The longest distance over which I have received a beacon so far is OZN Prins Christian Sund with 3300 km. A bit of research on the internet made me think that this beacon might very well be operated by Tusass Greenland. Apparently that was correct: Bo Mogensen, who also confirmed my Aasiaat Radio reception, sent me a brief email as QSL OZN-372 Prins Christian Sund.
The OZN radio beacon is located at weather station at the Prins Christian Sund on the southern tip of Greenland. This station was founded by the US during WWII under the name Bluie East One.
Another QSL from a Swedish NDB received in the SQUEEZE100 event. Mr. Mikael Reinholds, Manager IT&ANS, was so kind to send me an email as QSL NDB EN-400 at Örebro Airport in Sweden. The distance to this beacon is 1019 kilometer from my home QTH.
I will provide an update should I receive the promised picture of the EN site.
Torsby is a small airport in Sweden, 1022 km from my home QTH. From here the Amapola company operates daily flights to Stockholm. Martin Berglund, Airport Manager pf Torsby Airport sent me an email QSL to confirm my reception of the local NDB TY on 384 kHz.
Using the PskovNDB software I received so many new beacons during the SQUEEZE100 event that I did not know where to start sending QSL requests. I decided to target Lithuania, Sweden and Croatia as you can find good address information on the web.
Mr. Filip Wiberg, Chief Operations ATS Kalmar (filip.wiberg(at)acr-sweden.se), was so kind to QSL NDB KM-366 for Kalmar Öland Airport. Located on the east coast of Sweden this beacon is 894 kms from my home QTH.
A polite email from Mr. Wibert at Kalmar Airport confirms my reception of KM-366
There are three NDBs (Non Directional Beacons) active in Lithuania. Earlier I got a QSL for my reception of the beacon PN-407 in Palanga. During last weeks “SQUEEZE 100” event I received the other two.
Mr. Malinauskas from Oro Navigacija was so kind to send me an email as QSL for NDBs KUS-343 in Kaunas and AVN-385 in Vilnius.
Email from Oro Navigacija confirming NDB KUS-343 and NDB AVN-385
Last weekend I participated in the “SQUEEZE 100” NDB event, organized by the NDBlist group. Aim was to log 100 NDBs (Non Directional Beacons) in an as small frequency range possible. Hence the name “SQUEEZE 100”.
I had participated in two earlier events this year in which I logged only 4 and 13 stations respectively. So I decided that I needed a bit of help and installed Pskov NDB software. The result was impressive. Not knowing what to expect I started monitoring between 300 and 500 kHz. After I had 100 NDBs logged I could start to zoom in a bit, trying to squeeze the frequency range.
In total I logged over 183 NDBs. Between 350 and 403 kHz I had exactly 100 NDBs, close to 2 per kHz! The picture above shows the most distant ones I heard. With 3033 km OZN from Prins Christian Sund in Greenland was on top of my list. I was also very happy to catch three beacons from Iceland (KF-392; VM-375 and HN-330) and two from Algeria (ON-415; BJA-423).
Below the Pskov screenshot of my OZN-372 log:
Signal from NDB OZN, Prins Christiansund, Greenland on 372 kHz
Next Friday RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) from Ireland will end their long wave service on 252 kHz. Operation on 252 kHz started in 1989 when a joint venture of RTE and RTL started as Atlantic 252. With its powerful transmitter it easily covered Ireland and the UK. The BBC and Independent Local Radio complained about the station as they considered it a “commercial pirate”.
Initially the station was on air between 6 am and 7 pm, as listeners were encouraged to tune to Radio Luxembourg in the evening hours. Radio Luxembourg was the station that – following the demise of the North Sea pirate stations – you listened to for the latest popmusic. From 1991 Atlantic 252 it was on the air 24 hours a day, making it an easier catch for DX-ers around the world.
Popularity of the station reached a peak in the mid 90-ies. But commercial radio on FM, with better sound quality, gained popularity in the UK. From over 6 million listeners the audience declined to less than 1 million in 1999, and in 2001 the station went off the air. For a few months in 2002 Teamtalk 252 was aired via this frequency, after that RTE used the transmitter for RTE 1 programmes directed to the Irish expat community.
Below you can see my QSL from 1989, a few months after the start of Atlantic 252. It’s a pity that following the closure of the Beidweiler station of JV partner RTL another LW station bites the dust. On the other hand, given the costs and pressure to save on the huge energy consumption of such transmitters, it is understandable.
The NDB MF in Halmstad on 421 kHz is located in south Sweden. A NDB, or Non Directional Beacon, is used for navigational purposes. Typically they are fairly low power. This one is about 725 km in NE direction from my QTH. I sent a report plus audio clip and self-made QSL card to ats.halmstad@lfv.se. To my surprise I got a reply by regular mail, which is always nice. Halmstad served as an air force base until 1961. Today it is a municipal airport with 800-1300 aircraft movements per year. It still supports the military operations from Halmstad as you can see on the QSL. And of course the jet fighter shown is a Swedish built SAAB Gripen!
Since a few weeks I’m member of “NDB list“, a must have for all NDB, DSC, Navtex fans. The NDB group organizes CLE’s, Coordinated Listening Events. Aim is to log as many NDBs in a certain frequency range over a period of 3 days. Target for the 289th CLE was 270-320 kHz. Now I do like NDB hunting, but this is not my favourite part of the band with lots of noise and QRM from DGPS stations. And last night’s Aurora did not make things much better. I finished with a disappointing 4 logs only:
293 OB Brussel (BEL) 311 LMA Lintfort (G) 315 HOL Villacoublay (F) 319 VS Valenciennes (F)
BDXC : SWL 2262 PRe VERON : NL 14228 If you want to get in touch, just leave a message on one of my posts. Please note that I don't publish email addresses of verifiers which are not part of the public domain. So if you don't see the QSL address, just leave a message and I'll get back to you.
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