On the Airbands

Following the “pan” radio call, Airport Manager UnniMenon realised he had twelve minutes left before the jet would touch down, and quickly organised staff to make preparations for the arrival.

The entire town was woken by the loud reverse thrust of the heavy jet as it thundered down Runway 32. Mr Pingel, who within hours of his arrival at Port Hedland was in a stable medical condition, perhaps owes his life to the efforts of the onboard doctor, the caring Captain of Lufthansa 788, and the great team on the ground at Port Hedland’s tiny airport. A nice story to start our final column for 1993.

Many northern NSW listeners heard the final transmissions of “Buckshot 18″, the unfortunate RAAFF-111C which crashed near Guyra NSW on the night of September 13. The aircraft with Flight Lieutenants McNess and Cairns-Cowen as crew was at Stanthorpe at 10,000ft and tracking to the south-east when it made it’s final call advising it was going no-comms”, or maintaining radio silence while it executed its assigned mission. The aircraft accelerated from 480 knots to 540kt for its low level run in to its target at Guyra, the local meat works. Tragically, something went wrong and both these fine aviators were lost in the resultant crash.

Flight Lieutenant McNess was due to fly a day or so later to ferry one of our latest F-111G acquisitions from the USA. A sad loss, and my heart goes out to the families of these fine young men who were training to protect us.

Dr Stephen Downes from Hawthorn Victoria monitored the following transmission in Sydney. He states in his letter that “some international airline operators are not enamoured of the Sydney simultaneous runway operations (Simops)”.

Lufthansa 796, a 747-400 was on final for RW 16, and Simops were in progress. A smaller aircraft was turning final for RW 07 and was advised by Sydney Tower on 120. 5 MHz that “traffic is landing on the crossing runway, hold short of Runway 16”. The ATC instruction was duly acknowledged. Lufthansa 796 was then told that: “traffic landing on the crossing runway will hold short and you are cleared to land!”. The grunted acknowledgement from a rather surly sounding pilot on Lufthansa 796 was not at all good natured. On short final, Lufthansa 796 requested confirmation of the landing clearance: TWR: “Affirmative, clear to land. The Super King Air landing on Runway 07 will hold short of Runway 16. ” LUFTHANSA: “How do you know?” Pat, Martyn and Jeff Clementson are a family of airband monitors from Bayswater in Victoria, and regular correspondents to this column.

They scan the airwaves with a Uniden Bearcat BC100XL. A few years ago in Melbourne they monitored the following transmission on Qantas Melbourne frequency which was then 131. 9, now 130. 85 MHz. Qantas 53 Papa, a 767ER positoning flight with flightdeck crew only on board had just departed Melbourne for Brisbane. AIRCRAFT: “Qantas Melbourne, the Qantas 53 Papa was offblocks at zero-five, and airborne at one-two. ” QF MEL: “Thanks very much, see you next time!” AIRCRAFT: “Well actually we have a problem. . . (sounding rather worried). . . who’s gonna make the coffee, because there’s only the two of us up here?” Rod Peek from Manurewa in New Zealand has been a reader of this column for many years, and listens on a Sony Air-8 scanner. He lives eight kilometres from Auckland’s Mangere International Airport, and is almost under the approach path for Runway 23.

If he hears an aircraft that is new to him, he can usually race to the window and make a visual check on it. Rod also monitors HF traffic in the South Pacific region using a Sony ICF-SW7600, married to an AN-120 active antenna for improved results.

He provides some frequencies he has monitored recently. 121. 7, Air New Zealand Catering – Auckland; 131. 4, United Airlines Operations – Auckland; 131. 9, Air New Zealand Operations for international traffic at Auckland; 130. 3, Air New Zealand Operations national traffic; 5680 kHz USB Search & Rescue Centre Wellington, coordinating aerial searches off-shore.

The following story is from a serving member of the military who requests to be identified only as “South Westy”. At Townsville, the RAAF uses two BAK12/14 hook cable systems on the main runway 01/19, about 2000ft from each end of the runway. They are referred to on air as the “northern hook cable” and the “southern hook cable”. The system is capable of being used by the F/A-18 and F-111C. The maintenance crew for this system is called “Tennis Team” on air, which came about from the previous arrestor system in use, the BEFAB 21. 2 Arrestor Net. This structure, when fully raised up, looked like an outsize tennis net.

A couple of years ago, the “tennis team” was on the runway, having just completed an unscheduled maintenance of the hook cable system. The following transmissions took place on Ground frequency: TENNIS TEAM: “Ground, Tennis Team, we have completed maintenance to the southern hook cable, and we’re now vacating the runway. Full length is available. ” FEMALE ATC: “Tennis Team. . . just the way I like it!” Second story from “South Westy” occurred about two months ago.

A birdstrike had just occurred on an RPT 737 service out of Townsville, with the aircraft concerned gulping up a sizeable brolga into one engine on it’s takeoff roll. The “tennis team” made a note to keep a sharp lookout for birds and other wildlife, and inform the Tower accordingly.

The “tennis team” were carrying out a daily servicing on the hook cable near the flight strip at the northern hook cable site, when one of the “team” spotted a large brown bird just outside the strip. He radioed the Tower, advising them of the problem, expecting the FAC Safety Officer to arrive to do his thing chasing the big bird away: TENNIS TEAM: “Ground, Tennis Team, we have vacated the northern hook cable site, and for your info there is a large brown bird just outside the flight strip at the northern hook cable site. I think it’s a bustard. ” GROUND: “Well do the right thing and chase the bustard away!” Bernie Keenan, News Chief of Staff at ATN 7 in Sydney is a keen aircraft monitor and plane spotter. While working one day, surrounded by the Seven Network’s bevy of scanners, he monitored this conversation. As he often does, he phoned me to relate what he had heard.

SYD GROUND: “Sierra Mike Hotel, you’re flight 209?” AIRCRAFT: “Sierra Mike Hotel . . . arr. . . hang on there. . . we’re . . . no, actually I think we’re not the aircraft I told you we were! I think we’re in Mike Mike Lima!” SYD GROUND “Sierra Mike Hotel. . . Mike Mike Lima, or whoever you are, you’re clear to taxi for a Bravo-3 intersection departure!” Mike Chestney is a Qantas pilot on 767s, and recently was operating VH-OGD on a newly instigated post merger Melbourne/Sydney Qantas domestic route.

The callsign of the Qantas 767, of course, was “Oscar Golf Delta”, not the usual “Qantas . . . ” with the flight number attached. Mike is still not fully resigned to having to revert from the Qantas callsign back to registration letters on domestic flights. And on this occasion he got the letters slightly muddled! MEL ATC: “Oscar Golf Delta, change to Melbourne Control now. ” VH-OGD: “Golf Oscar Delta (GOD). . . what was that frequency?” MEL ATC: “With a callsign like that Sir, you should already know the next one to dial up!” The quick wit of ATC left “GOD” lost for words.

I have been asked what I think of the Tandy Realistic PRO-39 scanner with Hyperscan, available from Tandy Electronics outlets.

This is a downscaled version of the excellent PRO-43, which is not available on the Australian market, and was reserved exclusively for the USA and Europe. The PRO-39 is a very competitive receiver, with good sensitivity, and it has quite good audio. It looks good. The down side is it won’t receive the navigation band 108 MHz through to 118 MHz, and also doesn’t do UHF military 225 to 400 MHz, except for the last 20 MHz segment of that band, 380 to 400 MHz. And unfortunately it will only receive that small portion of that band in narrow FM (NFM) mode.

The radio normally retails for $499, but has been discounted down as low as $399 recently. Basically, if you wish to buy a new radio, this handheld for $499 is good value. You may get second hand radios for less, but if something goes wrong you’re on your own. There is also something else worth mentioning at Tandy, the DISCONE antenna. It receives efficiently between 25 and 1300 MHz, and transmits, if necessary, on ham frequencies at 144 MHz (2 metres) 220 MHz, 440 MHz (70cms. ) and 1296 MHz. The catalogue number is 20-013, and it comes with full directions for installation.

Well that’s it for 1993. Have a great Christmas and New Year period, keep safe, and enjoy the great aircraft monitoring to be found on the airbands during the festive period. Write to me at PO Box 16, Georges Hall 2198.

A special offer for “On the Airbands” readers, Listening In magazine, normally $7. 95 $3. 00 pack and post, is now available for $8. 00 including postage anywhere in Australia! Order from Airband Communications, PO Box 16, Georges Hall 2198.