Do you hear much on 132.125 in sac
- Thread starter engvan
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It is used when there is more than one aircraft up at the same time. I suggest connected to an outside antenna to make get the best reception.
The four LE agencies and 1 local fire agency in our region with helicopters and airplanes use it daily. We only have one TV station with a helicopter anymore, but he still pops up on there when he’s up to give position reports and ask the LE guys what they’re working.
mkewman
Member
It's really supposed to be used over the city in spots where they're not in Controlled Airspace covered by an airport's ATC tower (Sac Intl, Mather, Sac Exec) or if they're close to an un-controlled airport. (McClellan, Rio Linda, Franklin). So check out a Aircraft sectional chart and see if you're located in a controlled airspace. They have a map layer for it on globe.adsbexchange.com which makes it easy to compare to a street map. It's a little confusing but if you do some reading online on how to read a sectional chart, it'll help you understand how Pilots of all aircraft use the radio.
So say they take off from Executive, and fly towards downtown. Once Executive's tower says "frequency change approved" and terminates their radar service, they switch to the Copter frequency to communicate with other choppers in the area and give position reports. Then if they fly into Mather's airspace, they switch to Mather's tower frequency and work with Mather. Then switch back to the Metro Chopper Frequency once they're out of Mather's airspace, etc.
It's actually incredible resource management by Chopper Pilots in Metro areas. Think about it:
STAR or Air1 have to talk on their dispatch radio, talk on ATC radio, fly the aircraft, talk to their flight observer, make decisions about navigation and positioning for the observer, do calculations for fuel management, and avoid other aircraft. Talk about multi-tasking! Now think about how a Media chopper has to do all of the same thing plus often the chopper pilot is also talking on the air and sometimes even controlling the camera at the same time (although most usually have a photographer in the back seat steering the camera). It's kind of incredible.
So say they take off from Executive, and fly towards downtown. Once Executive's tower says "frequency change approved" and terminates their radar service, they switch to the Copter frequency to communicate with other choppers in the area and give position reports. Then if they fly into Mather's airspace, they switch to Mather's tower frequency and work with Mather. Then switch back to the Metro Chopper Frequency once they're out of Mather's airspace, etc.
It's actually incredible resource management by Chopper Pilots in Metro areas. Think about it:
STAR or Air1 have to talk on their dispatch radio, talk on ATC radio, fly the aircraft, talk to their flight observer, make decisions about navigation and positioning for the observer, do calculations for fuel management, and avoid other aircraft. Talk about multi-tasking! Now think about how a Media chopper has to do all of the same thing plus often the chopper pilot is also talking on the air and sometimes even controlling the camera at the same time (although most usually have a photographer in the back seat steering the camera). It's kind of incredible.
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