121.5

[Tophtoh]

Has anyone ever actually heard traffic on this? And if so what was said?

[Moderator Edit: Subject corrected to keep others from mistaking the real topic here. ]

 

[nd5y]

It is probably used for FAA Flight Service Stations.
The Fort Worth AFSS has 2 RCOs on 122.5 in N TX.
I hear aicraft calling "Fort Worth Radio" filing flight plans, getting
weather reports and other FSS type communications.

Tom

 

[akuter]

Great Falls Radio:

FSS in Great Falls, Montana
I hear pilots from North of Yellowstone Park, to North of Bozeman calling for information and making Flight plans. I can hear the FSS dispatcher sometimes.

 

[Tophtoh]

RE:

I'm retarted, I mean 121.5

 

[Thornhill20]

Yep, I've heard it a number of times.

Listen for something that sounds like this:

http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/dmb.wav
http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/MAEL/ag/elt.wav

Those are two different types...the first one is a marine ELT, the second one is an aircraft ELT, but they'll always sound similar.

-Mike

 

[Tophtoh]

but no voice?

 

[loumaag]

You will hear voice infrequently but occasionally. You will hear emergency locator beacons less and less as they are phased out in favor of the UHF ELT's which are now requried.

121.5 Guard is most often used to contact an aircraft that somehow has managed not to get changed to the right frequency. It gets scanned in one of my scanners and I hear something at least daily where one aircraft is calling another telling them to come up on some other frequency becuase Minneapolis is trying to get them. It also is used by the military to contact civilian aircraft which have wandered into a restricted airspace, and those are pretty intimidating transmissions.

 

[astrodanco]

Re: 122.5

Has anyone ever actually heard traffic on this? And if so what was said?

Around here CHP uses it all the time to announce their presense to other aircraft in the area. They usually mention the general area they're in at the time, what altitude they're at and what sort of pattern they're going to be flying while they're in that particular area. They do this every time they move from one area to the next.

I also frequently hear plenty of brief air-to-air "chit chat" on 121.5. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that 121.5 was for emergency traffic only with "repercussions" for using it for non-emergency traffic.

 

[INDY72]

Its used very often in MS by MHP Choppers to tell media and civilian aircraft to get lost after the DPS gets FAA to declare a NFZ- No Fly Zone around a crime scene. Its also used to get important info on some things, and I have heard a few REAL emergency calls on it..

One that was an plane that ended up on a highway, one that ended in a crash on a runway, one that ended with a corn patch becomming an runway....

 

[Colin9690]

122.50 is used for FAA Flight Service Stations. These stations provide pilots with flight plan info, weather info, military aircraft route info, etc. Sometimes they will use towers that are alot like repeaters to relay the voice to the nearest station. So, 122.50 is a lot like an "input" frequency to talk to flight service stations.

 

[loumaag]

Okay, I corrected the topic subject. Hopefully that will keep the wrong comments from being posted.

 

[twolf816]

friday i heard fort worth center and another aircraft talking about hearing "american 2320" give a mayday over oklahoma. it turned out to be a false alarm, but this freq is supposed to be only for emergencies

 

[colheli]

You will hear voice infrequently but occasionally. You will hear emergency locator beacons less and less as they are phased out in favor of the UHF ELT's which are now requried.

121.5 Guard is most often used to contact an aircraft that somehow has managed not to get changed to the right frequency. It gets scanned in one of my scanners and I hear something at least daily where one aircraft is calling another telling them to come up on some other frequency becuase Minneapolis is trying to get them. It also is used by the military to contact civilian aircraft which have wandered into a restricted airspace, and those are pretty intimidating transmissions.

UHF ELTs? required? Never heard of this.

We monitor 121.5 in the shop, each day. That way, we can hear if someone in our parts department accidentally activated an ELT on the shelf. Last summer, President Bush was in Redmond, OR, promoting the Northwest Forest Plan. While he was giving his speech there, we were monitoring several transmissions from BICE( Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement), warning some Cessna that they were entering restricted airspace, and that they needed to divert to another heading. After repeated attempts to get this aircraft to change course, the message turned kind of ugly. Something along the lines of ".........aircraft flying on the XXX radial of the Bend VOR, you have entered restricted airspace. Maintain altitude and turn to heading XXX, or you may be fired upon." I went home that evening, hoping to see something about it on the news, but they didn't cover the story. Never did find out what happened.

 

[unitcharlie]

since 9-11 the rules have changed... GUARD formerly was primarily for urgent/emergency comms.... any more it is fairly active because, in theory, everyone aloft is supposed to monitor it and thus it is a common freq for notifications--some as stark as colheli's intercept, frequently as mundane as attempting to contact an aircraft not responding on the "proper" freq.... since 9-11 any aircraft aloft is required to carry comm gear.....

aircraft elt's are on 121.5 and activate manually or by g-force... uhf EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons) are on 406.025000 and are designed to float to the surface of the water, they are activated when turned right side-up" by a mercury switch....

 

[colheli]

aircraft elt's are on 121.5 and activate manually or by g-force... uhf EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons) are on 406.025000 and are designed to float to the surface of the water, they are activated when turned right side-up" by a mercury switch....

Ahhhh.........there it is. I didn't recognize the UHF (should have) because we refer to the 406 MHz ELTs as SARSAT ELTs. They are making aircraft ELTs now that transmit on both 121.5, and 406.XXX MHz. The UHF portion is digital, and transmits a registration code to the satellite monitoring center. I believe NOAA monitors the satellite. They cross reference the registration code to an aircraft tail number (N number), and have contact information for that aircraft on file. You can also integrate GPS data into the ELT, so that the ELT will broadcast the GPS location of the aircraft, when activated. Pretty slick units.

 

[OntarioScannerNut]

In Ontario, I still hear the odd activity on 121.500. Usually one side of the conversation because I'm atleast 130 km's from the nearest Int'l Airport.

The odd time I'll hear some other noises on it also. Not sure if it's interference or what, but it's not like the same sounds that I've downloaded.

Also, I'll hear what sounds like #'s being punched in by a key pad or something.

406.025 is that an international frequency also? I'm in a fairly rural region with alot of lakes, who know's when the next plane would crash or someone needs a rescue in a boat.

aircraft elt's are on 121.5 and activate manually or by g-force... uhf EPIRBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons) are on 406.025000 and are designed to float to the surface of the water, they are activated when turned right side-up" by a mercury switch....

 

[unitcharlie]

it is amazing how far we have come in 30 years..... for a fifty pound radio that required a handcrank for tuning to a six ounce radio that receives signals from some bird orbitting the earth....

 

[OntarioScannerNut]

What does the 406 mhz signal sound like?

Anyone got a sound byte for that?

 

[colheli]

What does the 406 mhz signal sound like?

Anyone got a sound byte for that?

Digital data. The 406 MHz transmission is a data stream. I don't believe that there is any audio to it. The tone, if I am remembering correctly, is only present on the 121.5 portion.

 

[SCPD]

a Cesna was calling Greenville (TX) Majors Airport yesterday on 121.5 and refered to it as guard. never did hear a response and I ended up locking it out. I always thought 243.0 was guard and 121.5 was distress.