High Frequency Beacon

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A QSL card from a High Frequency beacon

High Frequency Beacon is a colloquial term for an unlicensed radio beacon that does not follow government regulations for operation (such as Part 15), and is technically illegal. Unlicensed HF beacons which operate legally, according to rules for low power transmissions are classified as HiFERs.

Contents

Description

PRV (6852 kHz) under test

There are many of these beacons, quite a few are run as propagation experiments. Due to their nature, the exact location of these stations is generally not published, although many are believed to operate from remote locations in the deserts of the southwest USA. Likewise, these stations tend to suddenly appear and disappear from the air. Most run with very low power levels of just hundreds or even tens of milliwatts of power, and are often solar powered, so they can be hidden in open areas. Some are switched via a photocell, so they only operate at night, running off of a battery that is charged during the daytime by a solar panel.

There is a message board where listeners can report reception of beacons, it is also useful to see what other folks are presently hearing:


Reported High Frequency Beacons

Freq (kHz) Station ID Location Operation Notes Last reported
2097 A Arizona (15 watts) - 'A' ident or malfunctions as series of dits - 15 watts max., 24/7 April 6, 2009
3450 OK OK (Youtube video)
3579.7 "HPY NEW YEAR 2010 DE PIRATE BEACON” & dashes. December 28, 2010. (4) 2010
3810 SV1TEST Athens, Greece
(KM18VB)
no further info. (Source: UDXF)
4056 dasher Reported on March 11, 2011 by bryan24230
4062 C SW, probably CA Very drifty, but slow drift, logged form 4052 to 4063. Its morse is not timed correcctly, it is probably sending a C with a short first dah (longer than dit, shorter than dah), but it could be an ER with a long dit, or a TR with a short dah. 24/7
4078.14 WW Colorado 300-400 mW Inverted L night time only
4077.27 MO Oklahoma Solar 200 mW 118ft end fed wire 24/7 (Youtube video)
4079 TMPnnn SW Arizona The TEMPERATURE BEACON - Temperature in deg. F. - sends 'TMP' then 2 - 3 digit temp. in CW every 10 seconds. 1 watt
4089 . Death Valley N.P. About 80 dits/minute, 24/7, 500 mW to inv. vee. dipole
4091 DM N. America No further info (Source: HF Underground Forum) August 11, 2011
4094.2 PA Arkansas Solar power 200 mW Dipole 24/7
4094.8 Dasher WV Sputnick - 60 dash/min, night only Reported off air September 2009 due to lack of QSLs
4096 ......_ VA 6 dots 1 dash
4096.1 Dasher Joshua Tree N.P. 4.5 sec long dashes (about 13 dashes per min.) - big signal - north-facing dipole ('Coxie') 24/7
4096.25 Dasher Joshua Tree N.P. 1 sec dash (about 30 per min.), 400 mW to inverted vee, 24/7 ('Hexie') July 2011
4096.6 Dasher Mojave Nat. Preserve 2 sec. dash (about 16 per minute) 400 mW to inverted vee, 24/7 ('Kelsie') July 2011
4097.2 Dasher Inyo County, CA
near DVNP
55 dashes per minute with chirp when sun is low; day-only, at 5300 ft. elevation ('Inyo-whooper'), inv. vee., 0.5w
4097.4 KX "KX" ten times, then "TEMP IN F", then the temp (three times) inside the enclosure, then "TEMP OUT F", and the outside temp, again three times.
4102.3 W... s.e. California desert The WIND BEACON - sends 'W' ident and series of dits - each dit correlating to a turn of its anenometer, so if it is windy in the , it sends lots of dits; and no wind, no dits.
4194 MX Europe Xtal controlled milliwatt beacon operated occasionally in europe. Sometimes sends straight carrier instead of ID.
4608 MXC Europe Xtal controlled milliwatt beacon operated occasionally in europe. Sometimes sends straight carrier instead of ID. Sister beacon to MX.
5157.6 Dasher Florida BLINKY 200 mW Dipole 24/7
5484 SD San Diego, CA
5499.13 Dasher WA
5678.4 Dasher Colorado PIKE solar/battery 100 mW Dipole 24/7 "Honker"
6549.3 FL Florida 300 mW Dipole 24/7
6626.2 S Inyo County, CA,
near DVNP
About 60-200 dashes per min., sun-only, ~200 mW ('Rocky')
6626.4 Dits Mojave N.P. Fast 'drippy' sounding dits about 100/min., sun-only, 1.5 watts ('Rainy')
6700.4 Dasher Joshua N.P. About 62 dashes per min., 24/7 (Hexy2k)
6815 SV1TEST Athens, Greece
(KM18VB)
Active 2010-2011, no further info. (Source: UDXF) (Youtube video)
X9Q S.E. Europe or
Middle East
No further info. (Source: UDXF) June 2011
6816 FU N. America Active June 2011, no further info. (Source: A*C*E [1], [2]) (MP3 audio recording) September 11, 2011
HA N. America Active July 2011, no further info. (Source: A*C*E [3], HF Underground Forum [4]) .
Sometimes the frequency is reported as "6815 kHz USB". (MP3 audio recording)
July 9, 2011
6852 PRV Preveza, Greece 15 W Op: SW6HMU (Source: UDXF). (2) (3) Occasionally active with irregular schedule. Former website [5] closed. 2011
6900 Beeper 0.5 sec beeps approx 1/sec (Source: HF Underground Forum [6]) October 12, 2011
6947.1 13 dits and 1 dah No further info (Source: HF Underground Forum [7]) October 24, 2011
6994.8 - Norfolk, UK
(JO02)
"RRR RRR RRR UK BEACON PROJECT 0.8E 52.8N 0.1 WATTS
RRR RRR RRR REPORTS TO UKBEACON _ GMAIL.COM" (Source: UDXF)
2011
8001.5 S S.W. Arizona sun-only, 1 watt. strong signal daytimes. Recently reported on 8000.6 kHz (Source: UDXF). 2011
8003 Dasher Colorado Solar/battery dipole 24/7 "Pike 78" 78 dashes/min
8211.7 OR
8261 F Western Canada 250mW into a 1/2 wave inverted vee, 1400-0500
8350 Dasher North Carolina
8497.7 Dasher Pike 26 26 dashes/min
8519.7 (dasher) N. America Active August 2011, no further info. (Source: HF Underground Forum) August 10, 2011
10236.7 Dasher FL
11002.7 CO Colorado Solar battery 300 mW dipole 24/7
11009.9 S  ? Discovered at 1032 UTC on 2011-03-26 in Australia (1)
13168.1 dasher N. America No further info. (Source: UDXF, June 2011)
26600 Dasher Obliterated by lightning in June 2010. Replacement is in the works.

See also

27 MHz beacon 69BY in Costa Rica

References

  1. Ary Boender: "Numbers and Oddities", issue 162, March 2011, pp. 17
  2. Ary Boender: "Numbers and Oddities", issue 156, September 2010, pp. 15-16
  3. "PRV" was often reported during the past few months and was unid until Linkz submitted a link to websites about this station. Linkz writes: I have no idea if this station is legit or a pirate. It's operator is Eystathios Karastathis (SW6HMU) from Preveza, Greece. He writes on his blog "PRV - 6852 kHz 15w cw BEACON with Dipole Ant on the air 17.30 pm- 8.00 am". According to his blog there is also a MF beacon "PRV beacon 500-531 khz am/cw 400 Watt" and a local AM broadcasting station "Studio 421" on 1655 kHz”. This beacon was last reported to UDXF on April 18, 2011.
  4. Ary Boender: "Numbers and Oddities", issue 159, December 2010, pp. 23.

External Links



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