small airports

[bailly2]

if they fly to another state will they contact air traffic control or stay under 10,000 feet? i want to listen to them talking to a atc low site so im using a short antenna with the requency attentuated and i never heard the airline that leaves from a small airport, nearby just other airlines. thank you.

 

[kma371]

Commerical airlines are always in contact with ATC. Why are you using attenuation? And where are you located? "Suburban hell" isn't very helpful.

 

[bailly2]

there is alot of traffic, just want to hear activity between the airline leaving that airport and the nearest atc site

 

[freqhopping]

So program the unicom/CTAF/tower freq for that airport.

 

[drayd48]

Most all public airports have some kind of UNICOM / CAFT frequency or both. If that airport just so happens to be in a controlled airspace, They will have to be under direction of ATC until a certain altitide

 

[Eugene]

Bailly2: First....and large airport they will have a "tower" frequency in which you will hear all arriving within 10 miles and all departing aircraft. They will then be switched to a TRACON for raadar sequencing. All arrivals prior to calling tower will also be on TRACON as well. Smaller general aviation will, as "freqhopping" stated, be on a Unicom/CTAF frequency. Now to find all this out...the best site I have found is "airnav". Go to airnav.com......type in the name of the airports and you will get all the info I just discussed. You will also note on the side there is a picture of the airport and below that a chart.....with yellow city outliners and blue markings. Click on that and you will see concentric circles around airports with blue numbers in them.....they are the altitudes in thousand of feet (just add zeros) where contact with ATC is mandatory. This long answer is that private aircraft...if above, below or outside this airspace does NOT need to contact ATC...so you may not hear private aircraft once they take of from an uncontrolled field. For higher altitude stuff....go to RR for your area and look up the corresponding " center" for your area (Zxxx) and look it up......rather than attenuate....try an air band pass filter......good luck.

 

[Eugene]

Also be aware that if you are not near the airport you will only hear the aircraft (radio horizon = 4/3 times the square root of the height)...so you can do the math to see the radio horizon for and airport with an antenna 60 feet up vs an aircraft 30,000 feet up. Again good luck.

Eugenbe KG4AVE

 

[bailly2]

thanks eugene

 

[natedawg1604]

Also, see if the airports of interest are covered on Liveatc.net. It can be a great resource, especially for ARTCC and TRACON feeds.

 

[chrismol1]

What you want to checkout is the local controller for your low airspace
your looking for the Terminal approach/departure controller
To find that frequency you'll want to go to airnav.com
type in your local airport and then find out the frequency for the approach/departure services

 

[ab3a]

Bailly2, if the airport does not have a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) listed, you can try the multicom frequency of 122.9. In rural airspaces under Visual Flight Rule (VFR) conditions there is no obligation on the part of the private pilot to even have a radio turned on, so you shouldn't always expect to hear anything.