasting done in the US on LW, the addition of LW coverage is pretty much ignored when front end designs are concerned. Specifically, it's very likely that the sensitivity will be very poor and/or overloading and mixing products from strong MW stations will break through (which is a very common issue). Sure you might hear something, but it's going to be very hit and miss.

Vertical dipoles on LW??? Not likely unless you have something VERY tall to support them, and even then, MW overloading is almost sure to happen unless you put some filtering before the radio. Loops and. as I understand it, some E Field (vertical) active antennas are the weapons of choice here, unless you have room for a rather large antenna and ground field.

I think you might be confusing LW NDBs with SLHFBs (Single Letter HF Beacons) which is something entirely different.

Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

If you want to learn about LW (including NDBs and many other topics 'down there') this is the club to which you want to belong. They specialize in this field...

Longwave Home Page

Mike

 

[poltergeisty]

Nope, wasn't confusing NDBs with single letter HF beacons. I actively fly in the Sim and see all kinds of NDBs, and in fact heard my local airport's NDB on a shortwave radio many, many years ago. Wasn't sure what it was at the time, but as I have become more knowledgeable in aviation I now know what I heard. Right now I'm in Mongolia in the Sim and came in from Russia. I've noticed a vast amount of NDBs around there. Especially in Russia as approach fixes. I've been around the world four times now in the Sim and even noticed some NDBs and VORs in the middle of water. They must be solar-powered. So I became curios at what it would take to see if you could pick up the skip associated to a NDB some several thousand miles away. Seen as how they are frequencies with very long wavelengths, and at least packing 25 watts of power, I can only imagine they have the possibility of traveling a long distance.

That website is hard to follow. It's like Reddit, but vastly different. They should at least upgrade to phpBB. It's free after all. :lol: