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Author Topic: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)  (Read 13499 times)

Offline av8tor172

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New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« on: January 30, 2014, 05:28:00 PM »
This weekend I was driving around KDAB (Daytona Beach International Airport) which I do often.

Recently they installed a small building, tower (about 30') and three antennas at the approach end of 7L.  The building/antennas are located about 100' from the Glideslope antenna/transmitter.  And this new installation is about 1 mile from the normal KDAB ATC antennas.

Does anyone know if this is just a temporary setup for the extra aircraft coming in for the Daytona 500 race?

Yesterday I noticed for the 1st time since seeing the new equipment and antennas at KDAB I now can not hear the ground side of tower frequency 118.100 MHz.  The ground side of tower frequency 120.700 MHz is much weaker than normal.

At this time I still can receive the ground side of all other KDAB frqs, appears only both tower freqs effected.

Is there any connection to these new antennas & building?  The new antenna I saw are not up nearly as high as the rest of KDAB's antennas. Could power output been reduced as well?

Anyone with info on this?

Thanks
George
www.MilAirComms.com
www.MilAirComms.com



Offline av8tor172

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2014, 12:55:39 PM »
Today I had a chance to take some pictures of the new antennas/equipment.

They are here: http://milaircomms.com/gallery.html 
They'll be the top 2 links in the Photo Gallery.

I still don't know if this is just extra equipment to handle the additional KDAB traffic due to the Daytona 500 race or something else....

George
www.MilAirComms.com


Offline dave

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2014, 07:53:25 AM »
Sure looks like a temporary setup to me.


Offline av8tor172

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2014, 12:08:41 PM »
Someone on another group I belong to had an interesting thought. 

Possibly with the new construction at the Daytona Int. Speedway KDAB's ATC signals were getting blocked or attenuated to the NorthWest of the airport.  Therefore they moved a few antenna to this temporary location until Speedway construction is complete and then reevaluate the RF issues.

The Speedway sits along the NW side of the airport, they are nearly doubling the size of the grandstand area.   Areas that use to have a good line-of-sight path are now blocked by a lot of new metal.  This new temporary setup is about 1 miles from the existing antenna farm at KDAB and would have a much better line-of-sight to the NW.

Just a thought
George
www.MilAirComms.com

Offline dave

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2014, 12:11:37 PM »
Very possible. Only FAA TechOps would know for sure.

Offline dgarley

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2014, 10:46:12 AM »
The antennas at approach to 7L are 120.7/126.55.  Because of the speedway expansion, they are afraid that we will lose comm on aircraft northwest of daytona below 1500 on base 7L.  They are also moving some freqs to OMN because of the speedway.  Will advise when I have an update on those.

Offline av8tor172

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2014, 03:55:51 PM »
The antennas at approach to 7L are 120.7/126.55.  Because of the speedway expansion, they are afraid that we will lose comm on aircraft northwest of daytona below 1500 on base 7L.  They are also moving some freqs to OMN because of the speedway.  Will advise when I have an update on those.

Thanks for that update.  Not surprised about the comm loss fear.  Problem is that now I have weak reception of 120.7/126.55 ground side of comms at my house....  do you know if this is temp. or perm?  The installation looks temp.

Thanks
George
www.MilAirComms.com

Offline av8tor172

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Re: New Equipment and Antennas at KDAB (Daytona Beach)
« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2014, 05:13:46 PM »
The antennas at approach to 7L are 120.7/126.55.  Because of the speedway expansion, they are afraid that we will lose comm on aircraft northwest of daytona below 1500 on base 7L.  They are also moving some freqs to OMN because of the speedway.  Will advise when I have an update on those.

Do you know if they've done the same for the UHF Military tower frequency (257.800).  Just from listening I don't think so because I can still hear ground side of comms on 257.800 the same as always while ground side of 120.700 is weaker then before.

George
www.MilAirComms.com