Hand Bearing Compass

[mgphl52]

Yikes! That'd be a helluva time to start receiving a skip signal from, say, Kansas!!!

-michael

[Mathias]

I stand corrected on seeking transmitting stations. Now when I am wearing my aluminum foil helmet to keep the aliens from broadcasting into my mind, I will know how to use it as a RDF.

But on a more serious note: Are RDFs still functional for practical purposes? Would you have to have a chart of transmitting stations? And with the same programming coming from several different transmission stations, wouldn't it get confusing?

-Mathias

[John Vigor]

Mathias, yes, your RDF would still be practical IF you could pinpoint the location of the transmitting AM station on your chart and IF you knew you were listening to signals from that location, not from repeater stations.

There may still be a few dedicated RDF stations still operating. There's supposed to be one in the Strait of Jan de Fuca in the 300-400 kHz range, but I've never been able to pick it up on my Sangean portable.

I was once angling in toward St. Vincent in the Caribbean after many days out of sight of land and was able to get a pretty good line of position by tuning my portable radio to an AM broadcast station in Barbados about 25 miles over the horizon. I could certainly have homed in on Barbados without a compass or anything but that cheap little radio.

I cheated to get the bearing in degrees, of course. I turned the whole boat to line up with the radio and read the steering compass.

Cheers,

John Vigor

[Al Levesque]

Yes, there are still active transmitters for RDF. When I checked and replaced the batteries in our vintage unit earlier this year, I could still pick up a couple. There is one north of Boston and another on Race Point on Cape Cod. On the other hand, the little GPS is a much better way to go, especially if you need accuracy.

[Dalton]

My Steiner binoculars have a compass built in so you get the bearing while looking through them. Very handy.