These days we take for granted that our scanners can listen to aviation channels, especially the civil air band on 108-136 MHz. band. In the crystal scanner days that wasn’t the case. You had to have a scanner built specifically for aviation. Bearcat and Regency both had them. I eventually got a Regency FlightScan which I used for a couple years before I sold it to a friend at my dad’s flying club. Bearcat had an Aviation version of the BC-III or BC-IV that had a red propeller design on the speaker grill. I have seen them but don’t think I ever owned one. Eventually I bought programmable scanners that included air-band, most of the early ones did not but I think the BC220 was my first desktop. I think my first handheld programmable with aviation was a PRO30 in the 1980’s.
I always loved airplanes, be they big airliners, little Cessnas or military. My dad flew Cessnas, Pipers and even a Beechcraft now and then. I would tag along as a kid up until he stopped flying shortly before his death when I was in my mid 30’s.
We had several airports in our area that we flew out of. The first that I recall was Sky Harbor in Northbrook. This is where my dad learned to fly, his instructor was my mom’s uncle “Bones” Grzanka. It closed around 1970-1972, before I had a scanner capable of hearing aviation traffic so the only time I listened to them was in the back seat of a Cessna 170, if the plane they used that day even had a radio.
The main airport we used after Sky Harbor closed was the old Chicagoland Airport in what is now Lincolnshire, IL. This was operated by a guy named Art Schelter, who was a real character. He also owned one of the two Fixed Base Operators (FBO’s) there so tolerated us kids when our dads were there but one knew not to cross him. In the 7 or 8 years we flew out of Chicagoland I usually brought my scanner along as I already learned that it received much further distances when airborne. With the crystal scanners of the day, I could listen to other operations on our local channels. If I was lucky enough to ride up front Dad would let me play with the COM second radio and the NAV radio if he wasn’t letting me handle the airplane.
Chicagoland was on 122.800 for Unicom and the was the first air-band crystal I had for my Regency FlightScan. For a while it was the only crystal in it as I had saved a long time to buy it, I couldn’t afford to get more crystals for it. Eventually I got others for the other local airports.
Later we ended up at Palwaukee Airport in Wheeling. I already knew it well as we used to hang out here when I was a kid. A couple friends and I would ride our bikes there and sit in the bleachers off the end of the runway to watch planes or hang out on the flightline. Sometimes we would help push planes around and make enough money to get a burger at the McDonald’s across the street. Once a buddy and I were there and got a ride from a pilot of a Lear Jet; he offered, we accepted. We had a blast. We took off, flew across Lake Michigan, landed at Kalamazoo, and returned, getting home in time for dinner. Of course, our moms were torqued off at us for not calling them for permission first, but she just would have said no. We figured out even at the age of 10 that forgiveness was easier to get than permission.
Palwaukee was on 119.900 for the tower then, that was the second crystal I got for my FlightScan. Dad only flew out of there for a year or so, then moved off to Schaumburg as Palwaukee was too busy for his liking. Schaumburg was pretty far away so I couldn’t hear the Unicom from home but soon enough Dad joined a flying club in Waukegan, closer to home and easier to get to. He flew out of there for a long time, right up until he moved to Arizona. By then I was driving and started using programmable scanners, some of which also worked on aviation. I did however use his Icom air-band handheld he kept in his flight bag. Not all the aircraft he flew had radios, so he kept that available. When he didn’t need it I would borrow it and listen to the local airports. One of the airports near me had runway lighting that one could activate by 5 clicks on the CTAF channel (basically the tower channel after hours). Of course, I never did that with Dad’s portable radio as I drove by at night…
Aviation monitoring was not really my big interest later, after I started working. After high school I was a firefighter, so fire channels were more important. I was also a police/fire dispatcher, so the police channels were also interesting. I did start to listen to some military air when I got into Icom R7000’s. When I got my own it was often used to listen to refueling tracks and the local naval air station. When the PRO-43 came out, I was really starting to get fascinated by MilAir. I rented an apartment 2 blocks from the naval air station so listened to that often with that trusty little PRO43 and my PRO2004.
Airlines and scanners:
Most of the time using a scanner on an airliner was not allowed but United used to have a channel in their in-flight audio for the pilot communications. It was also one of the few airlines that did not expressly prohibit the use of a scanner in-flight. I did use my scanner on board often, even on other airlines. Using earphones, they usually thought I was listening to a Walkman or something. This allowed me to listen to the scanner unobtrusively. It is also the reason I usually requested a windows seat; it was less obvious when I was using a scanner and provided better reception.
One of the best commercial flights I was on was when the wife and I flew to Arizona from Chicago. I had just bought a PRO96 and was starting to get into P25 trunking systems. The closest systems at the time to my home in Illinois was the then-new Michigan MPSCS system across the lake. I could sometimes hear that if I was along the shore of Lake Michigan, or at an elevated location like “Radio Hill” in Wisconsin.
I brought that PRO96 with me on the flight and searched out for P25 control channels on the 800 MHz. band. A good portion of the flight brought us over Colorado, which also had one of the early P25 systems. I was able to log a dozen or more control channels with System and Site ID’s while flying over the state.
On another flight I had my scanner with me and was listening to the crew as we made our way across the country. An hour or so after we left O’Hare for Phoenix, I heard the pilot tell ATC that he had a sick passenger and that he was going to divert to Kansas City. I then started searching and found him talking to a medical desk on an Airinc channel and learned that a passenger had been overserved prior to boarding and developed medical issues as a result. I figured it had to be further back in the airplane as I could not see anything forward of us. I eventually saw the flight attendants with a woman 10-15 rows back. Pretty soon we made a pretty steep descent to KC and offloaded our ETOH-affected passenger and were on our way again.
On a flight from O’Hare to Heathrow I had my PRO43 with me and listened in on 123.450 as I had been told that it was commonly used air-to-air on the flights across the Atlantic. I was surprised at how busy it was. This was in the days when HF was king on cross-Atlantic comms, but I did not have an HF radio available to me on the flight.
When I later moved to Arizona fulltime, I was not really familiar with the local MilAir stuff. I had info from my many trips there, the RadioReference Database, as well as a ton of info from my friend Ted but I decided to dig out as much as I could myself. I already had a dozen or more BCT15 and BCT15X scanners and I put them to work searching out the MilAir band. I took 10 of them and programmed all of them with 10 search banks, each covering a different 20 MHz. segment. I would then select one bank per radio and set them searching out that range. I would have to spend some time locking out birdies and other interfering channels but once that was done just about everything else was good stuff to listen to.
I would then use either ProScan or ARC-15/XT Pro to log the found hits. If I wasn’t actively listening to the scanners at the time I would go back and sort the logs by the numbers of hits and accumulated activity time. I would pop those freqs into a couple other scanners and figure out the usage of them, locking them out from the search radios. This allowed me to continue searching for new stuff as I was monitoring the found channels. I did this for a couple of years and submitted all the verified stuff to the RR Database. I found all kinds of interesting stuff, including some tactical channels used at an abandoned auxiliary air strip 5 miles from my house that was used for occasional targeting practice. I actually got CloseCall hits and was able to watch the F16’s from my yard as they made runs on the strip.
I now live about 15 miles as the crow flies from Luke Air Force Base, which was the busiest F16 training center in the US. The have now switched to the newer F35 and are just as busy. My house is also on the southern edge of a MOA so there is a lot of flyover traffic here from Luke as well as Davis Monthan and visiting units. I can drive an hour south to the Goldwater Range and watch A-10’s and other aircraft train. Gila Bend has an Air Force landing strip that is often used for training and practice by a variety of military aircraft. I go to that area often for railfanning but usually have the air freqs in the scanner.
At home I can hear the aircraft talking on the local Unicom channels, Air to Air, and even the local tower channels. I occasionally will listen to Albuquerque Center for flights in transit over the area. I am also close by one of the several “Training Areas”, airspace reserved for use for practice and training for the many flight schools around here.
I spend a lot of time out at the local airports, like Phoenix’s Sky Harbor, Deer Valley (the busiest general aviation airport in the world), and Luke AFB to watch and listen to the air traffic. These days my scanner of choice at the airport has been my BC125AT. It is quite awesome on aviation! Occasionally I will grab my Icom R5 if I need something tiny. Recently I have been trying out the new Bearcat BCD160DN, it works great on both civil and military air-band and will likely become my go-to scanner for plane watching.
Aviation monitoring is an awesome part of the hobby and these days one of the top three targets of my scanners. If you haven’t listened to air-band yet, try it, you’ll like it!
I always loved airplanes, be they big airliners, little Cessnas or military. My dad flew Cessnas, Pipers and even a Beechcraft now and then. I would tag along as a kid up until he stopped flying shortly before his death when I was in my mid 30’s.
We had several airports in our area that we flew out of. The first that I recall was Sky Harbor in Northbrook. This is where my dad learned to fly, his instructor was my mom’s uncle “Bones” Grzanka. It closed around 1970-1972, before I had a scanner capable of hearing aviation traffic so the only time I listened to them was in the back seat of a Cessna 170, if the plane they used that day even had a radio.
The main airport we used after Sky Harbor closed was the old Chicagoland Airport in what is now Lincolnshire, IL. This was operated by a guy named Art Schelter, who was a real character. He also owned one of the two Fixed Base Operators (FBO’s) there so tolerated us kids when our dads were there but one knew not to cross him. In the 7 or 8 years we flew out of Chicagoland I usually brought my scanner along as I already learned that it received much further distances when airborne. With the crystal scanners of the day, I could listen to other operations on our local channels. If I was lucky enough to ride up front Dad would let me play with the COM second radio and the NAV radio if he wasn’t letting me handle the airplane.
Chicagoland was on 122.800 for Unicom and the was the first air-band crystal I had for my Regency FlightScan. For a while it was the only crystal in it as I had saved a long time to buy it, I couldn’t afford to get more crystals for it. Eventually I got others for the other local airports.
Later we ended up at Palwaukee Airport in Wheeling. I already knew it well as we used to hang out here when I was a kid. A couple friends and I would ride our bikes there and sit in the bleachers off the end of the runway to watch planes or hang out on the flightline. Sometimes we would help push planes around and make enough money to get a burger at the McDonald’s across the street. Once a buddy and I were there and got a ride from a pilot of a Lear Jet; he offered, we accepted. We had a blast. We took off, flew across Lake Michigan, landed at Kalamazoo, and returned, getting home in time for dinner. Of course, our moms were torqued off at us for not calling them for permission first, but she just would have said no. We figured out even at the age of 10 that forgiveness was easier to get than permission.
Palwaukee was on 119.900 for the tower then, that was the second crystal I got for my FlightScan. Dad only flew out of there for a year or so, then moved off to Schaumburg as Palwaukee was too busy for his liking. Schaumburg was pretty far away so I couldn’t hear the Unicom from home but soon enough Dad joined a flying club in Waukegan, closer to home and easier to get to. He flew out of there for a long time, right up until he moved to Arizona. By then I was driving and started using programmable scanners, some of which also worked on aviation. I did however use his Icom air-band handheld he kept in his flight bag. Not all the aircraft he flew had radios, so he kept that available. When he didn’t need it I would borrow it and listen to the local airports. One of the airports near me had runway lighting that one could activate by 5 clicks on the CTAF channel (basically the tower channel after hours). Of course, I never did that with Dad’s portable radio as I drove by at night…
Aviation monitoring was not really my big interest later, after I started working. After high school I was a firefighter, so fire channels were more important. I was also a police/fire dispatcher, so the police channels were also interesting. I did start to listen to some military air when I got into Icom R7000’s. When I got my own it was often used to listen to refueling tracks and the local naval air station. When the PRO-43 came out, I was really starting to get fascinated by MilAir. I rented an apartment 2 blocks from the naval air station so listened to that often with that trusty little PRO43 and my PRO2004.
Airlines and scanners:
Most of the time using a scanner on an airliner was not allowed but United used to have a channel in their in-flight audio for the pilot communications. It was also one of the few airlines that did not expressly prohibit the use of a scanner in-flight. I did use my scanner on board often, even on other airlines. Using earphones, they usually thought I was listening to a Walkman or something. This allowed me to listen to the scanner unobtrusively. It is also the reason I usually requested a windows seat; it was less obvious when I was using a scanner and provided better reception.
One of the best commercial flights I was on was when the wife and I flew to Arizona from Chicago. I had just bought a PRO96 and was starting to get into P25 trunking systems. The closest systems at the time to my home in Illinois was the then-new Michigan MPSCS system across the lake. I could sometimes hear that if I was along the shore of Lake Michigan, or at an elevated location like “Radio Hill” in Wisconsin.
I brought that PRO96 with me on the flight and searched out for P25 control channels on the 800 MHz. band. A good portion of the flight brought us over Colorado, which also had one of the early P25 systems. I was able to log a dozen or more control channels with System and Site ID’s while flying over the state.
On another flight I had my scanner with me and was listening to the crew as we made our way across the country. An hour or so after we left O’Hare for Phoenix, I heard the pilot tell ATC that he had a sick passenger and that he was going to divert to Kansas City. I then started searching and found him talking to a medical desk on an Airinc channel and learned that a passenger had been overserved prior to boarding and developed medical issues as a result. I figured it had to be further back in the airplane as I could not see anything forward of us. I eventually saw the flight attendants with a woman 10-15 rows back. Pretty soon we made a pretty steep descent to KC and offloaded our ETOH-affected passenger and were on our way again.
On a flight from O’Hare to Heathrow I had my PRO43 with me and listened in on 123.450 as I had been told that it was commonly used air-to-air on the flights across the Atlantic. I was surprised at how busy it was. This was in the days when HF was king on cross-Atlantic comms, but I did not have an HF radio available to me on the flight.
When I later moved to Arizona fulltime, I was not really familiar with the local MilAir stuff. I had info from my many trips there, the RadioReference Database, as well as a ton of info from my friend Ted but I decided to dig out as much as I could myself. I already had a dozen or more BCT15 and BCT15X scanners and I put them to work searching out the MilAir band. I took 10 of them and programmed all of them with 10 search banks, each covering a different 20 MHz. segment. I would then select one bank per radio and set them searching out that range. I would have to spend some time locking out birdies and other interfering channels but once that was done just about everything else was good stuff to listen to.
I would then use either ProScan or ARC-15/XT Pro to log the found hits. If I wasn’t actively listening to the scanners at the time I would go back and sort the logs by the numbers of hits and accumulated activity time. I would pop those freqs into a couple other scanners and figure out the usage of them, locking them out from the search radios. This allowed me to continue searching for new stuff as I was monitoring the found channels. I did this for a couple of years and submitted all the verified stuff to the RR Database. I found all kinds of interesting stuff, including some tactical channels used at an abandoned auxiliary air strip 5 miles from my house that was used for occasional targeting practice. I actually got CloseCall hits and was able to watch the F16’s from my yard as they made runs on the strip.
I now live about 15 miles as the crow flies from Luke Air Force Base, which was the busiest F16 training center in the US. The have now switched to the newer F35 and are just as busy. My house is also on the southern edge of a MOA so there is a lot of flyover traffic here from Luke as well as Davis Monthan and visiting units. I can drive an hour south to the Goldwater Range and watch A-10’s and other aircraft train. Gila Bend has an Air Force landing strip that is often used for training and practice by a variety of military aircraft. I go to that area often for railfanning but usually have the air freqs in the scanner.
At home I can hear the aircraft talking on the local Unicom channels, Air to Air, and even the local tower channels. I occasionally will listen to Albuquerque Center for flights in transit over the area. I am also close by one of the several “Training Areas”, airspace reserved for use for practice and training for the many flight schools around here.
I spend a lot of time out at the local airports, like Phoenix’s Sky Harbor, Deer Valley (the busiest general aviation airport in the world), and Luke AFB to watch and listen to the air traffic. These days my scanner of choice at the airport has been my BC125AT. It is quite awesome on aviation! Occasionally I will grab my Icom R5 if I need something tiny. Recently I have been trying out the new Bearcat BCD160DN, it works great on both civil and military air-band and will likely become my go-to scanner for plane watching.
Aviation monitoring is an awesome part of the hobby and these days one of the top three targets of my scanners. If you haven’t listened to air-band yet, try it, you’ll like it!
