Wednesday, February 01, 2006

IOW Air Traffic Control

A reader has posted the following:

"Hi, I have just a few months ago brought a uniden ubc30xlt as my first scanner. Also I live in Newport on the IOW and in the morning I can see flights coming in from the USA and in the late morning and the early afternoon I can see trans-atlantic flight climbing over the solent ( I think).Also I see some trans-atlantic flights that a at flight level still going east. Another flight path I can see is the one going to spain because I see easyjet ,ryanair ,monarch ,tap through the binoculars.So can you tell me what frequencys are being used in my area. thank you in advance."

As far as I am aware the only london frequency over the IOW is S19 (sector 19) which operates on a frequency of 135.05MHz. S19's area to the south of the IOW extends from surface level to FL660. There is then a 'chunk' of airspace running east to west from Bembridge to the mainland which covers surface to FL275 and then a small area to the north of the mainland extending from FL175 to FL275. I believe that solent radar (southampton) possibly overlaps this area handling lower traffic on 120.225MHz.

Just on the western side of the IOW is S20 following the same flight levels as S19 quoted earlier. The frequency for S20 is 129.425MHz however when traffic is low the two sectors can be 'bandboxed' together on one frequency. Hope this helps.

A reader has requested Swanwick centre frequencies, I'm sorry but I don't have time to publish a full list right now but if you want frequencies for a particular area I'll be glad to help out.

Also John from Caterham in Surrey has requested frequencies, again I'll get round to these in the next couple of days as time is limited right now. Thanks for your questions all and I will endeavor to answer them all as quickly as possible. Mark.

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