WTVF News Helicopter
- Thread starter W4EMS
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I fly in a news chopper in NC. If WTVF is like most news helecopters across the country, they would use a 2 Ghz microwave system to send audio and video back to the station. We only use our two-way radio to confirm we are airborne and notify the station when we are landing. Any other communication from the chopper goes over the microwave system. Our assignment desk will use a secondary two-way frequency, which we send program audio through, to give us coordinates or other instructions from the station. So, at best, you would be able to hear a one-sided conversation from the station.
You might want to check your local FAA frequencies. We have a frequency on the "air" band that is designated as the helecopter common channel. We use it to coordinate with the police, medical and other news choppers when we are on scene of an event. It allows us to stay out of the way of the emergency helecopters, and to coordinate the patterns we will fly while covering an event. That radio traffic is sometimes more interesting than the news reports themselves. We will occasionally get information from the police chopper pilots which never makes it onto the TV.
You might want to check your local FAA frequencies. We have a frequency on the "air" band that is designated as the helecopter common channel. We use it to coordinate with the police, medical and other news choppers when we are on scene of an event. It allows us to stay out of the way of the emergency helecopters, and to coordinate the patterns we will fly while covering an event. That radio traffic is sometimes more interesting than the news reports themselves. We will occasionally get information from the police chopper pilots which never makes it onto the TV.
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