A QSL for NDB TN-373 Thorshofn, an Icelandic beacon that I don’t hear as often as some of the ones earlier posted in this blog. Thorshofn Airport, or properly spelled in Icelandic, Þórshöfn Airport is a small airport on the Langanes peninsula in northeast Iceland. There are flights to the bigger Akureyri airport 5 days a week by a plane that does a round trip Akureyri – Vopnafjörður – Þórshöfn – Akureyri.
ccording to Wikipedia the terminal building is only 12×9 meters as domestic flights in Iceland don’t need security checks and the 19-seat Twin Otter aircraft used does not need large terminals.
The Þórshöfn Airport control tower with the terminal wing to the right.
A QSL for NDB VM Vestmannaeyjar on 375 kHz (together with two other Icelandic beacons which I will discuss in upcoming posts). VM is one of the beacons heard most often at my QTH, even during summer.
Vestmannaeyjar is an archipelago off the south coast of Iceland. It has a small airport and two longwave beacons: VM-375 and HL-345 Vestmannaeyjar/Helgafjell. You can read more about the airport in my post on the QSL for HL-345.
A QSL for NDB SPP for Sevilla Airport on 420 kHz. Thanks to Enaire for confirming my reception and sending the data sheet:
NDB SPP is located 7 kilometers east of Sevilla San Pablo Airport. When I checked the location I noticed that the beacon is surrounded by solar farms. Exactly these are the point of a controversy in the Netherlands as their reflection creates a safety risk as pilots are blinded.
NDB SPP (here still indicated with its old call sign SVL) amidst the solar panels
The current situation at Schiphol Airport… a lot of concerns are voiced by aviators.
Obviously it might be that approach angles, solar height are different, but it just caught my attention. Thanks again to Enaire for confirming my report as always.
Most NDBs are located either on the airport or somewhere in a field. So when I got the QSL for NDB SO on 390 kHz I was a bit surprised. I checked Google Maps but indeed, there it was, right in the centre of the village Sigüiero, next to appartment buildings and the local soccer stadium. About 7 kilometers north of Santiago-Rosalía de Castro airport.
NDB SO-390 kHz for Santiago de Compostela, in the centre of Sigüiero village (GoogleMaps)
Compared to the other beacons from the north coast of Spain, B (Bilbao), COA, C (La Coruna) and SA (Santander), NDB SO is less often heard at my QTH. And this was the first time in reasonable quality, good enough for a report.
Santiago–Rosalía de Castro Airport was previously named Lavacolla Airport and is also known as Santiago de Compostela Airport. It is the biggest and busiest airport in Galicia and the 2nd busiest airport in northern Spain after Bilbao Airport. The fact that it is at the end of the pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela does help obviously and traffic is still growing significantly. The airport has been named after the Galician romanticist writer and poet Rosalía de Castro on 12 March 2020
EEC on 327 kHz is a NDB for the military heliport El Copero near Sevilla, Spain. As with EAG and EAL . Enaire (QSL via informacion(at)enaire.es) could confirm my reception report but without their usual data sheet as it is a military installation. It is definitely not one of the easier beacons to log, with only 88 entries in the REU database, so I am pretty pleased with this QSL!
NDB con indicativo EEC:
Ubicado en el Helipuerto de Sevilla/El Copero. Instalación perteneciente al Ejército que da apoyo a los procedimientos instrumentales del Helipuerto de Sevilla/El Copero
Frecuencia 327.000 kHz
Coordenadas publicadas en AIP. ETRS89: 37º18’43.4”N 006º00’07.3”W
Heliport at the “El Copero” military airbase near Sevilla
Originally “El Copero” (which translates as Cup Bearer in English) was a base of the Spanish Air Force but due to the proximity of the river and possible flooding the location wasn’t optimal. The base was transferred to the Army on December 30, 1975. and is home to the units of the Maneuver Helicopter Battalion IV (BHELMA IV), of the FAMET that has assigned 16 Eurocopter AS332B1 Super Puma .
There are three Baleares Islands… Ibiza, Menorca and Palma de Mallorca. I received and QSL-ed two of them, but not the main Island Palma de Mallorca. An earlier report to Enaire (who are very reliable verifiers, thank you Enaire) was missed, but this time they confirmed my report with their nice data sheet:
The beacon serves Palma de Mallorca Airport. It is the third largest airport in Spain, after Madrid-Barajas Airport and Barcelona Airport. In the summer months it is one of the busiest airports in Europe.
And is located here:
Thank you Enaire for the service you provide to us hobby listeners!
The other beacon verified on the QSL I recently got from Isavia is NDB HA Vopnafjörður Airport. Vopnafjörður is a small village in the north east of Iceland. Its Airport has slightly over 500 movements per year. Regular flights are carried out by Norlandair to Akureyri Airport in the north of Iceland 5 times a week. From there people can connect to other airports on Iceland including Reykjavik and seasonally to a number of Airports in mainland Europe.
QSL for NDB HL Vestmannaeyjar and NBD HA Vopnafjörður
The NDB HA is located in Hof (or Hofsa), a little hamlet about 15 kilometers SW of the airport.
Vestmannaeyjar Airport is the first airport in Iceland constructed without foreign or military assistance. It is located on the main island of the Vestmannaeyjar Archipelago (the Westman Islands). With the construction of a nearby ferry terminal at Landeyjahöfn sailing times to the mainland reduced from 3 hours to 30 minutes. This resulted in a drop in demand for scheduled flights. Today there are only government sponsored flights to Reykjavik in winter (probably because shipping and road conditions might not be optimal).
My reception of NDB HL serving this airport on 345 kHz was confirmed (together with NDB-HA which is for another post) by Hjalti Geir Guðmundsson from Isavia, the operators of the airports in Iceland
Vestmannaeyjar Airport
There is a second beacon NDB VM on 375 kHz serving the airport as well. In hindsight I should have added that one to this report as it is one of the most regular received beacons from Iceland here in The Netherlands.
My reception of NDB EAG on 399 kHz for Logroño/Agoncillo airport in Spain was confirmed by Enaire. They couldn’t add the typical data sheet they usually provide with a verification as the beacon is owned by the military. This goes back to the fact that Agoncillo was designated to be a military airfield, although there were always commerical and private flights as well. (for more information check the history website). From the 1996 onwards the local government really made an effort to turn Agoncilla airport into Logroño’s airport.
NDB EAG-399 with Logroño-Agoncillo airport in the background
The NDB EAG can be spotted easily on Google Maps, to the south east of the runway. On the picture above you see the transmitterbuilding between the two masts supporting the dipole. In the back you see the control tower to the left and the new terminal building to the right. The roof of the terminal building seems to feature 5 “wine barrels” which I guess is a reference to the Rioja region of which Logroño is the capital.
Logroño-Agoncillo terminal building featuring 5 wine barrels.
Via Enaire (informacion@enaire.es) I received a QSL for my reception of NDB GRA on 412 kHz. This beacon serves the Aeropuerto Federica García Lorca Granada-Jaën in the south of Spain. The airport is named after the Spanish poet Garcia Lorca who was murdered in 1936 by Nationalist Forces in the Spanish Civil War
A slightly better picture from Google Maps of this beacon:
And a picture of the terminal building. There are direct flights to various locations in Spain and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Terminal building Federico Garcïa Lorca airport Granada/Jaën
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