cobalt pet shortwave / mediumwave weblog

16 September 2009

ncdxf/iaru shortwave beacon receptions



W6WX is the callsign of a five-frequency shortwave beacon in northern California. It is one of the eighteen beacons in the NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Project. On 15 August 2009, with my Eton E5 and an indoor wire antenna, I heard the W6WX beacon on all five frequencies: 14100, 18110, 21150, 24930, and 28200 kHz.

Since I can't copy morse code at all, and certainly not at the 22WPM used by the beacon, I recorded the transmissions and decoded the morse afterward.

• 2215 UTC: 14100 kHz SSB, SIO 445 (lots of digital transmissions on this frequency, although faint)
• 2155 UTC: 18110 kHz SSB, SIO 555 (yep, i received these out of order)
• 2227 UTC: 21150 kHz SSB, SIO 555
• 2233 UTC: 24930 kHz SSB, SIO 555
• 2240 UTC: 28200 kHz SSB, SIO 252 (the morse code was barely audible above the noise)

The links above are for mp3 files, each about 15 seconds long and around 100 kb.

I submitted these reception reports to the NCDXF on 15 August 2009, and got a reply from VE3SUN the next day. Alas, they don't send QSL cards for the beacons.

One down, seventeen to go!

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