HF propagation beacons

Beacon Watch

The 18 beacons of the NCDXF/IARU network, each heard for 10 seconds every 3 minutes on five bands, plus about 100 European beacons further down. Pick a band to see who is on air, which way to point your antenna, and when each beacon comes round again.

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UTC · cycle second -- / 180
Listening from
Ghent, Belgium
51.05° N · 3.72° E · JO11UB

Bearings from Ghent

on air now selected active off air

Distance from centre is great-circle distance (rings every 5,000 km). The dashed line is the bearing to the highlighted beacon.

What you hear in each 10-second slot

The callsign at 22 wpm, then four one-second dashes, each 10 dB weaker than the one before.

  • The last dash you can still hear tells you how much margin the path has. Hearing the 100 mW dash means the band is wide open in that direction.
  • After its slot, each beacon steps up to the next band. On any one band the beacons follow the same order, 10 seconds apart.
  • The cycle restarts every 3 minutes, on minutes divisible by 3 (00:00, 00:03 … UTC). On 20 m, 4U1UN opens each cycle.

Beacons on 20 m

In transmit order for this band · tap a card to aim the chart · ▶ plays the callsign at 22 wpm with the four power steps
Europe up close

European beacons

Two of the 18 network beacons are European: OH2B in Lohja, Finland, and CS3B on Madeira. Everything else here is an independent beacon run by a club or a ham, most of them on 10 m. They send a CW ident (usually VVV de call + locator) and a carrier at one fixed power. The few that step their power are flagged on their card.

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Bearings within Europe

Rings every 500 km. Tap a dot or row to draw its bearing line.