i live in chester co pa with aleast 6 airports in area how would u set ur scanner.

Status
Not open for further replies.
mattl3320

mattl3320

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 31, 2008
Messages
282
Reaction score
91
Location
pa
ok i have at least 6 airports in my area two handle commerical airlines and the others are sailplanes and general aircraft like piper clubs cessnas and helicopters. how would u program ur scanner. and how do u know if u have the right approach channel. both phl airports are close but not close enough for me to hear the tower or ground. there are two centers that cover my area washington and new york i can here modena on 135.4500 both sides and 132.5250 some times both sides. just want some ideas on this. should i enter all of the airports into the scanner or just a few channels like atc ctaf air to air approach ect,

1 chester co
2 lancaster co
3 reading
4brandywine , west chester
5northeast phl airport
6phl international airport

i dont care much for the commerical airline stuff so just for the smaller airports how would u program the banks in your radio,
 
Last edited:
kf5qgf

kf5qgf

Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2012
Messages
145
Reaction score
0
Location
Olive Branch, MS
With my local international airport i programmed all the available freqs into my scanner, then started listening, if i heard a freq alot i locked it out so that it wouldn't hide the others. i did this until i heard silence, so i could determine the other freqs were far less popular and could remove them. i did the same with the 96 aar (railroad) channels. It took about 2 weeks but that precious space on your handheld is worth it.
 
C

canav844

Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2007
Messages
559
Reaction score
1
Put in the CTAF/Unicom for each airport, all the frequencies minus (ATIS) weather for your closest and/or most frequently visited airport.

Aircraft have no more than 7 watts, ground stations have more but not a whole lot; my point is that Airband is low power and simplex, so there's nothing relaying that signal further along to your scanner. Now with altitude you can hear the plane side of things much further away but transmissions on the ground half of the conversation don't carry very far, so depending upon what you enter, and what close really means you may get only one side of the conversations.
 
b7spectra

b7spectra

EMS Dispatcher
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
3,143
Reaction score
10
Location
Cobb County, GA
All depends on the scanner you have. If you have one that does alpha-numeric, I would simply make 6 banks, name each one accordingly and then name the frequencies. Example for my ATL file:

Bank is called HARTSFIELD
Ch 1 125.325 is displayed as "Tower 8R/26L"
Ch 2 123.850 is displayed as "Tower 9R/27L"
Ch 3 119.500 is displayed as "Tower 10/28"

same goes for Ground and Approach and Departure channels.
 
kcoleman

kcoleman

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2004
Messages
388
Reaction score
1
Location
Tallassee, AL
As b7spectra has pointed out, it all depends on the scanner you have. If you have alpha tag ability. I would group all the small airports together in one bank or scanlist and use the airport ICAO codes to identify the channels:

1. KMQS UNICOM, 122.700 (Chester Co.)
2. KLNS Tower VHF, 120.900 (Lancaster)
3. KPHL APP/DEP, 124.350 (Philly App/Dep)

You get the idea...

Since Philadelphia International has so many approach/departure frequencies, I would probably put it in a list by itself and depending on the number of ARTCC frequencies you want to monitor, I would make a separate bank/list for those also. Large airports and ARTCC frequencies can become very busy at times, so having the ability to turn the list off if it becomes too much is nice.

Hope that helps,
Keith
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top