Is it possible

[Salvatorejrc]

So I currently live in morris county NJ and i want to receive all frequencies coming from Newark Liberty International Airport, which is a county over from me (19 miles from me). It's frequencies should be available under essex county on the RR database. I have an sds100 programmed and everything with the stock antenna. Would it be possible to reach the airport frequency from my house if I got a certain antenna?

Side note I'm still a newb and learning about RF.

 

[hiegtx]

So I currently live in morris county NJ and i want to receive all frequencies coming from Newark Liberty International Airport, which is a county over from me (19 miles from me). It's frequencies should be available under essex county on the RR database. I have an sds100 programmed and everything with the stock antenna. Would it be possible to reach the airport frequency from my house if I got a certain antenna?

Side note I'm still a newb and learning about RF.

At a 19 mile distance, you are not likely to hear the tower or ground control frequencies. Those use antennas fairly low to the ground, so the signal does not carry very far. However, you would be able to hear planes in the air, landing or taking off, that are talking to the tower. You would also be al;e to hear aircraft on the approach & departure channels. Whether you hear the ground side of the conversation (the air traffic controllers) will largely depend on your distance from their transmit site, which might be somewhere other than on the airfield itself. For aircraft cruising at higher altitudes, it's not uncommon to hear planes a hundred miles, or more, away from your location.

Your only reasonable shot at actually hearing the tower would be with an external antenna, mounted on or above your roof. Even with that, it might not work. Certainly, there's no harm in trying to receive the tower conversations, but the odds are not good that it will work.

 

[Salvatorejrc]

At a 19 mile distance, you are not likely to hear the tower or ground control frequencies. Those use antennas fairly low to the ground, so the signal does not carry very far. However, you would be able to hear planes in the air, landing or taking off, that are talking to the tower. You would also be al;e to hear aircraft on the approach & departure channels. Whether you hear the ground side of the conversation (the air traffic controllers) will largely depend on your distance from their transmit site, which might be somewhere other than on the airfield itself. For aircraft cruising at higher altitudes, it's not uncommon to hear planes a hundred miles, or more, away from your location.

Your only reasonable shot at actually hearing the tower would be with an external antenna, mounted on or above your roof. Even with that, it might not work. Certainly, there's no harm in trying to receive the tower conversations, but the odds are not good that it will work.

How would I be able to scan planes more than a hundred miles away? And do planes that are mid flight even say much of anything anyway besides from when they are taking off/landing?

 

[hiegtx]

How would I be able to scan planes more than a hundred miles away? And do planes that are mid flight even say much of anything anyway besides from when they are taking off/landing?

If the planes are at altitude, you may be able to hear them some distance away from their actual location with the standard antenna, although an external antenna would improve your reception. A number of years ago, a group of friends as well as myself spent a lot of time camping, fishing, and hunting at a location about 75 miles west of DFW Airport. But I could hear planes landing, or taking off when they were at or above 2000 feet or so.

There are regular conversations with controllers, such as requests for a higher, or lower altitude, or a change in course to avoid storms. If you also add the airline 'company' channels, you'd here anything from a request hold another flight for a connecting passenger, or requests for maintenance to check out something after landing, any inflight issues with uncooperative passengers, or calls for EMS to stand by when they land due to a medical emergency with a passenger or crew member. Sometimes you may hear something that is unusual, and at others, nothing but routine conversations.

For more specific suggestions related to monitoring aircraft, check out the forum on that topic.

Aircraft Monitoring Forum

This is the place to discuss monitoring civilian aircraft communications.

forums.radioreference.com

 

[W2SJW]

I have all the approach & departure frequencies listed here programmed into my SDS100 & Yaesu FT3:

Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) (Essex County) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) (Essex County)

www.radioreference.com

And all these as well:

New York (ZNY) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for New York (ZNY) Air Route Traffic Control Center

www.radioreference.com

You would be amazed at how much traffic I hear on just the ZNY sector frequencies alone on the handheld.