"Orchy" NDB

[WrongwayCorrigan]

Today I visited "Orchy" NDB located at Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, New York. I discovered this is also the site of an Outer Marker which likely serves Runway 22 at La Guardia Airport.

You can see the dual V-Yagi antenna of the Outer Maker in the image below.



Orchy NDB
Identifier: UR (..- .-.)
Frequency: 385 KHz
Location:  N 40 51' 59'', W 073 48' 12''
Intended use: terminal-area navigation (low power)
Country: United States
Associated airport: La Guardia Airport

[Throbbing Gristle]

Any pics of the NDB ant?

[WrongwayCorrigan]

I was expecting an antenna mast, but the NDB uses a flat-top wire antenna supported by wooden poles.

[Throbbing Gristle]

That's typical.  Most are pretty cheesey looking installs, dog house sitting between two poles in the middle of nowhere.
I've had alot of fun tracking NDB's down using the Degen 1103 portable.

Best install (and 25 watt siganal) I've found around here is the "Cash",  "SYW", 428khz site.
60' grounded tower with a large loading coil at the top. Top guys are a huge capacity hat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-4WjX5miu0&feature=channel

I believe the vlf NDB's are no longer FAA supported and will slowly go away, left to die of natural causes and not repaired if they fail.       

[WrongwayCorrigan]

The install you shot in that video is exactly what I expected. At least it was nice to discover the outer marker.

I didn't have a proper camera to take decent pictures but at least I had my Grundig G6 with me.

It's a shame that NDBs are not properly maintained. They could still serve as backup navigation if VOR beacons or GPS satellites fail.

My hope is that "Orchy" will stay in service. It's a waypoint for helicopter ILS approaches at LaGuardia's runway 22, so maybe it will be deemed as useful.

http://tiles.skyvector.com/sky/files/tpp/1008/pdf/00289COPTERID22.PDF

[SW-J]

Related, a demo of a four-course radio range (A-N beacon system): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-VqtNY8vpw

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but I thought this was pretty cool (they built a 4-course/AN type range operating at 28 MHz for the purpose of reducing the physical scale for demonstration purposes) ...

[WrongwayCorrigan]

I have never seen/heard an A-N Beacon system in action. This confirms my suspicion...they were very irritating to work with. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.