ACURA NCDXF Beacon Tracker featuring a worldwide HF beacon network map, amateur radio transceiver, and five international beacon frequencies.
Explore worldwide HF radio propagation with the ACURA NCDXF Beacon Tracker. Monitor international amateur radio beacons across five HF frequencies to better understand band conditions.

NCDXF Beacon Tracker

Is 20 meters open to Africa right now? Is 10 meters open to South America? The NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Project can tell you in three minutes. Eighteen beacons around the world take turns transmitting on 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meters, each for 10 seconds, on a cycle that repeats every three minutes, day and night. This tracker shows exactly which beacon is on the air on each band at this very second, so you know who you’re hearing when you tune in.

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UTC · your time
Beacon cycle

Lines show the great-circle (short) path from ACURA in Absecon, NJ to each beacon on the air right now. Click any dot for that beacon’s next time on each band.

Full transmission schedule

Times are minutes:seconds into each 3-minute cycle, which starts at the top of every hour and every three minutes after (00:00, 00:03, 00:06 UTC and so on). The highlighted squares are on the air right now.

#CallLocationDistanceBeam14.10018.11021.15024.93028.200Status

Beacon list and status from the NCDXF/IARU International Beacon Project. Distances and beam headings are measured from Absecon, NJ.

How to listen

  1. Tune your HF radio to one of the beacon frequencies: 14.100, 18.110, 21.150, 24.930 or 28.200 MHz. CW mode works best, but USB works too.
  2. Watch the card for that band above. It shows which beacon is transmitting right now and counts down to the next one.
  3. Listen for the beacon’s callsign in Morse code at 22 words per minute, followed by four one-second dashes. You don’t need to copy CW to use the beacons: the tracker tells you who is sending.
  4. Stay on the frequency for a full three minutes to hear all 18 beacons, or switch bands to compare.

Count the dashes

The callsign and the first dash are sent at 100 watts. The next three dashes drop to 10 watts, 1 watt and just 100 milliwatts. The more dashes you can hear, the better the band is open to that part of the world. If you can hear all four, even a tiny QRP signal would get through, so it’s a great time to call CQ in that direction!

Don’t be surprised if you can’t hear 4U1UN in New York on 20 meters. It’s too close: HF signals often skip right over nearby stations. For more ways to check band conditions, see our DX Propagation page, or listen for yourself on the WebSDR.