Each beacon transmits once on each band once every three minutes, 24 hours a day.

A transmission consists of the callsign of the beacon sent at 22 words per minute followed by four one-second dashes.

The callsign and the first dash are sent at 100 watts. The remaining dashes are sent at 10 watts, 1 watt and 100 milliwatts.

At the end of each 10 second transmission, the beacon steps to the next higher band and the next beacon in the sequence begins transmitting.