Updated
G7RDX is an amateur radio station in the north west of England, building live tools and writing build notes at the operating position.
Beacon Monitor
Who is transmitting right now on each band, where to point the beam from your locator, and which beacons you have actually heard. The 18 beacons rotate on a fixed 3-minute cycle, computed from UTC.
All 18 beacons · cycle on the selected band, tap a row to highlight itHeard log: nothing yet
| Call | Location | Grid | Heading | Distance | Next Tx | Heard |
|---|
What it does
Shows which of the 18 NCDXF/IARU beacons is transmitting right now on 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 metres, the next two in the cycle, and the beam heading and distance from your locator, with a compass on every band.
Data and refresh
The beacon schedule is fixed: 18 beacons, 10 seconds each, a 3-minute cycle synchronised to UTC. Nothing is fetched; the monitor computes the slot from the clock, so it works offline too.
How to read it
Tune to a band, wait for the beacon shown as on air, and listen for the callsign in CW followed by four dashes at 100, 10, 1 and 0.1 watts. Tick the ones you hear: the log stays in your browser.
Who it is for
Anyone checking a path or an antenna in a minute: if you copy the 100 mW dash from a beacon, that band is wide open in that direction.
Frequently asked questions
Which beacon is transmitting right now?
The monitor at the top of this page shows the beacon currently on air for each of the five bands, updated every second from UTC. Because the IBP schedule is fixed, no internet connection to the beacons is needed: the current beacon is derived from the clock.
What frequencies do the NCDXF beacons use?
The five IBP frequencies are 14.100 MHz, 18.110 MHz, 21.150 MHz, 24.930 MHz and 28.200 MHz, covering the 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 metre bands.
How long does each beacon transmit?
Each beacon transmits for 10 seconds on each band. With 18 beacons in the network, a complete cycle lasts three minutes, so any given beacon returns to the same frequency every three minutes.
What power do the IBP beacons run?
Each transmission steps down in power: the callsign and first dash are sent at 100 watts, then the three remaining dashes at 10 watts, 1 watt and 0.1 watt. Hearing all four dashes indicates a much stronger path than hearing only the callsign.
Do I need a beam antenna to hear the beacons?
No. The beacons use vertical omnidirectional antennas and are regularly copied on simple wire antennas such as dipoles and end fed halfwaves.