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Apologies if these sort of questions have been asked before, I haven't sifted through all 22 pages yet. Interesting subject, though! I'm a casual shortwave buff, and while usually I just tune in for foreign stations, religious crazies, and numbers stations, my Grundig G-6 picks up air traffic frequencies as well. I live just a few miles from PHF, so this has been my reference for where to dial in: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=3259 119.450 says "Norfolk approach". Does ORF handle PHF's traffic? Am I hearing just PHF, or ORF as well? Question 2: here in Newport News, we're surrounded by military bases --- Ft Eustis, Langley AF, Norfolk Naval, Coast Guard at Cheatham Annex, etc. Pretty much any day that ends with "y" I've got some kind of military thing flying low over my house. Does the military air stuff operate through the same channels as commercial airlines when it comes to air traffic control, or do they have their own thing for security purposes? I'm guessing FAA regulates everything on the same page for safety, but just curious if y'all see, say, Oceana's fighter jets along with the Airbus coming into PHF and have to handle that.
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Mar 21, 2015 20:41
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JacquelineDempsey posted:https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=3259 119.450 is one of many frequencies belonging to Norfolk Approach in that area. You will hear just a Norfolk Approach controller and all traffic under their control that are also on that same frequency. Norfolk does run the approach control service for PHF airport, but the frequencies listed in the information for PHF show different frequencies for approach/departure (but still belonging to Norfolk Approach). PHF also has a tower which has multiple frequencies in use. For PHF airport specific frequencies see: Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport code:Norfolk International Airport code:quote:Question 2: here in Newport News, we're surrounded by military bases --- Ft Eustis, Langley AF, Norfolk Naval, Coast Guard at Cheatham Annex, etc. Pretty much any day that ends with "y" I've got some kind of military thing flying low over my house. Does the military air stuff operate through the same channels as commercial airlines when it comes to air traffic control, or do they have their own thing for security purposes? I'm guessing FAA regulates everything on the same page for safety, but just curious if y'all see, say, Oceana's fighter jets along with the Airbus coming into PHF and have to handle that. Military aircraft operating outside of specially established airspace, within the U.S., fly in accordance with domestic regulations. They do mix with civilian traffic and civilian air traffic controllers work them. In the case of Norfolk Approach, they are an FAA facility providing service to some of that area. Looks like Oceana Approach is there too. To figure out who runs what, refer to the airport pages from https://www.skyvector.com and look at the Airport Communications area in the center of the page for each airport. KORF - Norfolk International is run by Norfolk Approach: code:KNTU - Oceana NAS is run by Oceana Approach: code:code:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeAyNld0UXc The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 22:18
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The Ferret King posted:lots of cool info Thanks! I know squat about aviation, just a nerdette with a shortwave who finds this sort of thing interesting. Listening to a Delta flight coming in (I think? my reception's kinda lovely) right now. JacquelineDempsey fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 23:35
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Check out https://www.flightradar24.com and https://www.flightaware.com for live/delayed updates of air traffic near you. Flightradar 24 is ADSB based and more up to date.
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Mar 22, 2015 02:32
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JacquelineDempsey posted:Thanks! I know squat about aviation, just a nerdette with a shortwave who finds this sort of thing interesting. Listening to a Delta flight coming in (I think? my reception's kinda lovely) right now. Also, I'm not quite sure if TFK covered exactly what you were asking about military and channels. Yes, the military uses the same frequencies as civilian guys, but they also use UHF a lot of the time. Civs stick with VHF. Controllers typically broadcast the same transmission on UHF and VHF. I'm simplifying this as much as I think I can? TFK probably covered it too and I missed it some how.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:13
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No I glossed over UHF though we do us both as well. Slipped my mind.
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Mar 22, 2015 07:48
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Tommy 2.0 posted:Also, I'm not quite sure if TFK covered exactly what you were asking about military and channels. Yes, the military uses the same frequencies as civilian guys, but they also use UHF a lot of the time. Civs stick with VHF. Controllers typically broadcast the same transmission on UHF and VHF. I'm simplifying this as much as I think I can? TFK probably covered it too and I missed it some how. To clarify, if you're listening on the Oceana Tower frequency, (127.075) you're going to hear the tower talk to the plane, but not the plane's response. The plane is broadcasting on UHF (360.2), and the tower is responding on both UHF (360.2) and VHF (127.075).
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Mar 22, 2015 15:18
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Yeah, and for our purposes at Corpus, using UHF with the military doesn't hold much advantage (they all have VHF radios too, in our case) except that the pilots get an easy-to-use selection of "channels" that are paired with those frequencies. This makes switching between them quick and easy. Instead of tuning to a whole new set of numbers, they just move a switch or press a button (simulated photo): Those radios can be set to pair each Channel from 1 to 18 to a specific UHF frequency commonly used in that area. If they fly outside their local area and need to manually tune a UHF frequency they can still do so, but the channelization makes repetitive frequency changes simpler. The disadvantage to all of this, other than that many of the military trainer aircraft are old as poo poo and sound awful due to old equipment, is that civilian traffic is almost exclusively on VHF frequencies. The planes can't hear each other between VHF/UHF, but the controller can hear it all. Because of this, aircraft will often transmit at the same time, not realizing they're talking alongside/over an aircraft on a UHF frequency under the same controller's control, and keeping the frequency congestion down can be a challenge.
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Mar 22, 2015 19:21
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Marine VHF radios use channels for frequencies or frequency pairs (They're standardized so 156.8 MHz is channel 16. 156.4 is channel 8 or whatever, etc.), is here any reason not to do that with aviation VHF?
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Mar 22, 2015 22:32
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Could be that there are too many to realistically channelize. Aviation VHF comm frequency range for the U.S. is between 118 and 136MHz with separation between usable frequencies of 25KHz (I hope I'm saying this right, that's .025MHz right?). So that'd start with: 118.000 118.025 118.050 118.075 118.100 118.125 118.150 118.175 118.200....etc up to 136.975 Boy that'd be a lot of channels. Think of how big that analog radio knob would have to be or what kind of technology would need to be in place in old aviation radios to make that feasible. A lot of this stuff was standardized way before the sort of modern avionics we have now. Might not be a bad idea to have a billion selectable channels on a digital device of some sort, today, but that wasn't available when the National Airspace System was designed. This is just my educated guess, I'm not certain about any of this beyond the usable frequency range (published in the Aeronautical Information Manual and other aviation publications) The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Mar 22, 2015 |
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Mar 22, 2015 23:02
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Apply now! https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/398409000
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Mar 23, 2015 05:53
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The Ferret King posted:Could be that there are too many to realistically channelize. Aviation VHF comm frequency range for the U.S. is between 118 and 136MHz with separation between usable frequencies of 25KHz (I hope I'm saying this right, that's .025MHz right?). The first aircraft raidos used (i think) 500kHz spacing, for 36? channels. As equipment got better, authorities changed channel spacing to 250kHz, 100kHz, 50kHz, 25kHz (where we are in the US), and finally to 8.33kHz (in Europe). That's 720 channels for the US, and 2880 for Europe. Radios are smart enough to tune to the "right" frequency now. The controller says to dial in "108.01", so you do, and that's what the display reads, but the frequency is actually 108.00833MHz. Of course, if you're told 108.25, then it really is 108.250MHz.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:35
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720 channels yet for some reason many of the local frequencies back home get stepped on all the time by other traffic.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:39
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quote:Radios are smart enough to tune to the "right" frequency now. The controller says to dial in "108.01", so you do, and that's what the display reads, but the frequency is actually 108.00833MHz There are certain channels in 8.33 spacing that can be tuned into a 25khz spacing radio and used with little problem, whereas others cannot be as they are too far away from a 25khz boundary. I'm sure I remember that being a thing when the spacing was first introduced? They had to maintain compatibility.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:40
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thehustler posted:I thought it was more a case of the difference being so small that it doesn't really matter, rather than the radio saying one thing on the display but actually being on the "correct" frequency. So starting from 108.000MHz, your channels look like 108.000 (108.000MHz so actually "frequency 108.0", and not "channel 108.0") 108.005 (108.000MHz, but 8.33kHz spacing) 108.010 (108.00833) 108.015 (108.0167) 108.025 (108.025) "frequency 108.025" 108.030 (108.025 @8.33) 108.035 (108.0333) 108.040 (180.0417) 108.050 (108.0500) 108.055 (108.0500 @8.33) etc. If you've only got two digits on your display (common), then you see .00, .00 with some indicator that you're on 8khz, .01, .02, .03, .03*, .04, .05, .05*, etc
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Mar 23, 2015 16:07
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:
Not in the U.S. you don't, that's not a frequency that would be used here. Or are you saying for elsewhere? You could get 118.000 or 118.025 (which newer radios would show in its entirety, older ones would show "118.02" and the oldest wouldn't even be able to tune it at all).
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Mar 23, 2015 16:19
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The Ferret King posted:Not in the U.S. you don't, that's not a frequency that would be used here. Or are you saying for elsewhere? What happens if you get "Unable" back for a frequency change? Aren't the frequencies pretty set for the different areas?
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Mar 23, 2015 16:31
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hobbesmaster posted:What happens if you get "Unable" back for a frequency change? Aren't the frequencies pretty set for the different areas? *lalala* can't hear you
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Mar 23, 2015 17:04
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hobbesmaster posted:What happens if you get "Unable" back for a frequency change? Aren't the frequencies pretty set for the different areas? You're asking about aircraft that can't tune the .02s/.07s? There is almost always an alternate to use that ends in .00 or .05 that we can provide instead. It's not terribly common for aircraft to be unable to tune the .02s/.07s. Frequencies are set for their given area, yes. Each ATC facility/airport/weather station is allocated a frequency or frequencies to use based on what's available without overlapping. Frequencies to be used by aircraft at higher altitudes have to be given a lot of space, geographically, before being assigned again to another facility. Ground control frequencies can be re-used at airports that are fairly close together, since everyone's on the ground. Our ground freq, 121.9 at Corpus International is also used at Brownsville International, which is only 110NM away, and it doesn't cause an issue because everyone using it is on the surface and the range doesn't overlap. A high altitude center frequency would need to be hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands) of miles away from the next facility using that same frequency or else the communications would start to overlap. Sometimes, when the atmospheric conditions are just right, the frequencies bounce around and skip long distances. I've listened to Houston Intercontinental Ground Controllers talking before, from my tower in Corpus. The Ferret King fucked around with this message at 17:26 on Mar 23, 2015 |
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Mar 23, 2015 17:19
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I updated the second post with some newer information about the hiring announcement.quote:KEY REQUIREMENTS quote:Age Requirements: A maximum age of 30 years is established for initial entry into air traffic control positions covered by Public Law 92-297. Persons who have reached their 31st birthday may not be originally appointed to these positions. If experience was gained as a civilian ATCS with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or Department of Defense (DOD), you must have been hired prior to age 31. Maximum Retention Age: 5 USC 8335 (a) and 5 USC 8425 (a) require mandatory separation at age 56 in a career controller position. Why the age 31 limit? FAA controllers are forced to retire at age 56. You must be in the job for 25 years to qualify for your pension. So when hired at 31 you'll get your retirement benefit eligibility at the proper time. Why a prorated option isn't available I have no idea. I guess they really do want the full 25 years out of you. Though the FAA website says you must attend the FAA Academy by your 31st birthday, in the past they have considered your age "frozen" upon receipt of a tentative offer letter, which happens several months prior to your academy start date. Additionally, the FAA tries to expedite the hiring process from a certain point for those in danger of getting too old. At what point this happens, I'm not sure, but it's certainly after you've taken the entrance exam. What's the Biographical Assessment? Sample Questions Here The Biographical Assessment (also called Biographical Questionnaire or "BQ") is a highly controversial screening test meant to ensure the FAA is hiring from a sufficiently diverse pool of applicants who are qualified to work as controllers. It's a character assessment of sorts. The FAA began administering this test last year during the open hiring announcement, and it disqualified a huge majority of applicants (up to 90% according to reports) which has caused a LOT of controversy, especially from folks who went to college specifically for ATC, those with prior ATC experience, and military veterans.
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Mar 23, 2015 18:35
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I just applied for the second time. The test seemed identical to last time. Hopefully they grade it a little different. I failed last time. I hold an IFR rating, as well as a Directors title in my current career working for a $40B company. Let's see where this goes!
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Mar 23, 2015 20:33
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So - How do I cheat the BioQ to get my free multimillion dollar retirement?
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Mar 24, 2015 02:55
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Tell them you played all the sports in high school and were an A++++++ student. From reading Stuckmic (grain of salt notwithstanding) it appears they're looking for someone who is confident and can deal with rapidly changing scenarios and works well under stress. IE obvious poo poo and treat it like a corporate survey. This is based on the results from last time, but it looks like the test is pretty much the same.
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Mar 24, 2015 20:57
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Yeah no questions about what I did in high school this time, but still plenty of questions where I didn't understand why I could only pick one answer. Well, fingers crossed!
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Mar 25, 2015 02:35
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Good luck to the applicants. Looking forward to the first Goon student with a Goon OJTI. On The Job Training Instructor
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Mar 25, 2015 18:43
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Applied. A lot more questions that last time. Now we play the waiting game. E: On an unrelated note: well gently caress; my ATC 2 class was cancelled due to low enrollment. I took ATC 1 last quarter and was supposed to be taking 2 & 3 this quarter. If everything goes well I'll be in OKC some time in the fall. I was going to take my final math class and graduate at the end of the summer quarter. AFAIK they don't offer ATC 2 for the summer quarter. I'll be one class away from graduation. Becoming a controller is my end goal, but it would be nice to at least come out of school with a degree. its all nice on rice fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 27, 2015 |
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Mar 26, 2015 05:43
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The job posting will close today (Friday) at 11:59 PM ET. That's Eastern time. Get those apps in, folks.
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Mar 27, 2015 06:02
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Applications now accepted until Tues, March 31!
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Mar 27, 2015 22:22
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The Ferret King posted:Applications now accepted until Tues, March 31! I wonder if that's from them not getting as many applications as they were hoping or something like that?
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Mar 27, 2015 22:23
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The Ferret King posted:Applications now accepted until Tues, March 31! Boo! I submitted mine Monday morning. Close it close it!
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Mar 27, 2015 22:27
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Boola posted:Boo! I submitted mine Monday morning. Close it close it! Seriously close it!
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Mar 27, 2015 22:29
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Aauugh I must know if I passed the BQ!!
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Mar 27, 2015 23:49
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Applied since I'll never have the opportunity again. Man I left a work party to make sure I finished in time tonight too.
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Mar 28, 2015 04:02
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Application has been extended until March 31st so there is still time. Get on it! Come to Amarillo so I can get out 
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Mar 28, 2015 04:54
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Zochness posted:Application has been extended until March 31st so there is still time. Get on it! Come to Amarillo so I can get out We just got one of your guys. Former manager at Navy Truax field. That'll be an interesting training process. I don't envy going from the position of running an entire ATC facility to being the low man on the totem pole.
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Mar 28, 2015 05:10
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The Ferret King posted:We just got one of your guys. Former manager at Navy Truax field. That'll be an interesting training process. We just got a retired Air Force officer who used to run Eglin, IIRC. Good dude, lots of coffee runs in his future.
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Mar 28, 2015 05:35
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The Ferret King posted:We just got one of your guys. Former manager at Navy Truax field. That'll be an interesting training process. TJ (his operating initials at AMA anyways) is a good guy, hope he does well. I just toured ZSE today and was told I won the facility lottery so I can't wait to actually get here. Seems like a great place to work.
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Mar 28, 2015 05:49
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The Ferret King posted:We just got one of your guys. Former manager at Navy Truax field. That'll be an interesting training process. Yeah, it sucks a big bag of infested donkey dick. Respect the guy's experience because most likely he has a ton of knowledge he is holding back on during training as to not make his "trainer" look like a complete god drat idiot.
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Mar 30, 2015 03:57
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I won't be around to watch it, thankfully. I've already seen several military controllers who didn't work out so well. Also saw a few that did very well. It just depends on the individual.
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Mar 30, 2015 04:27
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I listen to a fair bit of ATC recordings on youtube, I guess I'm weird and really enjoy listening to pilots and ATC. I sometimes hear banter between tower and plane on seemingly impertinent topics before/after takeoff and landing, or while on approach. (My terminology may be wrong, but the planes involved are probably below 10000ft.) I was wondering, do the little comments and banter between ATC and planes violate the sterile cockpit rule, or does that only apply to conversations between crew on the flight deck itself?
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Mar 30, 2015 04:52
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