Aircraft non directional beacons

[Dave757]

Originally Posted by buggies

Thought you might have received MCH from Bury.
https://ourairports.com/navaids/MCH/Manchester_NDB_GB/

Hi George,

The REU NDB Database shows the last logging of MCH as in 2008,
and it is marked as inactive.

Kind regards
Dave G0ELJ

[McMurdo]

huh, just checked our local one, lichfield LIC and it's gone. Mesmerised me as a child listening to it late at night pretending it was a lonely radio operator somewhere asking for help.
Sometimes the LIC ended with an extra 'E' which google tells me was a diagnostic alarm.

The morse for L,I,C, S,O,S and E are still the only ones i know.

[Andrew2]

Originally Posted by McMurdo

The morse for L,I,C, S,O,S and E are still the only ones i know.

Ha. It's funny how we absorb things. I've never formally learned Morse, but over the years I've inadvertently learned to recognise CQ, SOS, K, G and E.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Originally Posted by Andrew2

Ha. It's funny how we absorb things. I've never formally learned Morse, but over the years I've inadvertently learned to recognise CQ, SOS, K, G and E.

Of course, it must be understood (Smart-arse alert!) that prosigns like
___
SOS should never be sent as three separated letters, they should be sent as if it were a singles character. It's only SOS by convention it could equally be VM7 and others.

Sometimes there isn't even a strict convention as with the "End of transmission" signal ...-.- which is often written as
__
VA but also alternatively
__
SK which is also where the practice in the Amateur fraternity of using SK in place of RIP. Silent Key.

Getting broadly back on topic can I ask if Morse training plays much of a part in Commercial or Private pilots licencing, seeing these beacons still carry Morse idents.

[Radio Wrangler]

Originally Posted by rambo1152

Getting broadly back on topic can I ask if Morse training plays much of a part in Commercial or Private pilots licencing, seeing these beacons still carry Morse idents.

It most definitely does, once a student pilot is getting to the point where he/she is learning to navigate with instruments. rather than following roads and railway lines.

There is another beacon system VOR. VHF Omni Range. A right hotch-potch of a name. These beacons give you bearings automatically.

There aren't enough frequencies for them to be unique, though the planners try to not re-use a frequency too close, it is still possible when propagation gets 'interesting' to hear a wrong one. This could be dangerous. Pilots are trained to always listen to the beacon they are using and to check the morse ID by ear. It's also possible that someone forgot to retune their NAV radio and it's still on the last one he used but he thinks it's on a different one. Checking is important.

The localiser signal of an instrument landing system also carries a morse ID (the glideslope doesn't) It would be kind of dumb to have your ILS set for a different runway to the one you were intending, wouldn't it? Has it happened? Yup. Some also have forgotten to lower the wheels before landing.

But, checking a beacon or ILS ID doesn't always get called Morse. Some pilots were trained just to listen for a pattern of 'longs and shorts'.

Modern NAV radios often have automatic Morse decoders to display the ID letters, but pilots are still supposed to use their ears. The decoders are dedicated to a specific keying speed and accurate element widths and spaces. Just try hand sent morse on one of these and try to get the letters you intended to display!

THe VOR beacons also have the bandwidth and dynamic range for speech set aside, so in addition to their main job, they can also broadcast messages like 'Talla VOR will be non-operational for maintenance from....'

ILS localisers and VOR beacons are in the 108-118MHz segment.

David

[Paul JD]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

It most definitely does, once a student pilot is getting to the point where he/she is learning to navigate with instruments. rather than following roads and railway lines.

Actually no, Morse is no longer a required part of pilot training. Up until a few years ago it was (probably 8 - 10 years off the top of my head) but it is now not required. All aviation charts show the Morse ident of the beacons as dots and dashes on the chart so you do not actually need to understand Morse to positively identify them and modern aircraft with computerised glass cockpits will automatically decode the ident and show the radio beacon's ident as letters on the screen.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Thanks for that David and Paul, very informative.
Actually David made the same point about pattern recognition, I don't see any real contradiction.

[Radio Wrangler]

Maybe I phrased it badly. Training requires them to be able to match a pattern of dots and dashes on a chart with the sound they hear. That is reading morse, though no use at all for general messages or conversation, and probably only morse reading on a technicality. Plenty of them are even unaware that the sounds relate to the ID letters.... 'it's just a pattern'. It can be amusing to watch faces when you tell them what it is.

People flying historic aircraft have to handle it, because a glass panel would ruin the appearance of the cockpit. There's a market for small radios and transponders that comply with current MOPS and fit into spare instrument holes and don't look glaringly out of place.

David

[Paul JD]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Plenty of them are even unaware that the sounds relate to the ID letters.... 'it's just a pattern'. It can be amusing to watch faces when you tell them what it is.

David, as a pilot I can assure you that this is most definitely not the case. Any pilot will be fully aware of what the Morse code ident relates to!

[Radio Wrangler]

While I can't attest from personal experience that all do know it's morse, I can definitely state that from personal experience I've met a number who were unaware. I certainly had to do Morse as such.

I will make no further comment.

David

[Karen O]

I remember as a kid tuning into something on the bottom end of medium wave. I eventually worked out it was sending 'LIC' over and over. It wasn't until many years later that I found out it was the Lichfield NDB that is not far from what was then Elmdon Airport. I lived in Solihull at the time.

But I understand that there is still an NDB at Woodley!

And one at Burnham. I do like to visit masts/towers I have received, Burnham is rather hidden (well, any excuse for a bike ride!).

[Dave757]

Originally Posted by Paul JD

There are still over 100 active NDB's in the UK http://www.infotechcomms.net/downloads/ndbs.pdf

Hi Paul

Sadly, the listing is a very old one, and although many of them are still operational, LIC Lichfield for example
appears to have been gone for nearly 10 years, Talla went over 20 years ago. I believe the latest loss this year
was NGY New Galloway. I wonder if your local beacon CT is still around .

I guess the next 2 or 3 years will probably see many more closures.

Kind regards
Dave

[Paul JD]

Hi Dave, yes you are correct, I should have looked more closely at that! This looks to be a more up to date list https://www.openaip.net/navaids?fiel...any_to_one=236 and shows just over 70 NDB's in use.

I haven't flown from Coventry for some time but I believe the CT NDB was switched off a couple of years ago, Coventry downgraded from an ATC service to an AFIS service and at that time the ILS, radar and NDB were taken out of service. As I understand it the equipment is all still in place and mothballed but not in use as the airfield does not have a full ATC service.

[Test Desk]

Excuse my ignorance but what do you hear when you listen to a NDB? Is it just a repeated ident similar to an Amateur band repeater or something else?

[Gridiron]

Just the call sign letters in Morse with a short gap between repeated over and over.
Mike.

[G4YVM David]

Originally Posted by GMB

Thanks to there being multiple systems, aircraft will soon be relying on it. Some already do for blind landing. What will happen next is that the airways system will be redesigned since it currently (and dangerously) routes aircraft over navaids. With GPS it will be possible to have routes that are just lines on a map with no physical waypoints and this will make air traffic control a lot easier.

Whilst I was with the now defunct Thomas Cook we used GPS approaches a lot, especially into Greek airspace. Curved approaches in bad weather down to a few hundred feet were not for the faint hearted and required special training...but they worked. We did not, at that time, have blind GPS arrivals to touch down. But then, apart from "Cat 3b no DH" landings neither does ILS.

As for virtual routes...already old hat. Lines on a chart none could follow without a GPS. No earth based fixes at all and only maths in the IRS; but with no GPS we couldn't fly them

[G1RAO keith]

Aircraft ndb,s
Well that generated some comments, some very useful info since my first post,re post 21 that explains why I can't hear Manchester, I am using my R1155 DF loop and am able to hear Liverpool, Leeds and two I need to id on 338 kHz call sign HAW and 368khz call sign WHI,I use the loop because of the high background noise from I think the smart meter fitted last year (bad move )they are weak signals but the loop is only 6" in diameter.regards Keith.

[AC/HL]

WHI is Whitegate: http://www.trevord.com/navaids/whi.htm
HAW is Hawarden: https://www.openaip.net/node/1912747