Aircraft band reception

[turbosat]

Wow I can actually hear the other side of the conversation this afternoon and evening! Still learning about the aircraft monitoring aspect of the scanning hobby. With my little home-made ground plane, and store-bought Ratshack ground plane antennas I can hear the controller talking to planes after a big storm came through this afternoon. I'm only about 17-18 miles from the airport (BHM) but it's only the 2nd or 3rd time I've been able to hear the tower. I just started tuning in aircraft channels recently, it's fun to listen to them. I know I really need one of those fancy directional antennas for more reliable reception, but at over 300bucks they're out of my reach right now. Anybody else using anything strictly for 108-136 reception?

 

[TRG]

Wow I can actually hear the other side of the conversation this afternoon and evening! Still learning about the aircraft monitoring aspect of the scanning hobby. With my little home-made ground plane, and store-bought Ratshack ground plane antennas I can hear the controller talking to planes after a big storm came through this afternoon. I'm only about 17-18 miles from the airport (BHM) but it's only the 2nd or 3rd time I've been able to hear the tower. I just started tuning in aircraft channels recently, it's fun to listen to them. I know I really need one of those fancy directional antennas for more reliable reception, but at over 300bucks they're out of my reach right now. Anybody else using anything strictly for 108-136 reception?

I do. In fact I have 2 banks set up in my scanner for aeronautical monitoring. One for commercial aircraft and one for military band 225-400 MHz. I'm located near Kirtland AFB so I receive a fair amount of signals.

Using a directional antenna for the Airband isn't such a great idea if you want to hear both sides of the conversation. That is to say, the signals are likely coming in from two different directions. That and one is likely to be moving (the aircraft).

I am also fortunate to have an observation area near our airport where people can come to watch planes arrive and depart. Its fun to monitor the tower with my portable scanner while watching the daily traffic.

Check out this review on a Ramsey aircraft monitor. The author goes into the details in the review so I'll refrain from writing them here. I might get one of these one day.

www.monitoringtimes.com/html/mtfirstlook-ramseyair.pdf

 

[turbosat]

Good point about the moving objects, didn't think of that. Maybe I'll have better luck when I get my latest home-grown ground plane up, hopefully later today. I made one with the elements cut to the aircraft band so maybe it'll be more 'receptive' . It's really curious about the weather affecting it so much. Thanks for the link-but I get a 404 error on it. I'll try to search it.

 

[Panavision]

I constructed a yagi for the air band when I lived in Orlando. It helped me pick up ATIS much better than a vertical.

 

[turbosat]

I've read that a directional antenna would be the answer to picking up the air traffic controllers, provided I can get it high enough.
Right now they're booming on my ground plane antenna , temperature inversion after the thunderstorms passed through here, and in Bham.