Airband Radio Choice!

Craig has contacted to say he blew the dust of his old WIN 108 airband radio recently but was looking for suggestions on a new scanner choice. Well, I'm a bit biased as I have a Uniden Bearcat 3500XLT and for the money, I think it's by far the best scanner right now, very fast scan and too many features to mention such as 'close call' (hunts down and intercepts nearby strong transmissions) AND, most importantly for me, very sensitive. I consider it as sensitive as the Signal R535 and Yupiteru MVT7100 - both of which I consider as 'benchmark' radios for sensitivity and performance on the airband in particular.

There are much more expensive scanners on the market but while they are full of features, the actual sensitivity and reception performance let them down and that's what counts at the end of the day isn't it?

My Early Airband Radio......

I'm feeling in a nostalgic mood today and managed to find a picture of my first 'proper' airband radio, a Sharp airband radio. I did have one of those very cheap multiband radios before it, but I consider this to be my first 'real' airband radio.

 

Others that I've owned in the past include the Signal R537S which had just two crystal controlled fixed channels available as well as being able to tune the VHF airband via the tuning dial, aah those were the days! This was followed by a WIN108 - my first digital display airband radio, anyone remember these?

I was very excited by the red LED light in the top left corner of the Sharp radio as the intensity of the LED gave some indication of signal strength! I remember the tuning dial was quite 'stretched out' with numerous frequency markings so you had a good idea of where to place the tuning dial to listen to certain frequencies, but of course, like many of these radios, you could be monitoring several frequencies either side of the one you wanted to listen too!

Yet Another Live Air Traffic Radar Website!

Just a quick message to mention another great live air traffic radar website which I missed out in my earlier post: www.heathrow-london.co.uk (it doesn't just cover Heathrow!).

Pilots, Flying and Laser Pens!

Just last night, I picked up an aircraft inbound to Leeds Bradford working Scottish Air Traffic Control and the pilot was reporting being 'dazzled' by a laser. This seems to be an ongoing problem for pilots and I'm not sure what the answer is as they are so freely available.

I know from my own experience of night flying as a private pilot, it's essential things are kept as dark as possible in the cockpit so that the pilots can easily read the faint glow of the instruments inside the cockpit but also, they're eyes are suitably adjusted to still see out of the cockpit for any traffic etc. When a bright laser is pointed in a pilots direction it can cause temporary 'blindness' that could prove very dangerous.

Signal R535 VHF/UHF Aircraft Band Receiver

One of our readers recently asked where to get hold of one of these great airband radio scanners (besides Ebay!). I'm afraid I can't answer that question as Ebay would probably be about the only option now as they do come up for sale once in a while.

I have personally owned one of these on two different occasions now. The reception and sensitivity of this radio scanner for airband listening is well known, however, it is 20+ years old now and I honestly believe scanners such as the Yupiteru 7100 and my own current receiver, a Uniden Bearcat 3500XLT are very close if not equal to the performance of this radio.

The only limiting factor that caused me to sell mine was the fact that it had just 60 memory channels in a single memory bank. For me, this just isn't enough anymore. Do any of our readers still own this great radio? do you find 60 memory channels is enough? Please let us know.

Online Real-Time Virtual Aircraft Radar Sites

If you cannot stretch to the cost of the latest Airnav Radarbox or Kinetic SBS-1 real time radar receivers then why not try the next best alternative...

Two websites in particular provide an online real time radar display of aircraft that are transmitting ADS-B position information. The first one being RadarVirtuel.com and the second FlightRadar24.com.

Both of these sites are collating position information submitted from many different receiver owners all over the world.

My personal favourite though, has to be flightradar24.com because there are more options to customize the display. For instance, they have recently added the option to display up to three lines of information next to each aircraft displayed on the map. On the first line you can display callsign or aircraft registration, on line two, type and registration or altitude and speed or just one of any of those four options. On the third line, you have all the same options again, so over the three displayed lines you can instantly see a lot of information! 

One other point, FlightRadar24.com also provide apps for the Iphone and Google Android operating system phones - so I've now got a real time radar app on my mobile phone wherever I go! In fact, whilst I can't comment on the Iphone app, my Android phone app even has an option called 'AR view' (I think it stands for aspect ratio view) so you can switch to this option and point your phone at the sky and it will display all the relevant info on any plane that's within your 'view' although, in practice, this doesn't always work correctly.

Why not give one of them a try - you'll soon be hooked!

Waddington Air Show

I managed to attend the Waddington air show this year on the Saturday (looked like the best day of the two weatherwise too!) and had a great day.

I didn't bother last year as the display lineup looked very 'thin' with a distinct lack of foreign jet participants, but it was certainly better this year with the inclusion of a Czech Saab Gripen and a Belgian F16 along with the usual RAF participants. The role demo (and pyrotechnics) involving 2 x Tornado GR4's certainly added some interest this year.

Interestingly, they were using 121.3 as a tower frequency which has been noted previous years and they appeared to be using 132.9 (a standard air show frequency allocation) as a radar frequency for departing/arriving and holding air show related traffic.

Aircraft and The Iceland Volcanic Ash

Well, today flights seem to returning to some kind of normality but I can't help thinking that a complete 'blanket shutdown' of UK airspace was probably not necessary in the first place. I know safety has to be the primary concern but I don't think the methods employed to measure just how much ash existed and at what levels AND if it was actually dangerous to aircraft engines at the concentration levels seen over the UK was nearly accurate enough.

I do think there were quite possibly 'safe windows' of airspace to operate in during the crisis period but I'm sure that's one issue that all those involved in the industry will be debating for many months to come!

I'm also certain the airlines will be fighting for compensation for the considerable loss of revenue but it's also all the allied industries that have been seriously affected that will suffer the hardest because there's no chance of recompense for them. Businesses such as those based at the airports: car hire firms, retailers, caterers etc. - they will have lost out considerably.

To be fair, this is a new and fairly unique situation to have found ourselves having to deal with as a country and I'm sure lessons will be learned for the future...  

Vulcan XH558 - The Current Situation

I have today received a note from 'Vulcan to The Sky' that XH558 needs £200,000 by Christmas to avoid the administrators. Currently, they have secured just 25% of this figure to get her through December. They state that she then needs this amount EVERY MONTH until March to secure her future for the 2010 display season.

It has been a truly fantastic achievement to get this complex, four engined, ex-RAF aircraft airworthy again and I was ecstatic to see her perform a display at the Cosby Victory Show this year (so close to home for me), BUT (and it truly pains me to say this) I really think she is on borrowed time, in fact, she's probably been on borrowed time since that first incredible maiden flight after her restoration.

The truth is, we are in a recession, approaching the Christmas period AND no major sponsorship has been forthcoming since the project began. There has been so much publicity generated, often by hardworking volunteers that I firmly believe if major sponsorship was ever going to happen then it would have happened by now.

Much as I love this aircraft, the project seems to 'eat' money like it grows on trees, even through the overwintering period. I honestly think it is unreasonable to expect the same section of society who love and appreciate this aircraft, given the current state of things, to cough up the funds required month after month to keep this aircraft in the air (where I DO BELIEVE it belongs).

I will treasure the experience of seeing her in the summer and I really, really hope I'm wrong, but it could well have been the last time I see this wonderful aircraft in flight.

Update on Airnav Radar Box!

What can I say, wow! this is an amazing piece of kit that transforms aircraft spotting and airband listening to a whole new level! (big statement, I know, but completely true).

Airnav radar box arrived yesterday and after a few teething problems getting the drivers on the supplied CD to install correctly ( I still hate windows Vista!!) I was up and running in no time. Within seconds of connecting to my 'radar box' the lights were flashing on the front and data started to stream in, now admittedly when your using the supplied antenna indoors you cannot expect to receive aircraft from any great range. I don't want to get technical here, but the transmissions are on 1090Mhz which means it's SERIOUSLY line of sight reception, even more so than the VHF/UHF airband.

I was getting a modest 40-50 nm radius reception in most directions (just like airband though, it all depends on antenna location AND aircraft height).

I have not got the time today to go into great detail about the amazing features, but you get a 'picture' of air traffic in your area in real-time complete with a datatag very similar to what the air traffic controller would have on his radar screen giving such details as flight number, destination and departure points, ground speed, registration, altitude and whether that aircraft is climbing or descending etc. and if your connected to the net, the software will download a picture of the very aircraft your looking at which is automatically downloaded from airliners.net!

Needless to say, I'm impressed but I will post again when I have more time to discuss this amazing bit of kit further!

All the best for now, Mark.