Bwi Uhf

[JackTV]

All you guys who live close to BWI and listen to the UHF freqs
what seems to be the strongest UHF freq.With my discone I am only
picking up 282.275.Could it be the other freqs have less power or
perhaps a different antenna location.


Jack

 

[TinEar]

Jack, I can hear all the BWI UHF ground stations from my location and I can't really tell a difference in any of them. They are all loud and clear. However, I would think antenna orientation on the various freqs would make a big difference the farther out you are from BWI. Since different freqs are used for different compass sectors, that may account for your problem.

Alan

 

[ka3jjz]

Since I'm stuck with indoor antennas, I'd have to agree with Tin; I'm betting they could be slewed to different points on the compass, or perhaps they're being remotely controlled from different locations, and one transmitter may have more power than some of the others. I too notice a signal level difference from time to time. It may also be a maintenance issue - hard to say. Sure wish we could see the TRACON - it would be quite neat, even if we couldn't have any recording or radio gear with us....73s Mike

 

[Llwellyn]

I've had the priviledge of being in both Indianapolis International's control tower and ground control, and the Indianapolis ARTCC. It was a seriously impressive sight; so many people focused on one task, keeping the planes where they are supposed to be and making sure they never get close to one another. It's a pretty harrowing job, especially if there's lots of uncontrolled airspace in the controller's area. They used seniority to determine who got the only seat that contained entirely Class B airspace and had no uncontrolled area inside!

I would give anything to see BWI's tower, ground control, and the Washington DC ARTCC for comparison. It's been 10 years since I had the trip to the Indy facilities anyway, I'm sure BWI and Washington Center are orders of magnitude busier than anything I saw back then.

A side note; I got to see the inside of a DeHavilland Falcon 20 on that trip. Just the bathroom cost more to outfit than our house did... and I'm not exaggerating in the least. $35 million for one aircraft... gold and leather everywhere, and a fully digital cockpit.