Radio beacon

Radio beacons have many applications, including air and sea navigation, propagation research, robotic mapping, radio-frequency identification (RFID), near-field communication (NFC) and indoor navigation, as with real-time locating systems (RTLS) like Syledis or simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

The aviation NDBs, especially the ones marking airway intersections, are gradually being decommissioned and replaced with other navigational aids based on newer technologies.

Due to relatively low purchase, maintenance and calibration cost, NDBs are still used to mark locations of smaller aerodromes and important helicopter landing sites.

Using this technique the buoy prevents nets and fishing gears from being carried away by other ships, while the battery power consumption remains low.

[8] In the field of Wi-Fi (wireless local area networks using the IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g specification), the term beacon signifies a specific data transmission from the wireless access point (AP), which carries the SSID, the channel number and security protocols such as Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) or Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA).

[9] Stations participating in packet radio networks based on the AX.25 link layer protocol also use beacon transmissions to identify themselves and broadcast brief information about operational status.

[10][11] Beacons in traditional AX.25 amateur packet radio networks contain free format information text, readable by human operators.

This mode of AX.25 operation, using a formal machine-readable beacon text specification developed by Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, became the basis of the APRS networks.