New Beacon?

[Claim Jumper]

06/06/25 0520 UTC 3845 LSB it's a real slow dit dah. Over and over. I'm in the Mojave Desert and it's a S9 here. With a massive noise level of S8 tonight.

[Teotwaki]

Thanks for the report! Using CW mode I see it as 3844.4kHz sending the letter A in slow Morse. I can barely hear it at home but on half moon bay it's S6

[mark-n-nut]

Hearing the same thing right now on 7258.  Interesting!

73, Mark

[Teotwaki]

I can hear 3844.3 at home right now

[Teotwaki]

Maybe it's not the letter A but instead is two letters,  E T   

[Teotwaki]

I can also hear 7258 and it's pretty strong!

[Teotwaki]

Weak but clear signals on both 3844.4 and 7258.1 here at home

[Teotwaki]

Good signal for 3844.4kHz   "A"

7258.1 has switched to a faster  dit-dah pattern  Good signal here.

[Claim Jumper]

On 7259 kilohertz at 0420 UTC 7/25/25. The signal is 10 over S9. In the Mojave Desert.

[Teotwaki]

right now it is on 7258.500kHz  CW narrow and much stronger here on my radio in Orange County than it is up at the big SE antenna at Half moon Bay.

Edit, I can also hear a readable signal from the slower station on 3844.500kHz

[BoomboxDX]

I've been hearing it on 7259 over the past week or so, after I first discovered it. A lazy sounding CW 'A'. Varies in strength from s1- to s4+, depending on prop, of course (S4+ out of S1-S5). The only other CW beacon I can pick up here at my location in WA state is the Desert Whooper (not counting the 'K' military beacon on 7030 out of Petropavlovsk). This 'A' beacon is much louder than the Desert Whooper. The Desert Whooper is usually really low level, in the static.

Never heard the 3844 kHz 'A' beacon, at least any time I've tried for it.

Wednesday night the 'A' beacon wasn't in at all -- I'm guessing the propagation to wherever it's located wasn't good.

Earlier tonight it was varying from s2-s3+ or so. I've noticed that -- at least at my location -- sometimes it disappears after 2:30 AM Pacific time. Not sure if that's prop related or it gets shut off. For example, earlier this evening it was in with s3+ signals, and right now it's MIA. And it's 3:44 AM local.  Could be prop dropped out between me and the beacon, or maybe it's timed? Hard to say. The 40M band still has some ham activity, a couple Spanish language guys reasonably loud on 7130, and some CW down between 7010-7025 or so.

I have heard the 'A' Beacon as late as 6 AM Pacific time here.

Either way, this new beacon is a mystery.

Equipment here varies from Tecsun PL330 to Yaesu FRG-7 to DX-394, all off the same 25-30 ft indoor 2nd story antenna.

[Claim Jumper]

7258.5 CW on 7/26/2025 at 0406 UTC it's anywhere from an S6 to an S9 drifting. In the Mojave Desert. In fact this is probably where I heard it last night. I put 7259. Didn't bother to fine-tune it I guess.

[Claim Jumper]

I hear it's a person in Sacramento area. Who has a beef with a club in that area. And he just sets it and walks out of the room and lets it go. Apparently this club uses both of those frequencies or right next door.

[Ham Listener]

There is a group of Licensed Ham operators that had been on 3.845 and 7.260 that are, shall I say, a bit on the wild side. Not your usual Ham operators.
They attract attention and are jammed regularly. For the record, I don't jam them. That's wrong. I only listen.
I believe that the CW we are hearing is to discourage that group from operating like they do. They use about every 4 letter word there is and have talked about the drugs they have used and are using. There is sex talk too.
If you listen around 4 AM PST on 3.843 LSB you will hear them. They use 7.263 LSB during the day on and off.
They moved frequency from 3.845 and 7.260 because of the CW.

[BoomboxDX]

Interesting bit of information. Makes some sense. I have heard a few California hams on 40 Meters -- maybe 4-5 of them? With at least a couple who may be in the Sac area, who may sort of fit the bill. Fairly outspoken, not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with that. Not having been all that up on the goings-on on 40 (I've rarely, if ever, heard the 7200 stuff that I keep reading about online) I got the feeling these Central Cal area guys were in a part time feud with some other hams. But that was just after hearing them over two nights.

Can't recall the frequency offhand.

Thanks for posting the info, guys.