RADIOACTIVITIES Newsletter of the Argonne Amateur Radio Club
Volume XLI, Number 10	October, 2000

The Commission adopted the proposed schedule of fees on June 30. (FY 2000 began last September; the fees are paid in arrears.) The FCC said it anticipates 8000 applications for vanity call signs during FY 2000.

In an effort to better document the extent of unlicensed operation on Amateur Radio frequencies — particularly 10 meters — the International Amateur Radio Union Region 2 Monitoring System is surveying member societies about the extent of the problem. The ARRL is soliciting reports from US hams to supplement its response to the survey.

“At the peak of the sunspot cycle, CB-like operations become more and more apparent on the highest HF band,” says Brennan Price, N4QX, administrator of the ARRL Monitoring System.

Price says that on September 28 alone, the ARRL received three reports of such activity on 10 meters. “John Hennessee, N1KB, and I took turns monitoring at headquarters station W1INF and noted 12 such stations in about 15 minutes of listening time — all using AM between 28.0 and 28.1 MHz,” he reports.

In order to provide statistical backing for ARRL’s survey response, Price is soliciting reception reports from amateurs for the two-week period October 1 to October 14. Observations should include date and time in UTC, frequency, mode of the transmission, language (if known), and any notes that might assist in identifying the source. Observations should also be limited to amateur frequencies, focusing on 10 and 12 meters.

Price emphasized that operations on the so-called “freeband” between 10 meters and the 11 meter Citizens’ Band are not a topic of this survey.

Price urged monitors to use caution before documenting a transmission as probably unlicensed. “Most countries do not mandate a segregation of voice and digital modes, as the US does,” he pointed out. “A phone transmission between 28.0 and 28.3 MHz is not necessarily illegal in the country where that transmission occurs, and if valid amateur call signs can be made out, the transmission should not be reported.” Price notes, however, that lower sideband and AM transmissions between 28.0 and 28.1 MHz usually are unlicensed “and may be treated with suspicion.”

ARRL Executive Vice President David Sumner, K1ZZ, said he believes the best short-term solution is for amateurs to get on the air and use their frequencies. “Illegal operation on 10 meters declines on a contest weekend,” Sumner says. “If that volume of stations would operate more often, perhaps these intruders would look elsewhere for an open frequency.”

E-mail reports to Brennan Price at n4qx@arrl.org. All reports will be acknowledged, and respondents will receive a summary of the survey results via return e-mail.

Previously, applicants had to be 14 years of age or over, or to have held a Novice license for a least a year. Now, applicants who have passed the radio amateur examination and either the 5 WPM or 12 WPM Morse code test for a Class A/B or Class A license respectively, may apply for a full license. — RSGB

Yes, I also have my old standby “favorite” modes that I operate like phone on 20 or code on 30 or ragchewing with a friend or newcomer on a repeater. These are the modes that I operate when there isn’t the time or energy to be up to the challenge of something new. Like an old comfortable pair of shoes it’s easy to slip them on and relax and enjoy.

But I do like a challenge. So then I will go over to the bench and take a few minutes and look at what is there. Invariably I will find myself saying something like “Oh yeah, I wanted to test this.. or monkey with that.” And before I know what has happened no small amount of time has passed. And if things went well I got something done and maybe even learned a little something. And I don’t need an eye doctor to tell me that my horizons have widened and my “vision” cleared just a little bit.

By the by, if you missed the September meeting you missed a good program and a good speaker. At the end I was left with very few if any questions regarding APRS, or the Automatic Position Reporting System. This club would like to again thank Randy Zabel, N9NWA for the fine presentation.

There is one area, though, that might appeal to both communities — aircraft SWLing. Most people who have ever played with any of the scanners on the market know that you can listen in on the conversations between aircraft and ATC (Air Traffic Control) facilities in the frequency range between 118.0 and 135.975 (sometimes 136.9) MHz. The only difference is that this system is AM instead of the FM we might expect in this frequency range. The scanners take care of this automatically. What is less well known is that there is a whole range of aircraft — ATC frequencies in the HF spectrum as well.

Anyone with a good general coverage receiver can find them. You just have to know where to look and what to listen for. VHF (118.0 - 135.975 MHz) is the preferred mode for air to ground communication, and is used exclusively in most of the world.

What is obvious to amateurs, however, is that, at these frequency ranges, we’re talking pretty much line-of-sight, so it won’t surprise anyone to know that there are areas of the world where, until we get satellite coverage, HF is all we have. Around the world, there are commercial stations that handle the traffic between aircraft and ground facilities. If you know the frequencies, you can ease drop. They use frequencies from below the 80-meter ham band up to at least 23 MHz. The only thing a ham will find different from normal SSB is that they use only USB, all the way down to below 3 MHz, so, depending on the frequency, you may have to go reverse sideband.

As you can imagine, most of the areas where HF is in use are over the oceans, but it is also used in some of more remote corners of South America, Africa and Asia. In the chart below, I’ll try to give you a quick trip around the world with some (by no means all) of the facilities you can hear handling traffic from aircraft, but first, I’ll give you an idea of the kind of conversation you will hear.

Like all professions, pilots have their own “language” with it’s own vocabulary. The transmissions you will hear will be short and to the point unless there is an unusual message involved. Most of the messages will be “position reports” which are passed along to ATC so it can keep the planes separated. They have a set format and for a Federal Express flight from Memphis to Paris over the North Atlantic, would sound something like this:

EXPRESS 01... 49 North, 40 West at 1015Z...Flight Level 330...50 North, 30 West at 1045Z.. 48 North, 20 West next. Fuel 95.0.. Wind 260/25 Temp. -31 Sel Call ABCD.

With this message and a decent map, you can pinpoint Express flight 1 as over a point northeast of Gander, Newfoundland at the time stated (49N 40W), know his altitude (33,000 feet), know his estimate to the next reporting point (50N 30W) and the point after that (48N 20W), estimate his ground speed (measure the distance vs time — 30 minutes), know how much fuel he has remaining (95,000 lbs.), and the wind and temperature outside.

The selcall code (ABCD) refers to a set of tones the ground station can send that will set off a chime in the cockpit. This allows the crew to be on call, but keep the volume turned down. Hams may like to listen to pileups on 20 meters for 8 hours straight, but pilots don’t! If all the position reports involved latitude and longitude figures, it would be pretty easy to fix the position of any aircraft you might hear, and this will be true much of the time.

Unfortunately, over the North Pacific and many other places, the reporting points are given “names” and these are used instead of Lat/Long. These names don’t seem to bear any relation to anything. They are either computer generated, or produced by a chimp with a typewriter. Some are real words, while others are just a collection of 4 or 5 letters. Unless you have the same charts the pilot has that show the name and the Lat/Long, you just have to make your best guess.

As you can imagine, some of the busiest air routes in the world are between the U.S. and Europe over the North Atlantic, so we’ll start there. On the U.S. side, the two major players are New York and Gander Radio. All flights from the U.S. to Europe will talk to one of these facilities for some part of their flight. Here are some common frequencies for them. Just like the Ham bands, time of day and propagation determines which ones will be in use.

NEW YORK RADIO				|	GANDER RADIO
2887	2962	3016	5550	|	2872	2899	3016	5598
5598	6628	8825	8906	|	5616	5649	8864	8906
8918	11309	11396	13279	|	11336	13291	13306	13306	13354	17946

Flights going a little further North would also deal with Iceland Radio, but it uses many of the same frequencies as Gander Radio. As the flight nears European airspace, about 30W, they would be turned over to either Shanwick Radio (Ireland) or Santa Maria Radio (Azores). The good news is that the same frequency is almost always used all the way across, so the above list works for them as well. As soon as the flight is in range of the coast, it is sent over to VHF.

If you’re interested in South America, here are a few frequencies that are used by several different commercial “Radios”: 3479, 3452, 5526, 8855, 10096, 11360, 13297, & 17907.

One of the other busy areas of the world for air traffic is the North Pacific. The two stations that control this area are San Francisco Radio and Tokyo Radio. They also share a group of frequencies and control the areas out of VHF range of the U.S. West coast, Anchorage Center, and Tokyo Control: 2932, 5628, 5667, 6655, 8915, 8951, 10048, 11330, 13273, 17946, & 21925

Along the Russian Pacific coast, you might hear Petropavlovsk Radio on the following: 3401, 3407, 3443, 6544, 10039, & 11285.

Further down into Southeast Asia, there are stations in Okinawa (Naha), Manila, Hong Kong, Singapore, and several other places. Here are some common frequencies: Naha/Manila: 2998, 6532, 6562, 8903, 13300.

Hong Kong/HoChiMinh/Singapore: 5655, 8942, 11396, & 3309.

Finally, I’ll throw in some other places that may interest you: Mediterranean and North Africa: 5517, 5637, 5652, 5661, 8894, 10084, 11300, & 13288.

Middle East: 2992, 5628, 5667, & 10018.

Australia: 3467, 5643, 8867, 13261, & 17904.

In addition to all this, there are a couple of commercial stations that handle other kinds of traffic; anything from messages to company headquarters to personal phone patches home — from all parts of the world. They are: Stockholm Radio: 3494, 5541, 8930, 11345, 13342, 17916, & 23210.

Berna Radio: 6643, 8936, 10069, 13205, 18023, & 23285.

When you get tired of the DX and contest “Rat Race”, you might want to check out the air-to-ground traffic. At least the next time you fly overseas, you’ll have some idea what the guys up front are doing between cups of coffee.

73 es Good DX K4JRR

Jim Knight (K4JRR) first started flying in the US Air Force in 1968. For the last 27 years, he has flown for Federal Express. He is a DC-10 Captain with 15,000 hours of flight time. Jim has been a licensed amateur since 1959. His e-mail is: DC10DVR@aol.com.