In most parts of the world, the VHF aviation band is pretty clean. Aside from a bit of CATV leakage or harmonics from low band FM, there is not much to bother users of that spectrum. Yes, scanner listeners do get much more noise from things near their antennas, but the band is actually pretty clean.
Things are different along China's eastern coastline, and at some inland locations, where the PRC has been deploying VHF radars operating within the lower parts of the civil aviation band. "Anti access / area denial" is the game, which manifests as buzzing and humming wideband noise. I've noticed quite a bit more of this in 2013 during my flying there, and now share some short recordings of "something different" in the air band:
Chinese VHF RADAR on 121.5
Chinese VHF RADAR on 119.0
I would enjoy taking an SDR up there and getting a wideband capture, but don't see that happening. Hehehe, holding my smartphone up to the cockpit loudspeaker is one thing; bringing a laptop, radio, and antenna is something else entirely...
Things are different along China's eastern coastline, and at some inland locations, where the PRC has been deploying VHF radars operating within the lower parts of the civil aviation band. "Anti access / area denial" is the game, which manifests as buzzing and humming wideband noise. I've noticed quite a bit more of this in 2013 during my flying there, and now share some short recordings of "something different" in the air band:
Chinese VHF RADAR on 121.5
Chinese VHF RADAR on 119.0
I would enjoy taking an SDR up there and getting a wideband capture, but don't see that happening. Hehehe, holding my smartphone up to the cockpit loudspeaker is one thing; bringing a laptop, radio, and antenna is something else entirely...
