Starting aviation monitoring

[Osprey1163]

I decided to start listening in to local aviation, until now I've pretty much stuck with fire/police scanning. I'm near Baltimore Washington International and a couple small airports & want to start with them. BWI has dozens of frequencies listed, which ones should concentrate on first? I know aviation has it's own radio protocols & terms, anyplace in particular I can learn read up on it?

 

[AB4BF]

I use a Radio Shack RS-2052 scanner dedicated to civilian and military aviation only. The reason is, its scan speed, mostly, and sensitivity. I put an LED in place of the incandescent bulb that lights the display which will burn out eventually if not all ready. These radios are getting harder to find as time flies on... I also have it connected to a discone antenna mounted in the gable of my attic (don't let the elements touch the wood, lol).

I have almost 100 channels programmed for civilian and just a few (so far) for military. On the flight frequencies, you don't necessarily have to put a delay in order to keep scanning quickly. Air to air, I put the frequency on delay to catch both sides of the conversation.

One thing I do not like about the radios is there are no external speaker jacks, so I install them. Really improves your listening on a larger more dynamic speaker...

Hope that helps, and Good Luck!

Also, wonder why this thread isn't in aircraft monitoring but in the tavern???

 

[aprswatcher]

Check out Airnav.com for more airport information in your area. Click on the "Airports" tab and then input the airport name.
Here is a short cut to KBWI Washington International.

AirNav: KBWI - Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport

Complete aeronautical information about Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (Baltimore, MD, USA), including location, runways, taxiways, navaids, radio frequencies, FBO information, fuel prices, sunrise and sunset times, aerial photo, airport diagram.

www.airnav.com

I would concentrate on frequencies for the Tower, Approach and Departure and looking at the listing there are tons of "Approach/Departure frequencies for BWI
Also this site here on RR:

Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI) (Anne Arundel County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI) (Anne Arundel County)

www.radioreference.com

Also listen to the Departure controller for a "handoff" to one of the "enroute" controllers and copy down the frequesncies for later input to your scanner.
Good Luck you have plenty to monitor in your area.
73, Rex

 

[alphazulu]

Osprey
If interested, you could pick up aircraft side of;

Washington ARTCC Center ZDC (all)

Washington (ZDC) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Washington (ZDC) Air Route Traffic Control Center

www.radioreference.com

New York ARTCC Center ZNY (all)

New York (ZNY) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for New York (ZNY) Air Route Traffic Control Center

www.radioreference.com

And the transmitters in Pennsylvania (all) and West Virginia (1) for
Cleveland ARTCC Center ZOB

Cleveland (ZOB) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Cleveland (ZOB) Air Route Traffic Control Center

www.radioreference.com

Live it up and add "Airport Communications" for nearby KADW Joint Base Andrews

AirNav: KADW - Joint Base Andrews

Complete aeronautical information about Joint Base Andrews (Camp Springs, MD, USA), including location, runways, taxiways, navaids, radio frequencies, FBO information, fuel prices, sunrise and sunset times, aerial photo, airport diagram.

www.airnav.com

 

[spanky15805]

Well you could go to Skyvector dot com and start with the Victor routes and rnav waypoints. That way you have some idea which way the plane is heading without having to look at an ads-b web site. Delta 211, cross "SWANN" at or above 100.

 

[ZJXnZMA]

I decided to start listening in to local aviation, until now I've pretty much stuck with fire/police scanning. I'm near Baltimore Washington International and a couple small airports & want to start with them. BWI has dozens of frequencies listed, which ones should concentrate on first? I know aviation has it's own radio protocols & terms, anyplace in particular I can learn read up on it?

If you're interested in just VHF civil aviation monitoring It helps to have at least a 1,000 channel desktop and/or portable scanner with alpha tags. You can dump the entire VHF civil air band plan into your rigs and sort them out according to what you monitoring requirements are at any given time of day. I monitor the airline company and FBO channels during the day and ARTCC frequencies at night. When on the road I pull up just the banks designated for local airport towers from point A to point B and back. Check the RR Wiki for most if not all that you are looking for. I hope this helped.

 

[KK4JUG]

And be sure you get 121.5 and 243.0. Those are so-called emergency freqs. You'll probably hear some normal conversation on those freqs but I'd put them in because that famous planner, Justin Case, recommended it.

 

[thevig]

If you're interested in just VHF civil aviation monitoring It helps to have at least a 1,000 channel desktop and/or portable scanner with alpha tags. You can dump the entire VHF civil air band plan into your rigs and sort them out according to what you monitoring requirements are at any given time of day. I monitor the airline company and FBO channels during the day and ARTCC frequencies at night. When on the road I pull up just the banks designated for local airport towers from point A to point B and back. Check the RR Wiki for most if not all that you are looking for. I hope this helped.

Well certainly an SDS100 or 200 could accommodate a large frequency list like that. Question is, is there a list containing all the frequencies that one could simply copy and paste into a third party program from the likes of Butel, ect?

 

[Oakland_Tower]

If you are not familiar with aviation lingo and the ATC IFR system in general, I would start by listening to the "tower" frequency or "ground" at BWI. Lock it on one frequency and listen. If you start scanning a number of channels nothing will make sense and it will be hard to follow along. I would then move on to various "approach" frequencies, and then again, lock it on one channel and learn all you can about what is going on and where.

 

[wscranston]

Following has good info:

How Air Traffic Control Works

There are about 5,000 planes in U.S. airspace every hour. How do these aircraft keep from colliding with each other? Learn about the intricate system that guides a plane from takeoff to landing.

science.howstuffworks.com

Remember, it's very difficult to hear the ground to air transmissions unless you are quite close to the facility since they are set up to target planes in the air, not people on the ground.

 

[xms3200]

I live close to CLE airport and can receive the tower's transmission fine. It is impossible to receive CLE ZOB with their RCAG sites. wondering if a discone antenna will help. I am using the Icom A6 handheld which is excellent for receiving aircraft.

 

[ATCTech]

If you mean you're using a handheld with the handheld's antenna then yes, virtually any externally mounted antenna connected to decent coax and at a bit of altitude over surrounding buildings and terrain is going to make a world of difference. As for receiving a specific source at a specific distance in a certain direction you won't know until you try.

I'm using a discone feeding "LDF-4 1/2" hardline coax here and can receive all of our VHF transmitters at Toronto airport at 15NM/18SM away. A friend of mine who is maybe 2SM closer to the airport than I am is also using a discone but using "RG-6" and is located about 30' ASL lower than my setup cannot.

That's just the way it is sometimes. Altitude and the least amount of signal loss in the transmission path (line-of-site obstructions, terrain and the efficiency of the coax cable) is the key. That basic rule will never change.

Cheers!

Bob

 

[krokus]

I live close to CLE airport and can receive the tower's transmission fine. It is impossible to receive CLE ZOB with their RCAG sites. wondering if a discone antenna will help. I am using the Icom A6 handheld which is excellent for receiving aircraft.

Yes, a discone will probably help, as ATCTech mentions. However, if you have FM broadcast stations nearby, you could get some interference from them. Installing an "FM trap" into your antenna feed, which blocks/lessens those signals, can drastically improve your reception.

 

[xms3200]

Do you think a Discone like the Diamond 220R would work. Seems like someone on this forum has had good results with it.

 

[ATCTech]

Certainly it would be a good starting point, yes. I've had a D130NJ on a 35' tower since 1988. It's never been touched since the day it went up and honestly the only thing that's changed is the little plastic caps on the ends of the sloping elements have come off over time. Otherwise it's still like-new, almost 32 years later.

The nice part of a discone design is that's it very broadband, so it's going to give you decent performance from 50 MHz into the 800 and 900 MHz spectrum, although technically they are a bit "lumpy" (better in certain frequency ranges than others) and not particularly sensitive above 500 MHz in my years of comparing it to dedicated-band antennas. Unless you intend on doing a lot of distant-listening of trunking radio systems that operate up there then it's not a great concern and you can deal with that seperately later.

As krokus mentioned depending on your proximity to broadcast FM transmitters a band-reject filter can be a great help for VHF air reception. I use one from PAR Electronics similar to this: VHF-FM Broadcast Filters | PAR Electronics | Filters for the commercial 2 way market, MATV, FM broadcast, laboratory, marine industry, amateur radio, scanner and short wave listening enthusiasts only with type-N connectors. This is because of a broadcast FM site operating at 107.9 MHz (there couldn't be a worse frequency this close) roughly 7 NM south of me and a miriad more about 25 NM east at almost 1800' AGL including 107.1 MHz, so the top-end of the FM band is saturated with RF here. Notice that there is a little bit of attenuation up to about 120 MHz at the top end of the filter bandpass but no relatively broad filter is perfectly sloped. Don't be put off if you do find you have FM interference. We had occasional issues with it in my former profession as well, as do even commerical aircraft when they fly near that same 1800' AGL multi-transmitter FM and television site below 4000-5000' as they passed over Toronto.

 

[majoco]

A bit OT, but....

ATCTech said:

We had occasional issues with it in my former profession as well, as do even commerical aircraft when they fly near that same 1800' AGL multi-transmitter FM and television site below 4000-5000' as they passed over Toronto.

Interesting. Commercial aircraft comm and nav receivers had to have fairly bombproof front ends to the extent that they wouldn't get a TSO if they failed rejection tests - some cheaper light aircraft stuff was not so good. The bottom end of the nav band is where they tend to put the ILS frequencies here, 109.9 and 110.3 MHz most commonly, very close to the top of the VHF broadcast band and we did have a problem with one transmitter shortly after it came on air on one approach into Auckland and other operators complained too. A friendly word was passed to the offender and suddenly the interference stopped - reported that they had modified the antenna to reduce the power in the overhead, but - who knows.....

 

[ATCTech]

Yes, the LOCs sure are low in the VHF NAV band (as low as 109.1 at CYYZ) and aircraft approaching over the city once in a while would report "music" (determined to be FM broadcast by station playlist logs and/or station IDs being heard) about 3-4 NM from touchdown, putting them pretty much level with the broadcast antenna site about 5NM off their left wing. In reversed prevailing wind conditions aircraft climbing out off the same runway in the opposite direction would report similar RFI as they got within 3-4 NM of the antenna site in the initial climb profile over the city core. And you're absolutely right, some reports did directly correlate to specific make/model radio suites in multiple aircraft. At CYTZ, which sits essentially right under the same tower (which at one time housed one VHF TV low band (76-82 MHz), one mid-band (188-ish MHz) and multiple UHF TV band sources (all analog including audio until a few years ago)) in addition to (estimating here) 6 or 7 broadcast FM outlets and a couple of more on nearby very tall office buildings, the RFI from broadcast RF can be horrendous.

 

[scanmanmi]

I live out in nowhere but I put in 121.5 and in about a half hour I heard a woman say "all you pilots looking at the moon? It's beautiful".

 

[morfis]

I wonder if the OP has actually read any of the replies?

Frequencies - ignore all the lists. Set your scanner to SEARCH 118.000-136.975 and note down all the frequencies you find active over a few days. There is no point in prefilling the memories with other people's lists of things they might have once heard. Start with ones YOU can pick up with the kit you have.

Armed with a whole bunch of active frequencies you can start to listen to them, you'll work out who they are and what they are used for (and up to date published lists can assist from this point).

I'm sure there are numerous books geared towards the airband listener in the US (in the UK there is a very good one for newcomers to the hobby called "International Air Band Radio Handbook: Guide to World-wide Air Traffic Control. It's well written and has been updated several times over the years. David is now retired but was a controller).

So, you have some active freqs, you have started to learn about the procedures and lingo - you'll be hooked and want to improve your airband monitoring kit..... I know I was back in the 1970s when we didn't have internet, few hobby books, slow scanners, no text IDs for memories, and most of the receivers were chunky things that got lovely and warm during use.

Question now is whether the OP will read any of the replies

 

[bearcatrp]

Do you think a Discone like the Diamond 220R would work. Seems like someone on this forum has had good results with it.

For an indoor antenna, yes. But if you will be mounting outside, get a full size discone. Close in price.