KFNL Feed

[eliveatc]

For those listening to the KFNL feed, the ISP for that feed is FRII.  I apologize that the feed has been going up and down recently.  For the last week they have had issues with their network.  I had been serving the feed via tethering while waiting out their issues and the feed is now back on via FRII.  Currently their network is somewhat stable though seems to drop out occasionally. 

You can monitor their progress on their network issues here:

https://www.facebook.com/FrontRangeInternetInc/
https://frii.com/

[eliveatc]

The feed has moved to a new location for much improved reception.

The previous location had some trouble receiving aircraft to the north and west and aircraft on the ground (the latter especially with aircraft with belly mounted comm antennas) and was saturated when aircraft transmitted over the site due to the high gain LNA.  The new location is better situated for receiving all traffic both air and ground.  I've been testing it for a week before switching the feed over this morning and the results show a remarkable improvement.  There are no weak signals anymore and no instances of receiver saturation.

The current feed is built with the following:

• Nagoya NL-780A antenna
• RG-8x coax
• PAR Electronics airband bandpass filter model VHFBP(116-132)HT
• SDRPlay RSP1A receiver
• Raspberry Pi v4B
• RTL Airband v4.0.2 (SDR configuration:  multithreaded mode, 8 MSPS sampling, fft_size 8192 and gains IFGR=59, RFGR=2).

The previous feed was the following:

• 5-element Arrow II Yagi antenna cut to 122.7 MHz (the old CTAF before the tower came online 2 years ago)
• RG-400 coax
• PAR Electronics airband bandpass filter model VHFBP(116-132)HT
• Pasternack PE15A1013 50 dB LNA
• Mini-Ciruits ZFSC-3-1+ 3-way splitter
• 3x Nooelec NESDR Smart v4 SDR (tower, ground, FBO)
• Raspberry Pi v4B
• RTL Airband v4.0.2

[flunkat]

Thanks for posting your setup details. Good info.

[mitchw62]

KCHK CTAF
Feed Status: DOWN
Last heard on: 2022-05-02 17:11:05 (0 days 0 hours 0 minutes ago)   

I adjusted on squelch.  And it appears to working.
Issues are:
1- When we adjust squelch too low, we get cross-talk from nearby AWOS-Wx station on 118.175
2  It says last heard o minutes ago.  What do I need to do to get this working right.

Thanks

[eliveatc]

KFNL feed may be spotty today.  The ISP for the feed is "performing upgrades to our towers for our fixed wireless internet".

[eliveatc]

The feed for KFNL has been spotty since Monday.  The old ISP (FRII) was purchased by a new provider last month (VistaBeam).  The new ISP is having connectivity issues.  They have no time estimate for repair.  My apologies.

[eliveatc]

KFNL feed updates:

The JetCenter (ASRI/FBO) feed has moved to the same site as the tower and ground feeds.  Thus, it is much clearer.  However, its frequency is shared among the other JetCenters in the area (e.g., KAPA & KCOS), so one-way communications to those offsite FBOs will also be heard.

A consolidated feed was added last week:  "KFNL Gound/Tower".  This feed has the tower on the left channel and ground on the right.  This is helpful for when the field isn't busy and the controller is on both frequencies simultaneously.

Feed setup:

• RF:
• Nagoya NL-780A antenna
• Comet CM-5M magmount w/ 13' RG-58A coax
• RG-8x coax after magmount coax
• Generic lightning arrestor
• PAR Electronics airband bandpass filter model VHFBP(116-132)HT
• Mini-Circuits ZFSC-2-1+ splitter
• 2x 20" RG316 BNC-to-SMA jumpers
• SDR:
• Tower/Ground:  SDRPlay RSP1A receiver.
• Configuration:  Multithreaded mode, 8 MSPS sampling, fft_size 8192 and gains IFGR=49, RFGR=3.
• FBO:  Nooelec RTL-SDR v5 SDR - NESDR Smart.
• Configuration:  1 MSPS sampling, fft_size 2048, gain 30.
• Software:
• Raspberry Pi v4B
• RTL Airband v4.0.2.  Though v4.1.1 is the most current, its changes aren't significant to my setup.

[eliveatc]

The KFNL feed may be spotty today. 

The feed is located at the airport and its ISP is a "WISP" whose wireless tower for the location is down.  The feed is connected to the internet through tethering until the WISP fixes the tower. 

In the interim, the tethering connection may be unreliable.

[eliveatc]

KFNL is hosting the The Great Colorado Airshow this weekend (September 20-21, 2025) with show practice sessions today (September 19th).  The feed will include the air boss and the Thunderbirds audio.  You can expect the tower, ground and FBO feeds to be mostly inactive during this weekend.  The Thunderbirds feed should only be active during their performance.  You can expect to hear activity on that feed starting ~30 minutes before their performance.  Outside of that, I suggest listening to the air boss feed during the show times.

The air boss receiver is located on the field and should capture nearly all activity.  The Thunderbirds receiver is located ~2 miles, line-of-sight from the field.  We're keeping the feeds' frequencies unpublished.

KFNL feed.

I hope you enjoy the feeds.