Topband: Fishing beacons

[Rick Warnett]

Hi all,
A few fishing beacons seem to go an awful long way ! We have lots over this way
and they are mostly associated with long liners and long nets - we can't say
"drift nets" anymore as tey are supposed to be banned.
Believe me there are plenty out there in international waters.
These insidious beacons are actually allocated bands in each region and many do
stay within the bands, BUT a heluva lot are well outside their band and cause
all sorts of interference.
For a 16 foot whip and a 1W transmitter powered by a couple of 6V lantern
batteries, they can do a great job of DX'ing. Usually they are at the ends of
long lines or both ends of a net, the mother boat has a nice neat little DF set
which shows just where the net is on radar, so the ends can be pcked up with
minimum effort. They can also be attached to cray pots and other marine traps.
I have logged hundreds over the years and lots of them are not anything to do
with fish. A common way of marking anything they are closely allied to "over the
side" drug drops all reound the world.
DF'ing them with a loop and another listener some hundred miles away might lead
to some interesting revelations and ht tips for the DEA.

Seeing which ones keep coming back is also interesting, they are pretty well
built and last very well considering the technical skills of the users and the
averse environment.

An interesting phenomenon, they were very common in the Indian Ocean west of
Australia until the fish ran out. Now most of them are north of here in the
Pacific, but a lot less than before. Remember the world's fishing yields peaked
many years ago and there just is not eough fish to support all those boats !

Rick P29KFS