airtraffic

Author Topic: New Oceanic ARINC feed  (Read 18121 times)

Offline InterpreDemon

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New Oceanic ARINC feed
« on: September 26, 2012, 06:31:24 PM »
For you HF listeners and SWL's out there, there is a new feed out of JFK dedicated to two ARINC frequencies, 129.9 and 129.4, the former used for oceanic traffic and the latter for continental communications. A PDF coverage map is attached below.

Traffic on 129.9 is primarily aircraft departing or over-flying the New York area and headed to Bermuda, Florida or Caribbean destinations. They customarily will contact ARINC ("New York") five to ten minutes prior to their estimated entry into HF ("shortwave") oceanic airspace coverage at any one of a dozen or so way-points located between 240 to 260 miles southeast of JFK (image attached), request an HF frequency assignment and provide their four-letter SELCAL code. ("Selective Calling", a tone alert system that allows pilots to be reached without them having to listen to the constant static and noise on the HF bands) Minutes later they will report over their entry point with altitude, speed, estimates to next way-point, fuel aboard and occasionally winds aloft or weather. Sometimes their initial contact will be shortly after takeoff from JFK or even from the field. Occasionally there will be phone patch requests on this frequency when unable to contact "San Francisco" on 129.4, in fact today I heard a pilot initiate a patch to dispatch while sitting at the gate at JFK because he was getting no response from the terminal to his push-back request and he wanted somebody to get them on the phone and kick their ass.

Anyway, 129.9 is great for tracking flights out of New York and bridges the gap between VHF and HF coverage. Just listen to the frequency assignments and, if not covered by Dave's HF feeds, tune it in on your own Harris RF-590 or W/J HF1000 :-)

Most of what you will hear on 129.4 is phone patch activity to "MedLink", company dispatchers and/or maintenance to deal with in-flight medical or equipment issues or emergencies. As these aircraft can be as far as 280 miles away you will never hear the ground stations, which are spread all over the continental US.



Offline JetScan1

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2012, 07:05:14 PM »
Thanks for providing this feed ! Will be handy for confirming active HF frequencies.

From what I've heard so far the reception range of this radio is very good, you are getting the aircraft quite strong over those entry waypoints 240-260 miles away. Just curious what type of radio and antenna setup you are using ?

Offline InterpreDemon

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #2 on: September 26, 2012, 07:39:58 PM »
It's a custom-made sleeve dipole at about 70' MSL located near the south shore of Long Island about ten miles east of JFK. Other than the antenna there is nothing remarkable, just a plain old Bearcat scanner, rg-58 feed line, etc.

Calculated line of site to an aircraft at FL370 is about 280 miles, so unless some high-freeboard cruise ship or freighter gets in the way most of them will bang in pretty good. I am pretty confident we are hearing as much or more than they are hearing at JFK, because you will occasionally hear planes calling with with no response. There will, however be times you think you are hearing the ground and not hearing the planes, but that is because they are headed to Europe by way of SLATN or JOBOC, which are well over the horizon, and ARINC is simulcasting with their station out of Cape Cod.

So all we need is another volunteer up in Cape Cod and we'll be all set.

Offline InterpreDemon

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2012, 01:27:37 AM »
Attached is a more detailed map of ARINC frequencies showing ground station locations for voice as well as ACARS services and frequency offsets. Those thinking about providing ARINC feeds should see if they are near a ground station since they always present the greatest challenge to reception and those who can pull them in would be highly valued.

Offline CFD208

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2012, 02:11:16 PM »
A little reporting point trivia for those of you who are as buffy about airplanes as I am...  The reporting points, SQUAD, RESCU, and KINGG are tribute to the 102nd Rescue Squadron out of Westhampton Beach NY.  The aerospace rescue community has carried the callsign of KING## for decades.


Offline InterpreDemon

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2012, 02:21:45 PM »
Yeah, I goofed when I made that map... "RESCU" should be "RESQU" and I forgot to plot KINGG

Offline denverpilot

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2012, 01:13:25 AM »
RESQU is an awful intersection name, since it's also a mandated callsign for certain aircraft on specific missions.

Offline InterpreDemon

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Re: New Oceanic ARINC feed
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2012, 12:31:15 PM »
Maybe it's those mandated RESQU callsigns that are awful because they could be confused with a famous and venerable navigational waypoint.

Imagine the confusion of a controller, or even other aircraft, hearing a waypoint call in and report itself "on station" at a different location, reporting its fuel remaining even though most waypoints do not even have fuel tanks, or how long it plans to be there and where it expects to go next.