Gander Oceanic Procedures

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transitman

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Aircraft traveling over the North Atlantic are normally assigned a "track" (A through F westbound, S through Z eastbound) and the "tracks" change daily based on wind conditions. Controllers at the Gander center utilize HF radio for communications as no radar or VHF coverage is available. My question pertains to coverage of the airspace. Does one controller monitor a single or multiple "tracks?" Are there borders for the NAT HF radio families and if so can someone provide a link to that map. Thanks!
 
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Similar to any ARTCC FIR, I would image that oceanic airspace is divided into sectors. So, Controller "A" is responsible for working traffic in one sector of airspace while Controller "B" is responsible for another sector.

The sectors of airspace are usually divided by width, length, &/or height. Usually how busy or complex a piece of airspace is will determine how big a sector will be. For areas like oceanic where aircraft are mainly in cruise and the help/use of CPDL, the sectors are probably fairly large.

In terms of HF radio comms. If I recall, I believe that the frequencies change daily/nightly. When an aircraft requests their oceanic clearance, ARTCC usually includes the HF frequencies in use that time of day.
 

ai8o

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MWARA NAT A-F HF frequencies

Go To: HTTP://www.hfunderground.com/wiki/MWARA

Note that there are several maps dividing the world into various MWARA (Major World Aeronautical Route Areas) There is a map covering the North Atlantic in this series of maps.

On each individual map you will see little boxes with lists of frequencies in them.
Each group of frequencies in a little box is a set used to maintain HF comms in a certain MWARA area.
The frequencies in the little boxes are changed at different times of the day according to changes in HF propagation.

The North Atlantic MWARA (of which Gander and New York Radio are just parts) is so busy compared compared to other MWARA, that heavily used tracks (NAT-A, NAT-B, CAR-A) are almost exclusively assigned a certain set of frequencies.

Gander, and NY Radio fade out because of changes in the ionosphere that do not support HF propagation on certain frequencies at certain times of the day.

Gander is not the only user of these sets of frequencies, NY Radio in North America,Santa Maria, and Shanwick in Europe also use these sets of frequencies.

You do not hear the actual ATC air traffic controllers talking. The people talking that you hear are just communicators who relay messages between the actual ATC controllers and the aircraft.

NY Radio communicators are employees of ARINC, not FAA personnel.
Gander Radio communicators are employees of a Canadian for profit company that just runs communications, and are not Transport Canada ATC controller personnel.

The ATC personnel who make the actual ATC decisions are located away from the ARINC communicators.
 

novascotian

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Just wanted to mention that in Canada all air traffic control other than military is operated by Nav Canada, which is a NOT for profit company set up in 1996. Prior to that ATC was operated directly by the federal government's Department of Transport (aka Transport Canada). So all the non-military towers, terminal control units and area control centres (same thing as US ARTCC) are Nav Canada, and so is the Gander Oceanic Centre. I can't comment for sure on whether or not the voices you hear on HF from Gander are communicators or ATC personnel, but they are for sure Nav Canada people, and I always thought they were ATC types who happen to have an assignment there rather than at a tower or centre. Nav Canada by the way also operates the flight service stations as well, and the employees there are flight service specialists, not air traffic controllers.
 
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navaidstech

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As a Nav Canadian, I fully agree with novascotian but also wanted to add that Nav Canada also looks after all ground based navigation systems (radar, ILS, VOR, DME, etc, etc). Bunch of good guys working in that department (tooting my own horn here, LOL)!
 

novascotian

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Yes for sure Alex, I neglected to mention all those navaids.... Anyone reading this thread probably also likes planes so you might be interested to know that Nav Canada has a fleet of aircraft used in part to calibrate all those navaids. They identify like airliners. for example Navcan 301 etc. It is interesting to watch them flying approaches and so on, working with guys on the ground to make sure the ILS etc is working correctly.
 
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navaidstech

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That's correct novascotian...we've got two CRJ's and one Dash-8. We just completed a round of flight checks here in Toronto but there will be much more over the summer months (usually Saturdays around 10 AM). Best frequency to listen to Flight Check ops is 135.850 MHz.
 

majoco

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I did the same thing here in NZ for 10 years before the government decided we were too expensive! We covered the South Pacific from the Marquesas north of Tahiti right round to Nauru and everything in between - four trips a year as well as all of NZ in two Fokker F27's.

Hooked up an old Icom IC2A 2m handheld to the console comm antenna when in transit - surprising how far you can get on 2watts from 22,000ft!
 

majoco

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The gummint put the job up for tender and the Aussies were the only taker at the time - IIRC the bid was NZ$10mil but it blew out to NZ$18. I hear the Aussie aircraft on HF presumably going round the islands but I see there is a company near Wellington that has a website about flight inspection so perhaps they do it now. I have been out of it for nearly 25years so it'll all be different now!

I see on their blub sheet...

http://www.radaero.com/sites/radaero/files/docs/downloads/FlightInspection.pdf

...a pic of Mig 15's - hope they're not using them for Flight Cal!
 
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navaidstech

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That's right ATCTech.
If you listen closely to Gander HF frequencies, say 6622 kHz, you'll notice that the radio operators are not air traffic controllers. A dead giveaway is when the aircraft requests an altitude change, the operator will come back in a short while saying "ATC advises that..." meaning that this request had to be passed onto the proper ATC authorities who in turn will make the decision yay or nay.
 

novascotian

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So the voices on Gander Oceanic are flight service specialists which I guess could be referred to as communicators. Makes you wonder though, why aren't ATC people speaking directly to the pilots? I know the area is different and the radios are HF instead of VHF but why should that make a difference?
 

majoco

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If you listen long enough, you'll notice that most HF communication comprises position reports and meteorological info from the aircraft - neither of which require any response from a "controller". As Alex said, the guy on the radio is a 'communicator', a 'postman' if you like. He just delivers the messages to the appropriate destination.

As soon as an aircraft wants to deviate from his flight planned route, up/down, left/right then he has to get a clearance to do this as he might be flying into someone else's airspace so he needs permission from the controller who knows where all the other aircraft are (we hope!).

When the aircraft gets to within VHF range, usually at some reporting point, a true controller talks directly. Responses need to be quicker and the pilot now does what he's told - there's no position reporting to be done as he's on radar and met reports aren't required either - the pilot won't request changes in route or altitude in a congested area. The controller is responsible for aircraft in his sector only and passes off his 'clients' onto the next sector controller. Sectors may be an area or a block of altitudes - one controller for low levels, one for mids and maybe another for high level traffic overflying. Some high traffic airports even have separate controllers for a holding pattern which may have ten or more aircraft circling at different altitudes
 
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novascotian

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Now that you mention it I guess I do realize that most of the over-ocean stuff is merely reporting and that Gander is Gander Radio not Gander Centre. re the VHF part, one interesting thing to mention is that Gander Radio does have VHF .... they have a remote transceiver on the southern tip of Greenland, so for 200 or 300 miles around there the aircraft can use that instead of HF, though of course I have never heard it being used as it is a loooooong way away from me.

Just to get back to Gander Centre, it sounds as if no one actually hears Gander Oceanic controllers on the air, just the radio communicators (flight service specialists in Cdn parlance) at Gander Radio. Gander domestic ACC is another matter entirely as they have a conventional area to control over Canadian land and coastal waters and are on VHF entirely. I was looking at the YQX website mentioned above and while it doesn't really say it, I presume that Gander Domestic ACC and Gander Oceanic are co-located, and maybe Gander Radio (IFSS) as well.

Re Martin talking about the Pacific.... I was wondering if New Zealand , which has control over the Cook Islands, Tokelau, etc., has remote transceivers way out in those areas... I mean where the communicators or controllers are sitting in Wellington or Auckland or somewhere but the transceivers are thousands of km away, something like what I mentioned re Gander and Greenland.
 
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ATCTech

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Yes, the Gander facility ACC (CZQX) houses Gander ATC and Gander IFSS,

Gander IFSS took over the same type of HF communications in Canada's arctic from North Bay FIC a few years back as well.

The practice of our IFSS operators handling HF ATC-related radio traffic is not unusual. Shanwick HF is still done from Ballygarreen Ireland while ATC is at Prestwick. In the U.S. all the voices you hear from New York and San Fransisco radio on HF are ARINC employees, not FAA ATC.

Here are two excellent NATS videos on Shanwick operations:

NATS, ATC Explained - YouTube

Trackwise - Targeting Risk Within The Shanwick OCA - Complete Video - YouTube

(Start at about 22 minutes reference Shanwick Radio taking over communications responsibility for oceanic)
 
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majoco

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The South Pacific area is not just controlled by Auckland HF, there's Nadi - Fiji, Brisbane, SFO and Tahiti also. They have their own areas that they control within the SP area and using the same frequencies. Auckland HF has transmitters at Auckland Airport and I believe the receivers are down the road a bit in Waiuku.- they either pass traffic over to Nadi or Brisbane, but still work right across to Rarotonga and Samoa where they are handed off to either VHF or a local HF station. They must have a selection of antennas, as I hear the Tasman and Chathams flights very well, but some other sectors not so good. Nadi booms in, likewise Tahiti and SFO (on Honolulu) in the late afternoon.
 
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