Newbie question about what I am hearing

[Skadar]

Hi there,

Just purchased a PSR-300 and I am having a great time figuring it out and scanning local NY air traffic. Just now I heard JetBlue 396 departing LGA. Just after leaving they reported trouble with their landing gear. They didn't know whether it was really up or not. Apparently an indicator malfunction or something. They decided to abort the flight and divert to JFK.

During all of this I could only hear the crew... never the response from the ground. I'm listening from Stamford, CT, about 30 miles away. Is the conversation one-sided because the aircraft is in the air and the ground transmissions simply can't reach me? Or would ground be transmitting to the aircraft on a different channel?

Just trying to understand.

 

[kmacka]

You got it right. You will hear the aircraft a greater distance because they are in the air and the signal will cover more distance than ground stations. The ground stations are more line of sight, and you would have to be a little closer to the tower/ground at lga to hear them... Or get the antenna up a little higher and see if it helps.

 

[GrayJeep]

Clarification

You got it right. You will hear the aircraft a greater distance because they are in the air and the signal will cover more distance than ground stations. The ground stations are more line of sight, and you would have to be a little closer to the tower/ground at lga to hear them... Or get the antenna up a little higher and see if it helps.

I think you mean to say that the aircraft have a high vantage point therefore they are line-of-sight to a very large area whereas the tower is line of sight to a very small area due to their very low altitude. THat's why it's hard to hear the ground side.

Aircraft frequencies are VHF. VHF is line-of-sight (except for rare other propagation modes).