New to the forum, thought I'd introduce myself through a few pictures

[NAVCAN]

Hello all, I am new to this forum and thought I would introduce myself. I work for a company called NavCanada as an Communications/Navigation/Surveillance technologist.

We maintain various pieces of radio equipment as simple as VHF/UHF Tx's/Rx's, LF/MF NDB's with powers up to 5kW. On the more complicated side, we maintain VHF ILS's (Localiser/GlideSlope), VHF Direction Finders, VOR's, TACAN's, SSR/PSR Doppler Radar Systems, and all sorts of landlines.

I also drag along my camera to most sites that we go, and snap some pictures of some pretty "wild" RF equipment.

So anyways, here we go, a few pictures to spark interest.


TACAN 16Way-5.2Kw splitter. 1020MHz DME + UHF VOR

Primary/Secondary Surveillance Doppler Radar, PSR 32kW PPP, SSR 1.2kW PPP

Standard VHF/UHF Patch Pannel for VHF/UHF TX/Rx

Transmitter Site. Long antenna's are Dual Stack Sinclair VHF, Short Antenna's are Dual Stack Sinclair UHF.

VHF Omni-Range + TACAN Site.

VHF Glide Slope Antenna Array using sideways mounted, modified cell phone Antenna's (Modification is -30dB sniffer for intergral monitoring)

VHF Localiser Array using 16 LPDA VHF antenna's.

And finally VHF direction finder antenna array!!!

 

[Colin9690]

Myself being a pilot, those are some neat pictures. Welcome to the forums!

 

[tonsoffun]

Hey NavCan,
Thanks for the great pics! They look great. I myself are always checking planes out at Pearson International and are very familar with those antennas and radars.
What part of the country are you working for NavCan?
Take care
Ron

 

[independent77]

Welcome aboard Chuck.

 

[NAVCAN]

thanks mike, thanks for giving me the site.

And I work in New-Brunswick/PEI. We are responsible for all the air navigation equipment in both provinces.

Thanks for the welcome.

 

[GrayWolfSA58]

sweet,,,hows thoses nextels commin in?

 

[pathalogical]

Nice pics ! Is that you next to the red car ? I think some of those antennas would fit nicely in my backyard...right between the fruit trees so I can pick the ones off the higher branches. So I guess we now have an insider at Navcan that we can harass, ooops, I mean ask questions regarding airports and planes.

 

[Luis_C]

Wow! Welcome to here! I'm jealous, I like the shiny sun in the last one, lol. I love radio technology, specially ones related to airplanes. In the future, I'm really considering to become a commercial pilot. Still a few years to go in school, though.

Does anyone have photos of different kind of antennas used for comm in the airports? Or are all the same? The signal has circular polarization, right?

Thanks

 

[NAVCAN]

As for polarisation, it really depends on what system your talking about. Radar for instance uses left hand circular for aircraft targets, while it uses right hand circular for weather targets. I've got a load more of pictures of various types of comm antenna's just not on this computer here.

Most comm antenna's are VHF for civilian and UHF for military. In my part of the country anyways, i know that in newfoundland they use alot of HF, which I would like to learn about, but we don't have any HF Tx's at all.

As for harassing the navcan guy, go ahead lol, im still learning alot. I went to college for Industrial Controls + Transmission lines, and i got this job at navcan 2.5 years ago. So with no prior RF background, it's been quite a steep learning curve.

Cheers all.

 

[independent77]

NAVCAN has built me 2 homebrew antennas, both of which i don't have any pics of.

he also hooked me up with this monster...

 

[Luis_C]

As for polarisation, it really depends on what system your talking about. Radar for instance uses left hand circular for aircraft targets, while it uses right hand circular for weather targets. I've got a load more of pictures of various types of comm antenna's just not on this computer here.

Most comm antenna's are VHF for civilian and UHF for military. In my part of the country anyways, i know that in newfoundland they use alot of HF, which I would like to learn about, but we don't have any HF Tx's at all.

As for harassing the navcan guy, go ahead lol, im still learning alot. I went to college for Industrial Controls + Transmission lines, and i got this job at navcan 2.5 years ago. So with no prior RF background, it's been quite a steep learning curve.

Cheers all.

Hi, nice. If you later get those photos I would love to see it.

 

[KG7JEV]

antenna help

I am pretty new to scanning and am learning as I go. I use a PRO-97 for rightnow, but will eventually buy a base. What is a good all around antenna for home? Or is it bette rto use multiple antennas for each band?

Thanks,

Eric

 

[independent77]

welcome Bomber.

SUggestion. Search the ANtenna forum, and read all you can.

Before you ask a question, Use the search, chances are your question has already been asked and answered.

 

[NAVCAN]

welcome Bomber.

SUggestion. Search the ANtenna forum, and read all you can.

Before you ask a question, Use the search, chances are your question has already been asked and answered.

I was going to say the same, but I think that a good wideband antenna would be an LPDA if you want to take the time/spend money to do so. There are alot of sites online that tell you the dimensions for certain frequency spectrum.

I hope im not wrong here, and if I am, let me know, because I really don't want to misinform anyone.

 

[austinscan1]

Nice toys

You do have great toys, we're all jealous. Seriously, welcome aboard and good luck. Austin

 

[NAVCAN]

Standard VHF Comm antenna, 110-150MHz.
For some reason this one had a high VSWR

This is a Non-Directional LF NDB antenna, i think it's about 80 feet tall.

 

[Luis_C]

Great, nice photos, I'm saving them up in the computer. Maybe the high swr was because of the ice, or maybe the house? (j.k)

I wonder why it goes from 110 to 150? If it is tuned for airband?

 

[NAVCAN]

Im on vacation rate now, so in a few weeks when i go back to work, ill check what the exact bandwidth is on that antenna. We have TONS of those comm antenna's around, maybe even a few with an out of tolerance SWR (>2.0:1). I may be able to get a few.

Cheers.

 

[K4NRG]

I'd be interested in seeing some of the milair UHF antennas used. Do you use any Lindenblads?

 

[drosenstein]

And I thought my Radio Shack discone was sweet....

What kind of applications are the VHF direction finders used for?