Federal Aviation Administration frequencies?

[ChrisP]

Hey Chris,

I looked at those two radio zones. The only sense it makes is some possible compatibility with older radio equipment that might still be floating around, otherwise it doesn't make any sense to revert back to the old freqs that are now TSA. Does that make sense?

Phil

I agree that there probably are some legacy analog systems still out there. I have heard the FAA using 172.150 in analog in Atlantic City a few times. Haven't caught it anywhere else though.

- Chris

 

[Gilligan]

Other than aerial coordination, I'm still confused as to what kind of traffic actually goes out over FAA frequencies. What is there to listen to? I would imagine it would be easy for new scanner monitors to confuse FAA traffic w/ TSA -- not necessarily for experienced monitors -- but I haven't heard any routine FAA ops on these channels. What activities do they talk about?

 

[WayneH]

My understanding is the primary purpose of the repeaters is for the use of the electronic maintenance people. There are many towers that have access to the radios and I've heard one one time but the most I've heard are maintenance personnel.

 

[Gilligan]

My understanding is the primary purpose of the repeaters is for the use of the electronic maintenance people. There are many towers that have access to the radios and I've heard one one time but the most I've heard are maintenance personnel.

What do you mean "many towers"?

And to ask a separate related question, does anyone know if most major airports have several repeaters up on these frequencies?

 

[ChrisP]

Other than aerial coordination, I'm still confused as to what kind of traffic actually goes out over FAA frequencies. What is there to listen to? I would imagine it would be easy for new scanner monitors to confuse FAA traffic w/ TSA -- not necessarily for experienced monitors -- but I haven't heard any routine FAA ops on these channels. What activities do they talk about?

Most of the traffic I have monitored involves electronics maintenance, usually with the instrument landing systems or navigation aids. Some comms are related to maintenance of the communications system, either at the airport itself, or many times they are working on one of the remote sites that carries traffic from a regional air traffic control center.

These frequencies are also used as backups for communications from the airport control tower to other facilities. I heard the tower at Houston Intercontinental Airport (IAH) doing radio checks on one these frequencies with the Houston Center facility. Others have reported even hearing a control tower at one airport talking with a tower at another nearby airport, as their primary phone lines were out.

Your not going to hear too much routine traffic on these channels. But if there is maintenance or repairs going on to any FAA systems around, you might catch some activity.

- Chris

 

[P25CT]

In Connecticut/Mass a legacy analog system is used by Flight Standards for Occurrences, Incidents, Accidents. Activity has proved to be very little. Analog Encryption is sometimes heard.

Link to dBase here on RR.com:

Bradley International Airport (BDL) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

 

[Lynch_Christopher]

I was curious since it has been several months since the last post about the new FAA C2 radio system I was wondering if the deployment of the new system is complete or if anyone is picking up increased radio traffic?

 

[WayneH]

The deployment was completed quite a long time ago, several years in fact.

 

[BalunKnot]

Jfk

Last time i was waiting to pick up family at Kennedy Airport in NY I picked up an FAA repeater on 172.825 in apco25 mode NAC293. They were talking between some maintenance units and the Tower. Actually nothing interesting heard really. This was the day before Thanksgiving.

I guess this confirms what the earlier poster heard on this also.

 

[Lynch_Christopher]

The deployment was completed quite a long time ago, several years in fact.

Thanks for the info. For some reason I thought it was a fairly recent project.


I also wonder if they are using regular radios such as the Motorola XTS5000 or XTS2500 or whether or not they are specially made radios for the FAA.

 

[MOTOROLANUT]

Faa

Most likely Motorola or EFJ....

 

[WayneH]

I also wonder if they are using regular radios such as the Motorola XTS5000 or XTS2500 or whether or not they are specially made radios for the FAA.

The majority of equipment, from repeaters to mobile equipment, that I've seen has been Motorola. I believe they had the contract to (engineer? and) supply the initial P25 system. They could still use other vendors but initially it all started with Motorola.

And FWIW, the initial programming load for the field radios had the old analog channel plan along with the new P25, so they can still operate in analog secure if they wanted to. I doubt there are any analog repeaters left out there so it should be strictly simplex.

 

[WayneH]

I split the TSA topic off to here: http://forums.radioreference.com/fe...m/169393-tsa-analog-inversion-172-1500-a.html

 

[JStemann]

Most of the other posts are pretty much right on from what I've seen. We used to use the fm freq's a lot, but all of our comm (maintenance related) is done by nextel/cell phones. The only thing we do over the air anymore (that could be monitored) is when we have flight checks and have to talk to the flight check aircraft. That's done on 135.85 or 135.95(AM), that would be related to NAVAIDs.

We have seen/heard nothing in regard to the newer motorola radio system. I would probably not even know anything about it , if not for my non-work radio interests. We still have the old repeater sitting upstairs, powered down, no idea when it was last used. I think this is true for most of ohio and northern ky.

jeff.

 

[Lynch_Christopher]

Most of the other posts are pretty much right on from what I've seen. We used to use the fm freq's a lot, but all of our comm (maintenance related) is done by nextel/cell phones. The only thing we do over the air anymore (that could be monitored) is when we have flight checks and have to talk to the flight check aircraft. That's done on 135.85 or 135.95(AM), that would be related to NAVAIDs.

We have seen/heard nothing in regard to the newer motorola radio system. I would probably not even know anything about it , if not for my non-work radio interests. We still have the old repeater sitting upstairs, powered down, no idea when it was last used. I think this is true for most of ohio and northern ky.

jeff.

Hey thanks for the info. It still a little confusing why the FAA would need a brand new Motorola P25 digital radio system if they use cell phones and nextels for maintenance related work.

The only reason that I can think of is if it is used in case the ETVS (Enhanced Terminal Voice Switch) system goes down and they need a backup between facilities.

JStemann, you wouldn't happen to work for the FAA would you?

 

[WayneH]

Hey thanks for the info. It still a little confusing why the FAA would need a brand new Motorola P25 digital radio system if they use cell phones and nextels for maintenance related work.

For one, they had to do something about the Federal mandate about narrowbanding (or however it's described) so the switch was understandable, and two, nothing beats interconnected two-way repeaters for when SHTF and cell sites are dropping out all over. Thankfully the Fed Gov still understands the importance of them.

 

[JStemann]

Hey thanks for the info. It still a little confusing why the FAA would need a brand new Motorola P25 digital radio system if they use cell phones and nextels for maintenance related work.

The only reason that I can think of is if it is used in case the ETVS (Enhanced Terminal Voice Switch) system goes down and they need a backup between facilities.

JStemann, you wouldn't happen to work for the FAA would you?

Kinda forgot about this thread.

Yes, I do.

I don't think, at least around here, a trunked system would help if the voice switch failed. We would lose the direct lines to the various centers, but we have phone lines external from the voice switch that are available. As far as comm. to aircraft, we have a backup voice switch that bypasses all of the primary system. And if they both fail we also have several stand alone transceivers to provide some comm.

The main reasons for going with a p25 (or any) system is: 1) you don't have to rely on the cell system working when you really need to communicate. 2) we don't have to keep paying for cell service.

The old system we had wasn't trunked, just repeated with phone patches available. It was almost antique, 15 years ago. I have no idea when motorola stopped supporting it, but 10 years ago, it was hard to get parts for.

The best thing (as far as I'm concerned) would be to have both cell/nextel and a good radio system, but most of the people I work with hate carrying just the nextel let alone adding a HT to carry around as well.

jeff.

 

[Lynch_Christopher]

Hey thanks for the response. That definietly does make sense to have a radio system as a backup so you don't have to pay for and rely on cell phone service. Would the the p25 system be available at each radar console or would it be a separate base station radio somewhere else?

 

[JStemann]

Hey thanks for the response. That definietly does make sense to have a radio system as a backup so you don't have to pay for and rely on cell phone service. Would the the p25 system be available at each radar console or would it be a separate base station radio somewhere else?

Generally, the p25 radio/system would not even be located in a control area (Tower or tracon). In some cases there might be a radio sitting in the control tower at the supervisor desk, and probably turned off most of the time. Most radio contact we have with controllers is through the normal AM ground frequencies, and that's just for getting access to taxiways and runways. For most maintenance coordination with air traffic, we go through the phone system.

The fm radio system (p25 or whatever system) would almost completely be used for the techs to talk between each other only. In some rare cases, small municipal airports, air traffic may communicate problems to the techs, but then the small muni. airport probably doesn't have the radios to begin with.

One caveat, we don't have the new system, this is how it worked with the old system. There could be some new policies in effect for those sites that do have the new system in place. And of course, this is federal government, so there could be 100 different setups at 50 different locations.

jeff.

 

[Lynch_Christopher]

Generally, the p25 radio/system would not even be located in a control area (Tower or tracon). In some cases there might be a radio sitting in the control tower at the supervisor desk, and probably turned off most of the time. Most radio contact we have with controllers is through the normal AM ground frequencies, and that's just for getting access to taxiways and runways. For most maintenance coordination with air traffic, we go through the phone system.

The fm radio system (p25 or whatever system) would almost completely be used for the techs to talk between each other only. In some rare cases, small municipal airports, air traffic may communicate problems to the techs, but then the small muni. airport probably doesn't have the radios to begin with.

One caveat, we don't have the new system, this is how it worked with the old system. There could be some new policies in effect for those sites that do have the new system in place. And of course, this is federal government, so there could be 100 different setups at 50 different locations.

jeff.

It would be interesting to see which facilities have the new system. I'm sure the larger facilities probably have the system like Boston Center. But like you said they could have many different types of setups at different locations.

One other question I had is with the regular VHF AM frequencies does the FAA use Motorola Base Station radios or do they use specially made radios just for the FAA?