Why do I only hear airplane pilots but not air traffic controllers?
Jorge Padron
communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
(approach, tower, departure, ground, center, clearance, atis) I get a fairly
clear reception of airplane pilot communications but I don't hear the ATC.
Is this a weakness of my handheld BC120XLT scanner?
Am I not supposed to hear both the airplane pilots and ATC?
BTW, I live at about 8 miles from a major international airport (MIA) and
about 2 miles from an fairly active executive & training airport (TMB).
Thank you in advance,
J.Padron
Jake Brodsky
wrote:
>I bought this handheld Uniden Bearcat BC120XLT to listen to aviation
>communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
>problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
>hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
>(approach, tower, departure, ground, center, clearance, atis) I get a fairly
>clear reception of airplane pilot communications but I don't hear the ATC.
>
>Is this a weakness of my handheld BC120XLT scanner?
Nope.
>Am I not supposed to hear both the airplane pilots and ATC?
Often you will not hear ATC or Unicom even when you're on the ground
only a mile or two from the airport.
>BTW, I live at about 8 miles from a major international airport (MIA) and
>about 2 miles from an fairly active executive & training airport (TMB).
That's far enough...
Aircraft communications is a line of sight business. I believe the
antennas on ground stations are designed so very little of the RF
stays near the ground. After all, it simply wouldn't do to have an
aircraft directly overhead unable to maintain contact with ATC.
Second, the power they need to use is usually quite small. Aircraft
radios usually don't run more than 10 watts. The ground stations are
similar affairs.
However, you should be able to hear this traffic when you're less than
a mile from the airport. Is your information on TMB up to date?
The fact that you don't have any trouble hearing aircraft suggests to
me that you aren't having too many problems with your scanner.
Jake Brodsky, mailto:fru...@erols.com
PP ASEL IA, Cessna Cardinal N30946, Based @ MD24
Amateur Radio Station AB3A
Don Bruder
: On Thu, 8 Jul 1999 13:34:33 -0400, "Jorge Padron" <pad...@gate.net>
: wrote:
:
: >I bought this handheld Uniden Bearcat BC120XLT to listen to aviation
: >communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
: >problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
: >hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
: >(approach, tower, departure, ground, center, clearance, atis) I get a fairly
: >clear reception of airplane pilot communications but I don't hear the ATC.
: >
: >Is this a weakness of my handheld BC120XLT scanner?
:
: Nope.
:
: >Am I not supposed to hear both the airplane pilots and ATC?
:
: Often you will not hear ATC or Unicom even when you're on the ground
: only a mile or two from the airport.
:
: >BTW, I live at about 8 miles from a major international airport (MIA) and
: >about 2 miles from an fairly active executive & training airport (TMB).
:
: That's far enough...
:
: Aircraft communications is a line of sight business. I believe the
: antennas on ground stations are designed so very little of the RF
: stays near the ground. After all, it simply wouldn't do to have an
: aircraft directly overhead unable to maintain contact with ATC.
Keep in mind as well, the higher the transmitting antenna, the longer the
reception distance.
Take a standard 3 inch post-it note and call it the coverage area of the
tower antenna at ground level. Now stick it to the 50 yard line of a
football field, and call the stadium the coverage area of the airplane.
That give you any idea of the comparison? :)
That's one of the reasons (so I'm told, and it makes good sense - better
than the lame one about screwing up avionics, at least) that you aren't
allowed to use a cell-phone on an airplane in flight. Instead of hitting
one or two cell towers, you might end up hitting 50, since the "footprint"
of your signal is so gawd-awful huge compared to what it would be on the
ground. A situation like that would likely SNAFU the cell towers in a big
way...
--
Don Bruder - Dak...@primenet.com <--- Preferred Email - unmunged
Secondary --> Dak...@grfn.org +------------------------------+
Horseman by day, 'net-freak by night. What a contrast, eh?
Kurt Hoerz
centers use remote transmitters which can be located quite some distance
from the actual facility. As an example, Indianapolis center can activate a
remote site in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. While the aircraft is at altitude, its
signal will be easily receivable for a hundred miles or more, but the ground
transmitter will not, of course. Check the listings for your local control
tower, approach and departure controls and get an outside, or at least
inside the roof, antenna. Should improve reception a lot.
Kurt
co...@llano.net
etc block your line of sight from the airport then your scanner ant.
may only pick up the pilots.
When i'm flying I can sometimes hear only the tower or approach
control and not the pilots response.
If it's a radar center you may only hear the pilots cause the center
could be 100's of miles away.
On Thu, 8 Jul 1999 13:34:33 -0400, "Jorge Padron" <pad...@gate.net>
wrote:
>I bought this handheld Uniden Bearcat BC120XLT to listen to aviation
>communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
>problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
>hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
>(approach, tower, departure, ground, center, clearance, atis) I get a fairly
>clear reception of airplane pilot communications but I don't hear the ATC.
>
>Is this a weakness of my handheld BC120XLT scanner?
>
>Am I not supposed to hear both the airplane pilots and ATC?
>
>BTW, I live at about 8 miles from a major international airport (MIA) and
>about 2 miles from an fairly active executive & training airport (TMB).
>
Jan Knutar
wrote:
>I bought this handheld Uniden Bearcat BC120XLT to listen to aviation
>communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
>problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
>hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
I have the same problem. I've always guessed it's because the
airplanes fly high (right ?) and therefore line of sight is available.
The Airport transmitter is probably not LOS. I've figured that if I'd
go high up enough, I'd hear ATC.
-JK
Poster Boy
better line of sight that the ATC tower does not have. The SoCal
TRACON comes in pretty good where I am, in fact I don't get the nearby
towers but the TRACON comes in clearly. You might try monitoring
approach/departure freq's. They probably have antennas on mountain
tops ar tall towers.
WCARC
too far away. You can hear the planes from miles away, because they
are in the sky (hopefully), and there is noting blocking the signal,
whereas the ATC is using a ground station. Try hooking your scanner
to your TV antenna, or another external scanner antenna and seeing
what you get. From my Niagara Falls Ontario home, I can hear planes
departing from Toronto, Kingston and once I heard one from JFK in New
York.
L8R
Mike
On Thu, 8 Jul 1999 13:34:33 -0400, "Jorge Padron" <pad...@gate.net>
wrote:
>I bought this handheld Uniden Bearcat BC120XLT to listen to aviation
>communication between air traffic controllers (ATC) and airplane pilots. The
>problem I'm having is that I can only hear airplane pilots chat but I don't
>hear any air traffic controllers. When I scan the local airport frequencies
HighWaysinHiding
says...
>
>G'day WCARC!
>On Sat, 10 Jul 1999 21:51:22 GMT you wrote:
>
>>Try hooking your scanner
>>to your TV antenna, or another external scanner antenna and seeing
>>what you get.
>
>towers. Gives you superior reception.
>
>--
> </John> http://home.sol.no/jhilt
>
>Line noise provided by Tele2.
Even with a very good external (outside) antenna, aircraft can be heard
from much further distances than "towers". This is because VHF radio
waves travel in (almost) line of site. You can see an airplane at even
2000' much furthere away than you can a towere at 50'. Plus, a lot of
ATC communications are handled with remote receivers. That are
connected via landline so the radio might be several couties away adn
thus below your line of site.
Bill Fairbanks
need to hook up to a good external antenna system to get the tower. I ran
into the same situation with my table model RS Scanners and had to install
a outdoor antenna to receive the tower.
73
Bill
co...@llano.net wrote in article <37855316....@news.llano.net>...
Energizer
>G'day HighWaysinHiding!
>On 19 Jul 1999 11:13:33 GMT you wrote:
>
>>Plus, a lot of
>>ATC communications are handled with remote receivers.
>
>things worse.
>
tell the truth now....the ATC guys are in a "cone of silence" so that only the
pilots can hear them.......