airtraffic

Author Topic: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies  (Read 9329 times)

Offline 777lrf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« on: April 30, 2015, 07:27:13 PM »
I sometimes miss the frequencies given by EINN control for aircraft crossing the ocean and visa versa. How do I find out which HF frequencies are active? Right now I am listening to NAT A and I hear east bound traffic. Is west bround on the same frequency? I am not hearing anything from all the other NAT HF's except loud static.



Offline 777lrf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2015, 08:31:02 PM »
I'm hearing NAT B outbound but I think some inbound. This is all so confusing

Offline nycrich

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 38
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #2 on: August 03, 2015, 10:50:48 AM »
Since the introduction to digital HF Datalink, some aircrafts will not necessarily be transmitting voice on HF. Reporting points will be entered via a keyboard and digitally sent and acknowledged back to ATC.
An HF frequency might be assigned but not necessarily used.
Satcom communications are also becoming common.

I've notice some aircrafts using VHF frequencies to route traffic over to ATC HF centers. Example flying HF through CAR A or CAR B, Bermuda VHF center freq will be used instead of HF

Offline 777lrf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #3 on: August 07, 2015, 03:39:13 AM »
There are a lot of transmissions on hf, especially the first selcal check. I am listening to the HF CWP1/2 transmission but wonder if there is a dedicated San Fran radio? This feed seems to switch between Brisbane, Tokyo, Manila and SF radios. I'd like to hear only San Francisco radio, is there a feed for it?
« Last Edit: August 07, 2015, 03:41:55 AM by 777lrf »

Offline dave

  • Site Founder
  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4597
    • LiveATC.net
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2015, 08:51:34 AM »
There are a lot of transmissions on hf, especially the first selcal check. I am listening to the HF CWP1/2 transmission but wonder if there is a dedicated San Fran radio? This feed seems to switch between Brisbane, Tokyo, Manila and SF radios. I'd like to hear only San Francisco radio, is there a feed for it?

No, but since I think you live in the western US you could easily obtain a radio capable of HF reception.  Just set up a long-wire antenna or some other type of HF receive antenna and you can tune around with reckless abandon.  :-)

Offline 777lrf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2015, 05:38:31 AM »
There are a lot of transmissions on hf, especially the first selcal check. I am listening to the HF CWP1/2 transmission but wonder if there is a dedicated San Fran radio? This feed seems to switch between Brisbane, Tokyo, Manila and SF radios. I'd like to hear only San Francisco radio, is there a feed for it?

No, but since I think you live in the western US you could easily obtain a radio capable of HF reception.  Just set up a long-wire antenna or some other type of HF receive antenna and you can tune around with reckless abandon.  :-)


Unfortunately getting up an antenna is an issue in my apartment building and the homeowners assoc. Otherwise I'd host the zla frequencies.

Is there a reason for different feeds broadcasting the same thing? HF CWP1/2 is down right now but most often has good reception of sfo center over the pacific. HF CWP/SEA is up, but only broadcasting Tokyo. Couldn't each feed switch between the hf centers?

Offline Rob K

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 63
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #6 on: August 16, 2015, 01:38:30 AM »
There are a lot of transmissions on hf, especially the first selcal check. I am listening to the HF CWP1/2 transmission but wonder if there is a dedicated San Fran radio? This feed seems to switch between Brisbane, Tokyo, Manila and SF radios. I'd like to hear only San Francisco radio, is there a feed for it?

No, but since I think you live in the western US you could easily obtain a radio capable of HF reception.  Just set up a long-wire antenna or some other type of HF receive antenna and you can tune around with reckless abandon.  :-)


Unfortunately getting up an antenna is an issue in my apartment building and the homeowners assoc. Otherwise I'd host the zla frequencies.

Is there a reason for different feeds broadcasting the same thing? HF CWP1/2 is down right now but most often has good reception of sfo center over the pacific. HF CWP/SEA is up, but only broadcasting Tokyo. Couldn't each feed switch between the hf centers?

The CWP feeder is Andy - a friend of mine.  It's actually 2 radios on different frequencies being fed into 1 stream.  The freq coverage depends on the time of day and propagation.  If Andy is about he'll change the freqs to cover the most traffic (unless listening for something specific) - this is often SP (BNE & AKL) and CWP (SFO via Guam relay xmtr or TYO/MNL).

Unlike VHF ATC, HF don't use fixed freqs and they're constantly changing depending on the propagation and time of day/night.  Generally the higher freqs are used during the daylight and low freqs during darkness.  If you were to leave the radios on set freqs all the time you would end up with about 4 hours of activity and 20 hours of static.

The problem is even worse with the NAT as they have such a huge amount of freqs at their disposal these days and since the loss of the Nova Scotia feeds the coverage from LATC is not great.

For Shanwick daytime traffic they currently use 5649, 6547, 6595, 6622, 8879 and occasionally 10021.  For night time try 3446, 3476, 3491, 4675, 5583.  For Gander daytime (UTC) traffic, try 8831, 8864, 11279.  Gander nighttime (UTC) the bulk of it is on 5616 and 8891.

The West Coast NAT-D feed is currently running SFO full time for CEP1 and CEP2 regions, mainly covering the routes to/from Asia but some Hawaii traffic too.  02-04z runs 8891 but the rest of the time it's on 5547, 11282 and 10057.  :-)
« Last Edit: August 16, 2015, 01:42:04 AM by Rob K »

Offline 777lrf

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 216
Re: Help following aircraft on NAT HF frequencies
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2015, 08:36:05 AM »


The CWP feeder is Andy - a friend of mine.  It's actually 2 radios on different frequencies being fed into 1 stream.  The freq coverage depends on the time of day and propagation.  If Andy is about he'll change the freqs to cover the most traffic (unless listening for something specific) - this is often SP (BNE & AKL) and CWP (SFO via Guam relay xmtr or TYO/MNL).

Unlike VHF ATC, HF don't use fixed freqs and they're constantly changing depending on the propagation and time of day/night.  Generally the higher freqs are used during the daylight and low freqs during darkness.  If you were to leave the radios on set freqs all the time you would end up with about 4 hours of activity and 20 hours of static.

The problem is even worse with the NAT as they have such a huge amount of freqs at their disposal these days and since the loss of the Nova Scotia feeds the coverage from LATC is not great.

For Shanwick daytime traffic they currently use 5649, 6547, 6595, 6622, 8879 and occasionally 10021.  For night time try 3446, 3476, 3491, 4675, 5583.  For Gander daytime (UTC) traffic, try 8831, 8864, 11279.  Gander nighttime (UTC) the bulk of it is on 5616 and 8891.

The West Coast NAT-D feed is currently running SFO full time for CEP1 and CEP2 regions, mainly covering the routes to/from Asia but some Hawaii traffic too.  02-04z runs 8891 but the rest of the time it's on 5547, 11282 and 10057.  :-)

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I mainly listen during the early morning hours for coverage in the pacific by sfo and Brisbane center, but it's tough to hear anything as most of the hf feeds are getting the Japan/Philippines traffic.