KDAL Feed Setup

[blakepilot]

Hello all -
Here is my setup for the KDAL feeds, the home base for Southwest Airlines!  I am running 4 Uniden BC355N's, a Stridsberg MCA208M Multicoupler, 4 Griffin iMic's into a D-Link powered USB hub, all fed into and over a Raspberry Pi Model B mini Linux box.  Antenna is an Arrow GP126 mounted on a 4 foot pole off an old DirecTV dish mast.  I'm located about a mile and a half from KDAL as the crow flies, so reception has been pretty good.  Here are a couple pictures:





Enjoy!

[stevekirks]

This looks like a really nice setup.  Have you been happy with those BC355N units?

Steve

[InterpreDemon]

Looks and sounds like that sat mount will do fine.

By the way, I believe the correct frequency for ARINC in your area is 131.175, at least that's what it was in '12. ARINC coverage map attached.

Note that DFW transmits +7.5kc (131.1825), which might sound a bit distorted on a narrow band scanner, but I doubt you would pick up the ground station anyway.

[BK88]

Nice setup!

Good choice on the Frequencies and the way you split them.  Now I can listen to the over the air recording instead of the FAA recording at work!

If you happen to get another receiver, the Final vectoring frequency is 123.9. That will come in very clear, as the transmitter and receiver is on the field at DAL.  It is usually combined with the 124.3 landing 13s and 125.2 landing 31s. Approach splits the positions more when there is a rush of traffic.

Nice job!

[InterpreDemon]

BK, perhaps you can explain to us why the tower reception is weaker than most of the aircraft on the ground. Been struggling to figure out why.

[BK88]

BK, perhaps you can explain to us why the tower reception is weaker than most of the aircraft on the ground. Been struggling to figure out why.

I am at a loss.  The Ground and Tower transmitters are at the same location.  I'll ask the tech ops guys when I go into work next time.  They may not know, the guy who knew everything about all of our tower equipment flat out quit about a year and half ago.  There is a learning curve to get to those details, after learning how to keep it in service.

[InterpreDemon]

Understood... are they on the tower (if so, how high is it) and if not, where?

[BK88]

Understood... are they on the tower (if so, how high is it) and if not, where?

The receivers are on the tower.  The transmitters are on an antenna farm (small radio towers) elsewhere on the field.

[InterpreDemon]

That explains it... tower probably uses a high angle ground plane lower to the ground but line of sight to aircraft on the ground. Good coverage of the ATA and good enough coverage of the ground.

[blakepilot]

If you happen to get another receiver, the Final vectoring frequency is 123.9. That will come in very clear, as the transmitter and receiver is on the field at DAL.  It is usually combined with the 124.3 landing 13s and 125.2 landing 31s. Approach splits the positions more when there is a rush of traffic.

Or I could just add it to the app/dep scanner...