[Lowfer] NDB QSL etiquette - OT?

[Lyle Koehler]

>For that matter, there may not be an "engineer in charge" or any
>engineer at all.

I'm afraid that is increasingly true these days. The NDBs are probably
maintained by a service company that is based nowhere near the airport in
question.

Several years ago there were reports of a signal that sounded like an HF
"bubble jammer" at about 215 kHz. It was quite loud here in MN, and I
finally realized that the weird signal belonged to beacon AWG in Washington,
IA. AWG was usually found where it belonged on 219 kHz, but when it was
really cold, it went crazy and showed up on 215 kHz with broad frequency
modulation. My guess was that a phase locked loop was going out of lock, and
that the voltage controlled oscillator was being modulated by something like
a 10-Hz reference frequency. It took a couple of phone calls to the airport
before I found anyone that even knew they *had* a beacon, and was finally
referred to a service company on the other side of the state. After the
usual phases of disbelief and denial ("all of our transmitters are crystal
controlled and that kind of behavior is impossible"), they checked the
records and found that AWG was one of very few NDBs with a PLL exciter.
Eventually it got fixed and I haven't heard the "bubble jammer" since then.
In fact, I just that AWG is still working. However, this anecdote
illustrates that:

a) It's hard to find anyone who knows about NDBs any more.

b) It's hard to find anyone who even cares.

Lyle, K0LR