HFU HF Underground
Loggings => Fishing Drift Net Beacons => Topic started by: jFarley on November 04, 2016, 2153 UTC
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Was tuning above the MW band when I noted a flareup of multiple drift net beacons at 2107 UTC. Very fady, and getting IDs was next to impossible. Freqs noted:
1713.48
1744.63
1775.79
1802.50
1806.94
1838.095
1869.25
1900.40
1931.56
1962.71
The opening lasted for less than 2 minutes, and we will be watching in the future!
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Thanks for the tip, I notice several here on the waterfall.
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Great! I don't know where these were from, but it's interesting that 10 popped up nearly simultaneously. I was accustomed to these beacons having rather long pauses between idents. It kind of suggests that wherever they were from, there might have been a lot of them.
I kept looking for a while, but they never returned.
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One thing I have noticed from my DGPS recording sessions is how you can have a very brief opening for several minutes, and then boom, it is gone. Recording an entire band really is the way to go. It will be nice when we can record all of 0-30 MHz 24/7, store it for a few days or weeks, and go back to look for things (or better yet have some automated search tools). Maybe once we get PetaByte (PB) hard drives.
I did some searching online to see how these things work, regarding FCC licensing. It seems to be... they often aren't licensed, and their legality is somewhat dubious. Sounds like the perfect target for us to DX ;D
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I heard these three around 2130z:
1884 4MVZ
1902 KR2
1969 TCE1
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I was watching for a while around 2100z, and at that time, a couple did pop up. These were very short lived.
Interestingly, something popped up on 1710 at the same time, and I had audio for about 15 seconds. A YL was giving weather, but no clues as to the city or region were given. This did not sound like anything I have heard on the 1710 station in Chicago.
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I remember back in the late 80s hams contacted the FCC and told them about these beacons
in the 160 meter band...the FCC said such things did not exist...LOL