On The Airbands

So if you’re tuned in and thinking of all the goodies the passengers of the aircraft you are monitoring on HF are enjoying. why not open the fridge and get out a few goodies of your own. with something pleasant to wash it down and go for it! Your hours at the receiver will be made all that much more pleasant.

I might say our meal coming back was pretty terrific too, as was Qantas service generally. We recommend it.

Ginny Sangster and her hubby have waited a fair while for this contribution to be printed in the column. Sorry Ginny, tried to cram it in before, but we have such a lot of incoming mail!

Over the past five years or so, Ginny and hubby have overheard many funny incidents on their Tandy PRO-30 scanner. Ginny says she actually listens to the scanner more frequently than she does to commercial radio stations!

The scanner actually belongs to her spouse John, and was given to the lucky gent as an anniversary present.

Anyway. . . to the story, monitored from their home in Newmarket. VH-ANE out of Brisbane for Coolangatta, shortly after 6am local.

AIRCRAFT: “Arr. . . Control, Alpha November Echo, receiving the Jacobs Creek aid. . . ahh, correction to that. . . I mean Jacobs Well!” ATC: “Alpha November Echo Brisbane Control”

UNKNOWN A/C: “He just can’t get that claret off his mind. ” ATC: “Yeah. . . we actually did pick up on that. ”

Thanks for writing Ginny. . . hopefully you won’t have to wait as long next time round.

‘RNT’ of Victoria has supplied a radio relic from the past for us to savour. Circa 1939!

Guinea’s Lockheed 10 VH-UXH was en route Mt Eba to Ood- nadatta, as one leg of its Adelaide/Darwin run.

Position reports 1939 style were always made at ten and forty minutes after the hour, in local time, not as it is nowadays, in Zulu or UTC hours. (What a great idea! Ed. )

An apparently new First Officer spoke to RNT’s workmate on the radio, passing a report that went something like this. . .

“Oodnadatta, this is Guineas Uncle Xray Harry, at ten past ten we were at Lake Cadda. . . (stumble). . . err, ah. . . Caddabarra. . . (then a long pause). . . oh bugger it. . . you know where we are!” (Yep! It was of course Lake Caddabarrawiddacanna, at 29 degrees South and 135 degrees East!)

Would you think I was lying if I said I knew that?

Dominik Prokopowicz hails from Paralowie in South Australia and has been listening to aeronautical radio for the past three years. Dom uses a Realistic Jetstream pocket portable which he says does the job. (Though very insensitive Dom if you’re more than a kilometre from the airport. When you can, upgrade to a better model, preferably a scanner! You will be delighted with the better performance. )

Back to Dom’s monitoring however. . . late one night, with a P-3C Orion doing touch-and-goes at RAAF Edinburgh. The aircraft was using the Squadron callsign Mariner 96, and was fairly tired, as his training had started at about 4pm local.

Dom tuned in to the tower on 118. 3. This was what he heard. AIRCRAFT: “Mariner 96 on base, three wheels!”

TOWER: “Mariner 96, clear to land, check wheels. ” After about two minutes of silence. . .

TOWER: “Mariner 96, a lady rang us saying she thought you might be having trouble staying up so long, and then said she and her sister would treat you and the whole crew to some champagne after you get down!”

AIRCRAFT: (obviously shocked) “Ahh. . . say that all again!” The tower did just that. . . followed by. . .

AIRCRAFT: “Arr. . . did she leave a phone number Tower?” TOWER: “No, I’m sorry. . . I think she just forgot. ”

MARINER: (getting a little more serious now) “Tower, I’d like to give you a call on the telephone when we’re on the ground about this matter. I really don’t think we should discuss this anymore on the radio!”

Too true Mariner 96! Hope you and the boys managed to meet up with the ladies later on in the evening! Dom found it very funny and a major boredom breaker.

An anonymous contributor from Mt Ommaney in Queensland tells of an Aerodrome Controller to a departing aircraft we shall call Delta Uniform Mike. Contributor didn’t identify the airport. ATC: “Delta Uniform Mike, what’s your track to Kagaru?” VH-DUM: “It’s just on the railway line!”

ATC: “Which railway line is that?”

VH-DUM: “The one that runs through Kagaru!”

Yes. . . our correspondent assures me it really did happen. How do these guys get a licence in the first place?

Another story, same contributor.

A Cessna turns incorrectly across the path of a Cherokee getting airbome from a parallel runway. After suitable chastisement from the Tower, the pilot of the offending aircraft replies. . . “Did we miss?”

Third story from the same anonymous CAA employee. . . A student pilot, obviously feeling guilty at missing a downwind call on the radio, lands, clears the runway, and then calls up on the SMC frequency. . . “Arr. . . downwind. . . full stop!”

Thank you Sir, whoever you are. . . for those ‘pieces”.

On the subject of the CAA, many staff members feel intimidated, I’m told, if they admit to peers that they are an aircraft or airband monitoring enthusiast, as their workmates give them a hard time. A strange attitude by the ones doing the intimidating. to say the least! It’s almost like you’re not allowed to be keen about things involving your work.

I’m told by an Air Traffic Controller friend in Sydney that to openly display an interest in an unusual aircraft that has arrived at the airport, and go out on the building balcony or some other vantage point to photograph, is to invite ridicule for quite some months by others on your shift. That to me is a sad state of affairs. If you are an ATC or FIS staff member, and have had this situation happen to you, write and tell me. If I use the content, then the locations, names and other identifying tags on the items will be removed, and you will remain anonymous. . . I guarantee it. I’d be interested to know – and no doubt many of our readers would – about this underlying pressure on staff at many of our leading airports not to show any interest in aircraft. Mustn’t do too much for productivity either, if you’re not allowed to like what you do!

Still in the beautiful state. . . Chris Spratt is a student pilot, who bought a WIN-108 receiver, as advertised frequently in Airbands. He recently monitored this exchange on Mackay Tower frequency 124. 5.

VH-HKT: “Mackay Tower, good morning, Hotel Kilo Tango for Rocky, request taxi clearance, received Bravo, and oh by the way. . . I didn’t hear any mention of any tornadoes on the ATIS?” TOWER: “Hotel Kilo Tango, clear to taxi and line up, and what was your comment about the ATIS?” (puzzled).

VH-HKT: “It didn’t mention anything about tornadoes!” TOWER: “I haven’t seen anything. . . not even a dust devil!” VH-HKT: “Doesn’t matter. . . we’ll fly around it anyway. ” About ten minutes later on 133. 2, Townsville Control. . . VH-HKT: “What a great day for aviation commuting!” (cheerily said).

UNKNOWN: “You should be committed mate!”

The Mackay ATIS was at the time:

“Mackay Terminal Information Bravo, runway to be advised, wind light and variable, QNH 1015, temperature two-seven, smoke haze. ”

As Chris puts it. . . “we sometimes get a few whirly winds of medium intensity, but definitely no tornadoes!”

Chris says the WIN-108 is a great little receiver and that he has learnt a lot listening to it. You can get yours at Global Aviation, English St, Essendon Airport 3041. The radio is $325. 00 plus $10. 00 p&p. Phone (03) 374 1877.

A very pleasant chap from Navair in Sydney, whose signature I can’t decode for the life of me, relates a very amusing tale which he overheard while flying a Cessna 208 Caravan in controlled air- space within the Sydney Control Zone, on Approach frequency 124. 4. Our correspondent was on a photographic mission, of all places approximately 500 metres north of the RW34 threshold. At the time, another aircraft was involved in ‘aerial work’ taking pictures near Darling Harbour, and with all the regular morning Sydney traffic, you can imagine how busy the Controller was.

A Boeing 747, callsign Continental 24, changed from Arrivals Control to their frequency on Approach, and made his call:

(Heavy American accent) “Err. . . Sydney Approach, Continental two-four heavy, on descent to seven, with Information Kilo and we’re visual here. In fact. . . it’s a beautiful day you’ve got over your wonderful Blue Mountains and we’re quite overcome with the vista!”

Equally overcome was the work laden Approach Controller, far too busy for any lengthy monologue from a well meaning but not very thoughtful American visitor.

His reply to Continental 24. . .

TOWER: “Continental two four, it’s been like that all year man!” What was amusing to our Navair man was that Sydney had just emerged from another three days of on again, off again rain!

An ATIS with a difference. Essendon, sometime in 1990. “Essendon Information Echo, RW 26, wind 250/15, gusting at 25, temperature 19er, cloud 3 oktas at 2-5-0-0, 5 oktas five thousand, visibility reduced in showers, expect instrument approach. On first contact with Essendon Tower or ground, notify receipt of Echo. . . Echo. . . echo. . . echo (fading away). ”

For information, Essendon Tower is to be heard on 125. 1 and 129. 8, with SMC 121. 9, and the echoing ATIS on 119. 8MHz.

Longtime ‘Airbands’ contributor Darren Sadler from Pascoe Vale in Victoria finally got together for a couple of hours of aircraft monitoring, airport wandering and aeroplane spotting. We’ve been meaning to do this for some time.

Darren commented to me that he travelled to Sydney on a Strike-breaker Inter European flight, A 737 call sign ‘Aspro Golf Lima’. He added that with a call sign like that, he half expects to eventually hear an aircraft identified as ‘Panadol’. Touche Darren.

Jean Baker and all the people from Monitoring Times made our stay in Knoxville, Tennessee very memorable, and it was a pleasure to meet so many really keen aviation monitoring people to talk ‘shop’ with. Surprisingly enough, due to a recent patent infringement action by Uniden Bearcat against Ace Communications, manufacturers of the AOR range of very well engineered scanners, American monitors don’t get access to the large range of receivers we can choose from. Some AOR, ICOM and other exotic models have been kept out of the country following the victory by Uniden in the savage battle fought by Ace Communications for the right to market their products in the USA. Interesting. . . and over the next few months, I’ll bring you more from the USA scene, and specifically some added input from our American correspondent, Jean Baker.

Until next month. . . good monitoring to you! Write to me with any contributions: Bob Bell, Aerospace Publications, PO Box 3105, Weston Creek, ACT, 2611.

For persons wishing to purchase my book, ‘The Australian Air- band Guide’, send $27. 95 to PO Box 301, Chester Hill 2162. Phone (02) 709 3461 with any enquiries.