Ma Engineering is a leading supplier and installer of Non-Directional-Radio Beacons around the world.
Non-directional beacons (NDBs) are ground-based radio transmitters used to aid and navigate vessels in aviation and marine applications during their approach.
They have continued to provide a fundamental and reliable means of aircraft navigation despite the arrival of GNSS and modern ground-based systems. The decommissioning of non-directional beacon systems does not appear to be likely to occur for many years to come.
For this reason, manufacturers are investing in the development of modern ultra-reliable systems.
They have continued to provide a fundamental and reliable means of aircraft navigation despite the arrival of GNSS and modern ground based systems. The decommissioning of non-directional beacon systems does not appear to be likely to occur for many years to come. For this reason manufacturers are investing in the development of modern ultra reliable systems.
NDBs transmit Omni-directional signals to an antenna on board the aircraft/ship. An automatic direction finder (ADF) then uses the signal to determine the aircraft's bearing and display its position in relation to the NDB transmitter.
The NDB is a ground-based transmitter situated in a ground station that broadcasts signals in all directions (omnidirectional). The NDBs signal traverses the curvature of the Earth’s surface and enables the pilot to plot a course to their destination.
NDB stations are classified as either compass locators, medium homing, homing or high homing and are differentiated by their signal range.
Automatic Direction Finders ADFs are onboard instruments that use antenna equipment to understand and display information received from the NDB. These antennas include loop and sense antenna which use bidirectional signals to identify the direction of the NDB 180 degrees apart (loop) and use nondirectional signals to determine which direction correctly locates the position of the ground station (sense).
These radio waves are received at either medium or high frequencies.