2m VHF beacons

So far, I have not tried listening to the 2m Cornish, N.Ireland and Scottish beacons with the big-wheel horizontal omni antenna. I must give these a try. I expect I shall only hear them via MS or lifts and possibly aircraft reflections. On my 3el 2m beam the N.Ireland beacon was right on the edge. Normally I can copy the Kent beacon as well as beacons in Holland and Belgium.

GB3NGI (N.Ireland) 144.482MHz Ballymena
GB3MCB (Cornwall) 144.469MHz St Austell
GB3ANG (Scotland)  144.453MHz Angus

See http://www.microwavers.org/maps/2m.htm .

UPDATE 1517z: A casual listen on each frequency (probably not for long enough) and none was detected. I shall try again and listen for each for longer. I remember the GB3RMK Scottish beacon on 6m could always be copied by MS pings for a few seconds every 10-15 minutes. I was using a wire dipole at the time.

More 2m beacons

This morning (around 1100z) I positively identified - full calls and QTH locators by ear - GB3ANG (Angus,Scotland) and ON0VHF (144.418MHz, 350km - Belgium).  As yet, I'm not sure if I can copy these in totally flat conditions, or not, but certainly ON0VHF is a very solid signal and is still there now hours later.  It is weaker than the Kent VHF beacon, but not too much. This should be a very useful marginal signal.

Tuning through the beacons there are a lot of very weak carriers that are not beacons, so it is important to listen for callsigns and QTH locators to be sure of the beacon ID.  I am still exploring beacons and beam headings, so it will be some time before I know what can be copied at any time on 2m.  On 70cms I have hardly started looking.

UPDATE 1900z: ON0VHF is still audible, so I think this beacon will be a very good propagation indicator in that direction. Likewise PI7CIS (2m).