| WOD - 352kHz - Woodley, Reading, England |
WOD
I guess everyone remembers their first beacon fondly . . .
WOD was the nearest beacon to me as I was growing up. It is just off (what was) the peripheral road to Woodley Aerodrome, of nascent aircraft industry and Battle Of Britain glories various but now a dismal housing estate, just outside Reading in Berkshire, England. It used to be in the middle of the medium-wave broadcast band (at 723.5kHz) and Really Loud, which meant I tripped across it really easily, but has long since moved down to normal beacon world.
On a building-plot size bit of land surrounded by trees, its antenna was originally a 'phone-pole supported 'T', later a fibreglass stick, and here is its most recent incarnation; a fairly serious self-supporting 50+foot lattice tower with top hat loading. The new ground and power connections were still being dug in when these pictures were taken (2002).
Oh - as NDBs go, WOD is perhaps one of the still most vital; it just happens to be 20 miles from the western end of the main parallel runways at a rinky-dink little facility called Heathrow.
Some other pictures:
A somewhat humourous personal narrative, "One Man and his WOD", or how an NDB set a perfectly happy and healthy young lad on the long, sad, slippery slope down into radio.
© Steve Dove, W3EEE, 2003,4