Air to Air I heard, Anyone have similar listening? Or can help ID'ing frequency?

[radio10-8]

While travelling between Tucson and Phoenix I was monitoring air bands to see what I could hear and guess what I stumbled across? This is new to me and may be something YOU already know about but I thought I would share. 123.300 turned into a chat room for a couple of pilots. One was enroute to ALB and the other was enroute to Love Field. They chatted for 15 minutes before I lost them. 5 minutes later my scanner stopped again on this freq and I heard 2 pilots following each other or maybe flying together in formation because he mentioned how his new paint scheme looked nice against the sky. They were enroute to Califronia based on the discussions. Finally after 30 minutes of not hearing anything I heard 1 final transmission. "I tried you on the company radio and you were not answering and I had a feeling I would find you hiding here?" Other pilot responded with go back to company i'll talk there.

 

[Caesar]

air to air convo's are always fun, if you are on your basestation sometimes you can hear a convo for 30 min or more, interesting stuff, you'd think they thought they were talking on a telephone! lol..

 

[brandon]

Yeah they are interesting.
Also monitor 123.450 as that's another freq used a lot.

 

[Truco]

Defiantly listen to 123.450 if you are flying over the north Atlantic. A lot of airline pilots chatting about all sorts of things.

 

[spiritwolfpr]

Hello Friends:

Thats a very good catch my firend congras!!

 

[sopdan]

Hi, new to scanning here, but I am a pilot. 123.300 and 123.500 are frequencies that are kind of reserved (not by law) for flight training purposes, generally for pilots to report their positions to others to avoid mid-air collisions. However, we do often have normal conversations over the radios if its really slow. As previously mentioned, fingers (12345) is another common frequency for pilots to talk on.

 

[muddy mudskipper]

check your air-to-air fixed wing and rotary wing frequencies often and you will find you local police helo and news choppers.

they may not use it as a PRIMARY frequency, but they will pop up occasionally and chat.

 

[gabyjan2291]

i picked up plane to plane on 122.850

 

[mjw357]

the 123.xxx freq range is generally used for air-air comm, usually not assigned by FAA.

some pilots like to use the unicomm frequencies (122.xxx) like a CB to talk to thier buddies. "My GPS shows my ground speed to be 117 kts" or "John came over yesterday to help me fix the washer". definitely not appreciated by other pilots.

 

[kd5dga]

I would like to find out what frequencies the airlines are using for their air to air communications. I know that the generally fall between 128 to 132 mhz.
I am in the central texas area.

 

[muddy mudskipper]

check the RR wiki entry for more detailed frequencies, but here's what i use:

123.0250
123.0750
123.0500
122.7500
122.8500
122.9750
123.9750
122.9250

 

[Watchman76]

search/scan the 129.0 to 131.975 area, lots of interesting Company, maintenence, medical emergencies ect.

 

[jaymatt1978]

I have to t ell this story because it's my favorite. One time this past summer I was listening to two pilots on 123.4500. They were going back and forth, nothing too exciting just casual BS. Then I heard one pilot say "Well I'm about to land down here in Atlantic City"''' and the other pilot goes "Yeah I'm flying over the capitol here in Albany!". I almost fell out of my chair!! First and only time I heard what amounts to "skip" on the airband!!

 

[Buckskinner33]

Is there a " FAA band Plan" that is used by most pilots? If so where would I find it?

BTW... I plugged in the freqs that was listed and I came across a few interesting conversations... A few Comercial and Private Pilots where chatting about who was onboard there flights when one said he was moving a few Exexs from Microsoft. The other said he had some Wal Mart exec. and another said he had the standard OLD Souls aboard heading for Vagas. One Pilot responds with.."Who's Having Fun Now?' another replied "Well it aint us hauling the executives around!"

Too Funny

 

[nd5y]

Is there a " FAA band Plan" that is used by most pilots? If so where would I find it?

http://www.radioreference.com/wiki/index.php/Aircraft

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/...ccess.gpo.gov/cfr_2005/octqtr/47cfr87.173.htm

 

[n4jri]

In general, it's very productive to search 122.000-123.600

Here are a few categories:


Air-to-Air: These are the truly legal channels, but I generally don't hear a lot of chit-clat. In the Washington, DC area (pre-9/11, of course) aircraft flying in the Class B airspace's VFR corridors were supposed to monitor 122.75 to avoid collision.
122.750 (fixed wing)
123.025 (helicopter)

Flight Instruction: Much of the legal use is with gliders and ballooning. Very good prospects for unofficial chit-chat.
123.300
123.500
121.950 (secondary to Aviation Support, I think)

Aviation Support: There are all kinds of uses for this, including fuel trucks at airports. I hear a fair amount of chit-chat on 122.775. 122.85 is fairly quiet in my area because several air bases around DC and Hampton Roads use it for Pilot-to-Dispatcher. (a military use similar to Unicom)
122.850 (secondary to multicom, I think)
122.775
121.950

Multicom: These are fairly wide open frequencies intended for air/ground comms supporting air/ground activities.
122.900 (often used as CTAF for uncontrolled airfields with no Unicom)
122.850
122.925 ("environmental"... this often translates to "governmental")

Flight Test: heavily abused. Most of the freqs from 123.125-123.575 that are not otherwise allocated. 123.4 and 123.45 are famous examples. You might also hear some military air/air in this area.

That may provide a little coloring for you. Less often heard are the two "domestic" freqs 122.825 and 122.875.

Best source for most of this would probably be the current Airman's Information Manual.

I used to greatly enjoy listening to 122.775 in the days when there were flights carrying cancelled checks around the country at night. There were a lot of regulars on the air.

Don't forget that there are plenty more freqs out there. These are just the ones that actually have defined uses.

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[Audiodave1]

Here in Philadelphia the helo chit-chat freq is 135.975. Most every Helo (News/med/pd) uses this for informal comms to pass the time or exchange war stories.

Dave

 

[n4jri]

Yep, the top channel in the radio before they added 136-137.

I've also seen a lot of stuff that's either one click away from something well-known, or something where the numbers make a cute pattern. Some military folks will use 125.125 or 127.275 ("2727" in the radio display). At NAS Oceana, I saw VF-101's T-34 demo team using 123.325 ("2332"), I think. Only the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.

73/Allen (N4JRI)