The wonderful world of listening to the radio
The fourth beacon from the Lapland region in Sweden. Chris from Aviseq sent me an email to QSL NDB DK at 328 kHz, Vilhelmina. The beacon serves as navaid for South Lapland Airport, 1547 km from my QTH.
As is the case for Lycksele and Hemavan Airport there are daily flights from Vilhelmina to Stockholm Arlanda. Vilhelmina itself has a population of only about 4000. Apparently the huge distances to be covered in Sweden justify the airport.
Another two NDBs from Lapland, Sweden. NDBS NUT on 325 kHz and SUT on 342 kHz serve as navigation aids for Hemavan Tärnaby Airport. The distance to my QTH is 1632 kilometers.
Hemavan and Tärnaby are ski/winter sport resorts. From the airport, which is adjacent to Hemavan, you can see the slopes in the background. Amapola (aka Populair) Airlines operates flights between Hemavan and Stockholm Arlanda.
My reports were confirmed by Chris from AVISEQ.
Chris from Aviseq, who also QSL-ed my reception of the beacons WU and VNA for Umea Airport, was so kind to confirm my reception of the beacon OL for Lycksele, Sweden on 320 kHz by email as well.
Lycksele Airport is located in South Lapland, a sparsely populated area in the north of Sweden. The distance to my QTH is 1590 km. Amapola operates daily flights to Stockholm from Lycksele Airport.
To give you an impression what it means to dig such a signal out of the noise with Pskov software I added the above picture. In the yellow/black panel you see how OL is received… Every line from left to right is a capture of the cyclic signal. As you can see the first minutes/cycles offered a better signal… The aggregate is a clear OL identification in morse code.
I received a couple of beacons from the Toulouse area in France. NDBs TW, MUT, TOE and TLF were received in such a good quality that I thought I could share them and ask for a QSL. I sent my report to the responsible person* at Toulouse Blagnac Airport Mr. Jean-Marc Caner.
Jean-Marc confirmed my reception of the beacons TW, MUT and TOE. But TLF is the responsibility of the smaller Francazal Airport in Toulouse which hasn’t replied to my QSL request yet.
There are two other NBDs I received, TLB and TS, which seem to belong to Blagnac Airport as well. So I will give them a try for another QSL. CVU clearly belongs to the local airport of Castres-Mazamet.
Toulouse Blagnac is the 5th largest airport in France. It is also hosts the head office of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and test flights are conducted from this airport.
* The email address of Mr. J.M. Caner is not public, I can share it on request. Just drop a comment.
QSL for NDB NMS-329, a navigation aid for Namsos Airport. This regional airport is located in central Norway, situated along the river Namsen, which flows into the Namsenfjord.
Namsos Airport has one of the smallest runways for airports with regular flights. They are operated by Widerøe with destinations Trondheim, Oslo and Rørvik, as part of a public service obligation. As Trondheim is only 165 kilometers away, and roads between Namsos and Trondheim are upgraded, many people travel by car to Trondheim to take a flight from there.
The beacon is one of those that I receive quite regularly in the Netherlands. Thanks to Goran Hardenmark for helping me out with the contact address at Avinor for the QSL!
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post on my reception of two beacons for Umea Airport: WU-329 and VNA-364. At the time I received a polite “thank you email” from Swedavia, the operator of Umea Airport. But hardly a QSL.
Two weeks ago I was contacted by engineers working at AVISEQ, the company responsible for the maintenance of the navigation aids and ATC communication/systems in Sweden. They had read my post and prepared the above eQSL for NDB WU-329 me and there should be a QSL for VNA-364 on its way. Of the latter beacon I also received some nice pictures, as the team was doing some maintenance on VNA. I will post them together with the QSL.
Stay tuned for more!
My 2nd QSL in the series of 10 NDBs from Serbia was for NDB VTN-468. It serves as navigation aid for Morava Airport near Kraljevo. Verie signer was Mr. Savic from SMATSA, the air traffic services provider for Serbia and Montenegro.
Morava Airport is the third largest airport in Serbia, after Beograd and Nis. The military part of the airport is known as Lađevci Airport . The civilian part was opened in 2006. Apparently it is struggling bit to really grow to its full potential. Currently there are flights to Tivat in Montenegro, Thessaloniki and Istanbul only.
JST on 405 kHz was one of the first more remote NDBs I heard when I resumed DX-in over a year ago. The beacon is located NW of the Niš Airport in Serbia. I was very interested in verifying this beacon, as so far I was not able to verify a radio station from Serbia. All my “Serbian” QSLs date from the Yugoslavia era.
Via Patrick Robic (thank you!) I received the email address of Slavisa Savic, assessor at SMATSA llc, the company responsible for Air Traffic Services in Serbia and Montenegro. He also confirmed my reception of the TVA beacon on 345 kHz from Montenegro and was so kind to do this for the 10 beacons I received from Serbia as well. With the QSL of JST-405 Niš/Justic I have my 196th radio country confirmed!
Nis Airport is located in the South East of Serbia. It is the 2nd largest airport in Serbia. The full name is Nis Constantine the Great Airport, name after Roman Emperor Constantine the Great who was born in Niš (named Naissus at the time). Constantine the Great – as you might have learned at school – was the first Roman emperor who converted to Christianity in 312 AD.
Between October and December 2023 I received 11 NDBs from the Czech Republic. I received a QSL for 4 of them via ANS , but the other 7 were the responsibility of the Czech military, for which I didn’t have an email address.
A big thanks to Patrick Robic who made me aware that NARFA CZE confirmed his reports in the past. I sent my report to narfa@army.cz . And indeed, 1st Lieutenant Lucie Mertová was so kind to QSL my reception of the following NDBs:
CF-345.5 and C-715 for Caslav Airbase
PK-432 and P-888 for Pardubice Airport (shared mil/civil)
K-438 for Praha-Kbely Airbase
LA-514.5 and XU-563 for Namest nad Oslavou Airbase.
NARFA is the National Frequency Agency of the Czech Republic. They are part of the Czech Army. A good overview of their activities can be found on the NARFA website.
The fifth and last on my recent QSL email for NDBs in the North of Spain: NDB B-395 Bilbao. The beacon is situated on Punta Galea, left of the Bilbao harbour entrance, next to the golf club.
Below the ENAIRE datasheet submitted with my QSL, and a slightly better picture taken from Google Maps. Similar to San Sebastian NDB HIG it is a dipole suspende between two towers at 12 m height.
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