Author Topic: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009  (Read 11452 times)

Offline KSYR-pjr

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For the loyal Syracuse, NY, feed listeners (all three of you) -

If all goes according to plan I will be bringing the SYR feed down this Saturday, April 3rd, in order to completely disassemble it from its current location.  This will bring to a close a feed that ran almost completely trouble-free at this location since March 2005, or about 5 years now (not withstanding an occasional power outage or ISP issue - but those were pretty rare).   

The great news is that we finally have a real, on-airport location for the feed and I will be re-assembling the feed over the following week at this new location.   The scanner will actually be able to look out the flight school window across runway 10/28 and see the SYR tower.

With the feed reassembled at this new location I will be working with Dave's help and hardware contribution to add a second scanner to capture ground and clearance delivery.   For those SYR pilots and student pilots looking to analyze their communication skills as well as those looking to hear a class C clearance delivery frequency (Instrument pilot candidates), this second feed should be a welcome addition to LiveATC's ever growing list of feeds.

Statuses will be posted to this thread.




Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2010, 09:12:48 AM »
Feed is down and disassembled.   The parts are being shipped same-day service up to the airport now.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2010, 02:00:34 PM »
Feed may be showing as up but the antenna is still not connected so it will be pretty quiet.

Won't be getting to the antenna until later this evening (Saturday, 4/3).

More later...

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2010, 05:27:49 PM »
Feed is up and live from the SYR airport - however, my enthusiasm is very tempered - it seems that the antenna is so close to the transmitters now that it is here that the ATIS is bleeding over onto both ground and the south approach frequency.

I know very little about radio reception so I have sent Dave an email asking for help.   It appears that some type of trap or filter is needed?

Updates forthcoming...

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2010, 11:32:47 PM »
Very discouraging news:  As per Dave's response apparently the antenna and perhaps the higher quality coax cable I have been using is too good for the airport location.  Add to that the fact that the ATIS antenna is most likely about 2,500 feet away from my reception antenna and the type of filter needed is too cost prohibitive.  This results in the conclusion that the feed may not be possible from our on-airport location after all.

Oh, man - the analogy about fantasizing and then "dating" the prettiest girl at school comes to mind.  I had been thinking about an airport-based feed for a few years now and didn't at all expect this outcome.   There was a lot of work involved in disassembling and then reassembling the feed; some of the tasks would be very tedious to redo/undo.

I am going to power down the feed computer and sleep on this issue for a day or three.  Feed will be dark for the near-term.  Updates will continue to be posted here if a plan-B is determined.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2010, 10:41:30 AM »
SYR feed will be coming down today.  I am disassembling it from the SYR airport and relocating it to a private residence a few miles away from the airport in the hopes that the ATIS overpowering issue will disappear.

If all goes well it should be back online tonight.   If not, it will be down for a few days.

Offline darry2385

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2010, 01:48:07 PM »
hope all goes well

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2010, 07:30:11 PM »
Okay, all went pretty well and the end result is excellent.   Moving the feed from the airport to three miles south of the airport has eliminated the ATIS issue and all transmissions are very crisp (with the exception of aircraft on the very fringes of the controllers' class C airspace, which is to be expected).

Mounting the scanner antenna took longer than expected so I was unable to configure the tower/approach as one feed and ground/clearance as the other feed.   I will be going back to the site later this week to complete that step.

For the time being the KSYR feed is a single feed scanning tower, ground, north approach, and south approach.

If you have time, take a listen at the new feed.  I think you might like the quality.






Offline Squawk 7700

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #8 on: April 11, 2010, 11:16:09 PM »
Sounds great Peter!
The audio sounds clean with full quieting without that digital artifacting often heard on noisy transmissions.
You did a good job!  :-D
« Last Edit: April 11, 2010, 11:38:09 PM by Squawk 7700 »

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2010, 09:22:00 AM »
Sounds great Peter!
The audio sounds clean with full quieting without that digital artifacting often heard on noisy transmissions.
You did a good job!  :-D

Appreciate the feedback.  Thanks.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #10 on: April 17, 2010, 09:46:37 PM »
As promised, today I was able to successfully split the SYR feed into two separate feeds.   The original SYR feed is now scanning tower and both approach freqs.   A new feed will be published by LiveATC shortly that is scanning ground and clearance.    If it is okay with Dave I am including the mountpoint for this new feed here for those interested:  Ground/Clearance

Note that at SYR the tower controller most times works both ground and tower, so should you be listening to the ground/clearance feed you will hear a one-sided call when the controller is working an aircraft on the tower frequency.

Primarily I put this effort into the feed split to benefit KSYR students wanting to evaluate their communication skills on all frequencies.   It should also facilitate the occasional IFR clearance montage that is placed in the audio clips board here at LiveATC.


Offline dave

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2010, 11:11:32 AM »
Awesome job, thanks Peter!

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Upgrade notice: SYR will be down for a week starting April 3, 2009
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2010, 02:31:07 PM »
Awesome job, thanks Peter!

Couldn't have done it without your help.  Appreciate your phone and email support.

Working on Rome, NY, which will be both Griffiss tower/ground and what they now call SYR approach now.