airtraffic

Author Topic: Great MilAir receiving article  (Read 18815 times)

Offline dave

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Great MilAir receiving article
« on: October 23, 2006, 09:55:44 AM »
Over at radioreference.com, an excellent site:

http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Milcom_Receiving_Equipment

This is a great article for those of you looking to provide feeds in areas where there is a good deal of milair activity.  The article covers many facets of milair reception, including selection of scanning receivers capable of both civilian and milair reception.

Dave
« Last Edit: July 15, 2008, 01:12:19 PM by dave »



Offline Eva Maryam

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2007, 12:52:05 AM »
thanks so much, Dave....

Offline pilotman1260

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2007, 01:12:16 AM »
Ive often wondered why most of the feeders focus on civil air,ive noticed quite a few of the feed airports have ANG or reserve units,yes a lot of military aircraft use VHF frequencies but quite a few use UHF only,surely there are  a few people who could add  the UHF freqs,you might get a surprise.Like the morning the F-22A was out for a test flight with chase aircraft off his wing at 3,000 feet,what a sight and then vertical climb to 17,000 feet.

Offline dave

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2007, 07:25:42 AM »
I love listening to MilAir stuff myself.  But there are a couple of issues for feeders:

1) Many do not have scanners that have MilAir UHF.

and perhaps the biggest reason...

2) There are hours and hours of dead silence and very short periods of activity.  Typically, not in all cases.

We do make an effort to try and encourage those with UHF capability to add some of the local military frequencies but it doesn't always work.

Dave


Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2007, 10:38:21 AM »
We do make an effort to try and encourage those with UHF capability to add some of the local military frequencies but it doesn't always work.

The Syracuse, NY, feed has a scanner that is UHF capable and in the beginning I was scanning the local military channels as part of the feed to catch the Air National Guard F-16s that launch every day.  However, perhaps due to my antenna and/or the distance from the airport I noticed that those channels came in very poorly and often interfered negatively (static that broke squelch and stopped the scanner on the channel) with the more powerful civilian frequencies so I eventually locked them out. 

Since that time I have gone to a j-pole antenna that is tuned to the middle of the civilian band I am scanning so I am even less confident that I would have any luck with pulling in the UHF band.   Is there a way to mount a UHF-specific antenna and split that signal into the civilian antenna signal?  I would like to revisit the possibility of including those frequencies if there is a better way.


Offline dave

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2007, 08:00:27 AM »
For such broadband coverage the only reasonable solution is a discone.

Dave


Offline Airforceguy24

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #6 on: February 12, 2008, 10:25:03 AM »
how difficult is it to set up a feed? Reason I ask is i live very near an Air Force base. it would also be neat for people to hear me controlling traffic.

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #7 on: February 12, 2008, 10:44:19 AM »
how difficult is it to set up a feed? Reason I ask is i live very near an Air Force base. it would also be neat for people to hear me controlling traffic.

It is actually easy to do, assuming you have the proper equipment:

1)  A scanner, most likely one with UHF and VHF capabilities for military scanning.

2)  Proper antenna - preferably an outdoor antenna.  These can be purchased over the web, Radio Shack, or even made by you using instructions from the web.

3)  Low-loss antenna cable that connect the antenna to the scanner.

4)  A computer - preferably a dedicated unit that can be left on contiguously.  For my feed I use an old Dell laptop, 512 MB RAM and PIII chip (500MHz, I believe) that I have running in my basement, out of the way .  The computer should have a sound card that has an audio-in jack.  A typical laptop and desktop offer these.

5) An always-on Internet connection - for example, cable broadband, phone company DSL, Verizon FiOS, Satellite broadband, or wireless broadband (Sprint, Verizon).

6) An audio cable to connect your scanner's audio-out to the computer's sound card audio-in.


-------------------------  Provided for you ---------------------

1) The software needed to run that receives the audio from the scanner and converts it to a digital stream that is uploaded to LiveATC's servers.



Dave (who replied above) or Jason here will be happy to walk you through the easy software setup process to get your feed up and running.

Looking forward to your feed!




Offline Airforceguy24

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2008, 11:07:05 AM »
Do you know if there are any legality issues with Stateside military ATC rebroadcasting?

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2008, 11:28:38 AM »
Do you know if there are any legality issues with Stateside military ATC rebroadcasting?

I am not aware of any, since it is my understanding that the frequencies used by typical military communications are over the public airways.  However, not being in the military I don't have a career to jeopardize if I were to broadcast my local Air National Guard's F-16 frequency.   In your case you probably should ask the managing officers at your base if there are any issues in doing so. 

Are you on-base?  There also might be rules that apply to being on base that supersede civil laws.

Offline dave

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2008, 11:42:11 AM »
They are likely to just say "you can't do that."

The reality is that as long as we are not in a state of war (on our soil) that those communications are on open (unencrypted, or black) channels.  If we were in a state of war then those channels would likely be encrypted anyway.

So the likely answer here is - don't worry about it.  In the absence of an explicit law prohibiting it, it is permitted.

-Dave


Offline hawker53

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #11 on: February 25, 2008, 06:32:20 AM »
Radio Shack has a scanner with mil freq's on it.  Pretty neat.  Sporty's Pilot Shop makes sells an excellent outside antenna with droops on it.  Hook a television amplifier to it and it is awesome.  Picks up mil airs real well.

Offline dave

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Re: Great MilAir receiving article
« Reply #12 on: March 08, 2008, 07:35:24 AM »
I am looking for a MilAir site that was hosted by a guy in Massachusetts but since may have been taken down (not sure).  The site had a picture of dual stacked Create Log Periodic antennas.  He kept a log of milair activity in the Massachusetts area.  I think he hosted it on his Comcast account.  Google searches turn up nothing.  Anyone remember this site?

Dave