Topband: Bottom End Beacons

[Roger Kennedy]

Yes, upon searching, I came across Alan Cordwell's web pages that he wrote
about the old Decca HiFix navigation beacons that used to be VERY strong
here in Britain, but closed down during the 90s.

I emailed him about these, as they sound very similar.

He confirmed that they are a Russian system that works in much the same way,
and have low power transmitter around the Baltic.

As Mark posted, here's a link to Alan's webpage which shows you how they
sound:

http://alancordwell.co.uk/Legacy/radionavigation/russian/bras.html

They are used by fishermen to pinpoint their position so they can locate
fish stocks - that's why I referred to them as fishing beacons.

I'm amazed some of you can hear them in the US, as they're rarely very
strong here - typically between S2 and S9, but generally around S5.

But the thing to remember is that there are about 15 of them spaced evenly
between 1800 and 1820 kHz . . and they are quite wide.  So these will often
block out weak DX signals here in Europe.  So worth avoiding that part of
the band.

Hopefully they will turn them off soon, and just use GPS ! 

73 Roger G3YRO