ATC listening

Company freqs are also fun to listen to,I listen when its cloudy and I cant see anything going overhead!
Got the giggleslast week when a ft deck crew called theirOps and said,Couple of cabin defects rear toilets will not flush,pax in seat 4C has peed the seat,and 9 walkoff wheechairs!!!!!
Dont hear many big BAs, call in do they do theirs on ACARS?
Forgot this one We’d like the engineer to meet the aircraft,the Captains chair has broken!!!!!!!

AM and FM are just different ways of modulating the carrier wave, not frequency bands themselves.

But isnt it all on AM, not FM, MW etc…

I am not to sure how many airlines are using it at the moment, but it is fantastic. No more HF and a simple button press for a full position report.

CPDLC rocks..

No we don’t spend enough time out in the bundhu to warrant it! Aren’t there only 2 airlines in the world (obviously including Cathay) using it at the mo?

wysi,

Do you have CPDLC in your machines?

It is the best. Bringing HF to an end.

Exactly, that proves my point. You’ll never hear anything of interest on HF because we all hate it!

NOT HF, don’t talk to me about HF. DAMN HF, BLOODY HF.

Don’t know the London controller but there is an American guy called Michael who I quite often have a chat with on quiet nights who works 125.55, one of the southern Lisbon sectors. He is quite commonly known amongst European pilots as ‘Good Evening Gentlemen’ as that is his standard greeting. Michael does tend to cause a bit of mayhem as he will frequently clear you direct BARLU from a point about 200 miles west os Casablanca. Later on the Spanish and French controllers will have to pick up the pieces and route you via their FIR boundaries!

Going back to HF, there really is nothing of interest on HF, just position reporting which is frequently referenced to latitude and longitude as most HF work is oceanic/Siberia/desert/etc. The other problem with HF is that there are no steady frequencies as HF uses waves bounced off the ionosphere. The ionosphere goes up and down every day so the frequencies needed vary constantly and reception is atrocious. You will also have immense difficulty receiving anything as you wo’t know what frequency they are using and you may not be in the right part of the wave to receive. It’s really not worth it when compared to VHF.

Thanks Wys, another quiet day!!!!!!
Wont bother with HF then ill just stay as I am!

When the world cup was on, one particular ATController was happilygiving out the scoreswhen England were winning one night (he is such a lovely ,happy chappie as well)on this freq 135.05 and 128.42 and a big Speedbird Captain got a bit grouchy back to him ——HE WAS NOT INTERESTED IN FOOTIE AT ALL!!!!!!!
Do you know the person I mean he says things like “Look to the left ***123 you will see Concorde going Right to Left “etc . His name is Davidand hes fun to listen to especially at night!

I always give updated sports results on all my flights. I have even been known to contact Speedbird London on HF from mid-Sahara for updated scores if the World Service wasn’t delivering the goods!

Originally posted by wysiwyg
The best thing about SELCAL is that you can tune in to the BBC World Service and get the latest footie scores!

Remind me to be on your flight during Euro 2004 next year Wys !

Charley listening out on HF would be a nightmare. It’s so bad they invented a thing called SELCAL (pronounced cell-call) which sets off a chime in the cockpit if they want to speak to us so we don’t have to maintain a lisening watch to all that static. The best thing about SELCAL is that you can tune in to the BBC World Service and get the latest footie scores!

I have a Signal Corp scanner and a Maycom 108 hand held radio.Got the first one off a friend 5 yrs ago 2nd hand and the reception on that is great.The little Maycom 108 was bought from Lowe Electronics and is fine to take on hols— it picked up transmissions from Larnaca tower a treat!
An aerial in the loft certainly helps reception, my birthday pressie 2 yrs ago was a big white aerial on the roof next to the TV one and that does make a difference.I get the LHR approach (pilots side and atc very faintly) from here but that is not bad for the distance,and the ATC freqs that have an aerial on the IOW I get both sides of conversationwhich is GREAT!!!
When my elderly scanner goes to ATC in the skies I think i will get the Yupiteru that can get HF as well.Were still thinking about it!

I have the Uniden Bearcat UBC-120XLT, it has 100 channels and 9 bands starting from 66.0 MHz to 512 MHz,excellent for civil and military listening.

I’ve got my trusty BBC scanner they give to us camera ops in order to listen to talkback without being physically connected to the camera (i.e wearing camera headphones) Very handy for sneaky tea breaks and also for aviation listening.

I think you can get them in Maplins for a reasonable rate these days ?

Normal FM radios tune up from 87-108MHz. Aviation nav radios operate between 108-118MHz with aviation comms radios using 118-136Mhz as WD suggests. You can buy radios from stores such as Maplins which have a top end of the scale that covers the aviation band. I would suggest a radio with a digital tuner because how do you tune into a frequency that maybe silent for a minute or so until someone speaks!

Your standard FM radio covers from around 88 to 108FM. Aircraft communication channels start from 118 running through to 138 on the same wave banding, with the frequencies 108-118 mainly been radio (VOR) beacon frequencies.

What you want to get is an Airband radio – u can get these quite cheap at about £20 which is hand tuned in, not the little LCD screen. If you want to go a bit fancier, more accurate and a better reception you want to try a scanner.

Companies such as www.airsupply.co.uk or www.javiation.co.uk are my local suppliers in the North of England. You can get very basic scanners from about £50 rising right through to about £1000 for a state of the art “box” set. I currently use the Yupiteru MVT-3300EU Which is very easy to use and would be ideal for a beginner

I don’t know what band they’ll fall under but the range for ATC frequencies is 118.0 through 135.0 I believe. If your radio can tune those frequencies then you’re good to go. 🙂