Radio - For listening to ATC.

[Pawel Fraczkowski]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a radio which:
- Can Only Receive (Not Transmit)
- Can Tune 118.000 –137.000 MHz Frequency's
- Has Some Descent Range (So can pick up many flights around not just ATC)
- Is Affordable < £300 (But below £100 would be better)

Thanks! :ok:

[There is a radio I can use in my flying school at Blackpool Airport, but would like to have my own personal radio that can use when around the airport or driving to the airport to do some flying.]

[RJC]

Have a google for an 'MAYCOM AR-108 Airband Scanner', should be well under £100 from virtually any supplier.

You can also get one of the ICOM Transceivers for under £300, with the PC software and a cable (extra items) you can also program it to have transmit inhibit on the memory banks. Handy for some places, when programming it I can disable TX on the ATIS frequency for example but leave the others enabled.

[Pawel Fraczkowski]

The "MAYCOM AR-108 Airband Scanner" looks faily good. I know when at the airport I will be able to pick up ATC. What about the planes around, what is the range of this thing.

Let's say I'm at blackpool airport, on 119.950 (Blackpool Radar) Do you know the distance within it will pick up?

[RJC]

Hard to tell the range, as it depends on the power of the transmitter too and if there is anything in between (i.e. if you were sat indoors). You can always ask your instructor to go through radio propagation, not generally covered in the PPL but is at CPL/ATPL - may bring back some memories for them :E

The maximum theoretical range can be calculated if you have complete line of sight (i.e. nothing in the way)

NM = (1.23 * √(height of TX)) + (1.23 * √(height of RX))

So lets assume Blackpool is MSL for the sake of argument and an aircraft is at 1000 feet.

This gives a max range of 38NM, thats in a perfect world, so lets assume its actually 2/3 of that or so for a more realistic range for the scanner, which comes in at 25NM. An aircraft at 3000 feet gives 67NM with the 2/3 figure of 44NM.

You won't have to be too far away to have the ATC side missing, given it's aerial won't be that high off the ground, but there isn't much you can do about that regardless of what you buy.

The only real way to see is to buy one and give it a try, there are quite a few on fleabay at the moment.