Benson and Lyneham ATC
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Benson and Lyneham ATC
Hi there,
I am a regular (and grateful) user of the most excellent services provided by RAF Benson and RAF Lyneham's radar units for LARS and zone transits. However, I have always found the quality of the transmissions from RAF stations to be of poorer quality (i.e. muffled and unintelligable) than civilian units.
This morning Benson was particularly bad, I kept having to ask the nice lady controller to repeat everything..... I'm sure that she thought that I was either (a) a complete muppet or (b) not paying sufficient attention to her radio transmissions.... or probably both. I always try and be as professional as possible on the radio and listen, especially with mil units because I'm sure that the controllers are also busy on UHF freqs too and so haven't got time to repeat everything for me.
I don't think that the problem is with my kit as I don't have problems with civilian units and I'm very lucky to have a brand new Garmin G1000 with Sennheiser headphones.
Do other pilots have these problems? Could we club together and by the RAF some new microphones?
regards
3Y
I am a regular (and grateful) user of the most excellent services provided by RAF Benson and RAF Lyneham's radar units for LARS and zone transits. However, I have always found the quality of the transmissions from RAF stations to be of poorer quality (i.e. muffled and unintelligable) than civilian units.
This morning Benson was particularly bad, I kept having to ask the nice lady controller to repeat everything..... I'm sure that she thought that I was either (a) a complete muppet or (b) not paying sufficient attention to her radio transmissions.... or probably both. I always try and be as professional as possible on the radio and listen, especially with mil units because I'm sure that the controllers are also busy on UHF freqs too and so haven't got time to repeat everything for me.
I don't think that the problem is with my kit as I don't have problems with civilian units and I'm very lucky to have a brand new Garmin G1000 with Sennheiser headphones.
Do other pilots have these problems? Could we club together and by the RAF some new microphones?
regards
3Y
Personally I've always found many at Benson to be particularly bad, muffled and unintelligable. Of course it could just be that they're sad that they don't work at the better JHC unit. 
In terms of what we sound like, we are in a concrete cell (from which I'm currently trying to escape using nothing more than raw stupidity and a spoon) with our heads in a huge mug of coffee to provide us some stimulation while all our aircraft are broken or in other places
In terms of what we sound like, we are in a concrete cell (from which I'm currently trying to escape using nothing more than raw stupidity and a spoon) with our heads in a huge mug of coffee to provide us some stimulation while all our aircraft are broken or in other places
They're just the same on the telephone when we do handovers, Brize being worst.
It all boils down to the system they use called MASCOT; it was designed for police/ambulance etc control rooms and was adapted for ATC use. As installed at some units (not all), it apparently doesn't emit the full range of audio frequencies, low and high frequencies being the ones not transmitted. This means you only hear mid range audio, hence the muffiled sound. I believe they might have been issued with new headsets recently as it seemed to get worse a few weeks ago.
It all boils down to the system they use called MASCOT; it was designed for police/ambulance etc control rooms and was adapted for ATC use. As installed at some units (not all), it apparently doesn't emit the full range of audio frequencies, low and high frequencies being the ones not transmitted. This means you only hear mid range audio, hence the muffiled sound. I believe they might have been issued with new headsets recently as it seemed to get worse a few weeks ago.
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I'm out of the loop now but about a year ago MoD were inviting tenders from industry to replace and subsequently maintain everything engineering in aerodromes. They were putting it on a fast track and thought a contract could be let in 5-6 years 
BD
BD
I'm glad to hear that it isn't just me. I have found Lyneham so difficult to understand that I usually prefer to avoid them.
A few weeks ago I was flying with my son who is fairly advanced in his military flying training and, expecting to be impressed, I asked him to talk to his friends at Lyneham. Not being familiar with the local VRP's he couldn't understand their zone clearance at all. "Keep to the west of Melksham and Chippenham" can sound very odd when it's garbled and you're not expecting it.
A few weeks ago I was flying with my son who is fairly advanced in his military flying training and, expecting to be impressed, I asked him to talk to his friends at Lyneham. Not being familiar with the local VRP's he couldn't understand their zone clearance at all. "Keep to the west of Melksham and Chippenham" can sound very odd when it's garbled and you're not expecting it.
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"JMATS: The Joint Military Air Traffic Services (JMATS) project was established following a successful EP05 Option to sustain key elements of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) Air Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure. Serious obsolescence issues face this entire capability area and JMATS intends to bring a coherent approach to its future provision as well as exploring options for more efficient provision of the service. The project shows early signs of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) potential and a key decision for Initial Gate (IG) will be whether to take forward a PFI procurement strategy."
NATS are (were) very interested, in collaboration with an engineering supplier.
BD
Means you military guys will probably get ASR 10s replacing your far superior Watchmans; don't say I didn't warn you. Still at least you'll get decent comms kit.
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Three Yellows
Count yourself lucky you could hardly hear what they had to say. If you heard the full transmission it would probably have been unmitigated self-promotion. "We are the best, we rule the sky, etc..."
A close shave if you ask me.
Grabbers
Count yourself lucky you could hardly hear what they had to say. If you heard the full transmission it would probably have been unmitigated self-promotion. "We are the best, we rule the sky, etc..."
A close shave if you ask me.
Grabbers
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I usually talk to Shawbury which is always excellent but on the one day when I needed to talk to Lyneham all was loud and clear 
- and this in spite of the fact that the radio in the aircraft has, in the past as well as last week, proved unreliable for reception. 
Perhaps the answer is to have a radio which should be consigned to a museum? 
(Just joking)
- and this in spite of the fact that the radio in the aircraft has, in the past as well as last week, proved unreliable for reception. Perhaps the answer is to have a radio which should be consigned to a museum? (Just joking)
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London Mil,
Don't knock old valve-driven gear. When I first started in ATC all our squadrons (Victor Mk 2) were equipped with ARC 52 tx/rx, and the tower had ancient valve equipment fed by GPO telephone headsets with plastic tubes to talk into. The quality was superb. One of your mates called up a couple of hundred miles out and it was like talking to him in the same room. Squadrons said the same of our transmissions.
Then they installed the original minicomms, and then came Mascot. And the result of forty years progress in radio technology?......... the comments on this thread
Don't knock old valve-driven gear. When I first started in ATC all our squadrons (Victor Mk 2) were equipped with ARC 52 tx/rx, and the tower had ancient valve equipment fed by GPO telephone headsets with plastic tubes to talk into. The quality was superb. One of your mates called up a couple of hundred miles out and it was like talking to him in the same room. Squadrons said the same of our transmissions.
Then they installed the original minicomms, and then came Mascot. And the result of forty years progress in radio technology?......... the comments on this thread
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Three Yellows,
I have had the same problem. Its not your kit. Often go from crystal clear with Bristol to almost unreadable at Lyneham or Brize.
I am also unimpressed that you can't hear the military traffic which apparently operates on UHF, and presumably they can't hear us using VHF. Not the best arrangement for forming a mental awareness picture of what is going on in the zone.
I am also more comfortable with transiting the Bristol rather than Lyneham zone. They appear to have far less of a problem with routing me overhead dodging their commercial traffic than Lyneham has with their militaries.
(See my previous posts)
I have had the same problem. Its not your kit. Often go from crystal clear with Bristol to almost unreadable at Lyneham or Brize.
I am also unimpressed that you can't hear the military traffic which apparently operates on UHF, and presumably they can't hear us using VHF. Not the best arrangement for forming a mental awareness picture of what is going on in the zone.
I am also more comfortable with transiting the Bristol rather than Lyneham zone. They appear to have far less of a problem with routing me overhead dodging their commercial traffic than Lyneham has with their militaries.
(See my previous posts)
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SS, the VHF-UHF 'cross coupling' facility exists but, due to incompatabilities between MASCOT and the wonderful pieces of aviation heritage otherwise known as 'valve radios' it doesn't work. If you select the facility, you get endless 'keying'.
it doesn't work. If you select the facility, you get endless 'keying'.
Lon Mil and other mil types: Your procurement people visited my unit several weeks ago and I had the pleasure of demonstrating how easy it was to cross couple 2 or more VHF/UHF frequencies with our kit, (Schmid ICS 200/60) as supplied as standard by the company which I believe has got the contract.
As you say, when we had MASCOT, you could cross couple but not successfully, although our techies did a special 'hard wiring' job which did work. Course when Sealand came down for annual maintenance and discovered this, the proverbial hit the fan and it had to be disconnected!!
As you say, when we had MASCOT, you could cross couple but not successfully, although our techies did a special 'hard wiring' job which did work. Course when Sealand came down for annual maintenance and discovered this, the proverbial hit the fan and it had to be disconnected!!
SS, yes we know how to do it and yes the kit can theoretically do it. Unfortunately, as I understand it, if you actually cross-couple the freqs the kit can't cope and shuts down or some other un-helpful activity.
I find it hard to believe however that our kit supremos will purchase anything mildly useful within the next few years. Bless em.
I find it hard to believe however that our kit supremos will purchase anything mildly useful within the next few years. Bless em.
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SS, yes we know how to do it and yes the kit can theoretically do it. Unfortunately, as I understand it, if you actually cross-couple the freqs the kit can't cope and shuts down or some other un-helpful activity.
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Never had that problem at West Freugh, and that was 6 years ago (Mascot comms). I can't see the kit there being all that different - could be worth talking to someone in MOD-PE to see why it worked there.
