Aircraft radio?

Question

I have a handheld radio and i can only hear airplanes transmissions but not the towers. Is it the type of radio or am i not pushing the right button or something?

Answer 1

First, do you have the tower frequencies for the airport in your area?  Look them up on your Yahoo search engine and tune your receiver to the ground approach frequency or the departure frequency and you will then hear both sides of the converstaion.  You will require a scanner as an old rotary dial radio is not accurate enough.

Answer 2

The towers operate at short range frequency so you have to be fairly close.  You can hear the airplane because it is within a few miles over ahead of you.  This is all perfectly legal.  

www.liveatc.net also airs some of the major airport radios

Answer 3

yup, usually they're restricted to airport or airline users and you're not supposed to be getting it, it is always restricted.

Answer 4

Chewbydoo is basically correct.  A high-mounted external antenna may help if you are close to the facility you are interested in monitoring, but you will always hear more aircraft transmitting than ground stations.  There is no restriction on listening to ATC communications.

Answer 5

The other two guys are right. Its your proximity (or lack thereof) to an airport or ATC transmission site.

Try going near a towered airport sometime; you should be able to hear the tower just fine within about a mile or so.

Answer 6

The name of the game is antenna antenna antenna... towers transmit a some what low power signal so as not to overlap with each other more or less. The aircraft also use some what low power, but their altitude gives them a much bigger cone of reception. When I say low power I mean as compared to an ordinary AM station that can be picked up many hundreds of miles away. I live in the North greater Dayton area and can receive the towers at Dayton, Wright Paterson  and on some occasions even can hear Ft. Wane and Indianapolis towers, but have never been able to pick up any of the south Dayton towers (several area fields) or Cincinnati.

Answer 7

UHF doesnt have the line of sight restrictions like VHF, so if you have one with UHF, you can pickup miltary jets and towers.

Answer 8

You can hear the aircraft because they are high up. You will only hear the towers if you are fairly close or have a good line of sight from a high vantage point.