VERY LOW FREQUENCY RADIO

Lots of interesting things to hear below 500KHz.

I have just finished building a low frequency receiver that tunes from 250 to 500 KHz, which I use with a loop antenna to listen for low power non directional airport beacons. I have posted, at the bottom of this page, the call letters and location of some of the airport navagation beacons (NDB's) that I have heard through the high noise level here at my QTH in San Leandro, California using the loop antenna. It is really a lot of fun listening to the signals which exist below the standard AM broadcast band.

Currently I'm improving the performance of this little radio and adding a noise blanker to help eliminate powerline noise. With the new noise blanker and the amplified loop antenna this should be a powerful tool for pulling weak signals out of the noise. With the new noise blanker circuit I can now make the radio battery operated since it no longer depends on information from the powerline for blanking.
If anyone is interested in trying to hear things in this exciting band I will try to offer a limited number of these radios with loop antenna as a kit or completly assembled at a very low price. Just email me and I'll get back to you with the latest info. I also have a free list of most of the operating NDB's.






Below is a list of the NDB's I've heard!

      AK   341 khz Oakland Airport Calif.
      CC   335 khz Concord Airport Calif.
      PBT 338 khz Red Bluff Airport Calif.
      FCH 344 khz Fresno Airport Calif.
      SA    356 khz Sacramento Airport Calif.
      LV   374 khz Livermore Airport Calif.
      MO  375 khz Modesto Airport Calif.
      SF    379 khz San Francisco Airport Calif.
      HU   400 khz Sacramento Airport (2) Calif.
      MOG 404 khz Montague Airport (My new DX so far)




Here is a complete list of VLF time signals from 20 to 77.5 khz.

Back to the Home Page