A Little correction. Shanwick is fairly unique as the Controllers that separate the aircraft from each other and the radio operators that talk to them are in different countries. The Crontrollers are in Presrwick and the radio operators are in Ballygirren, 3 miles north of the Shannon Volmet site.
MMMMmmm not sure thats correct......last time I looked at the Shanwick web site it said the HF operator's are based in Eire....but things could have changed.
After my first travel to Africa I began to listen to ATC on 11.300 MHz USB. One of the controllers was the screaming Lady in Karthoum. The next trip to Africa was with Kenya 117, from Amsterdam to Nairobi. I asked if I could join the pilots in cockpit. No problem, as it was before 9/11. I sat in the cockpit for hours! The first officer was Ms Barbara Green. I told her about the screaming Lady of Khartoum, and guess who was on duty that night! "Let's see if we can wind her up a little!" said Barbara. When back in Sweden I continued to listen, and lo and behold: I was able to hear the very same aircraft with Barbara Green operating the radio! i have recordings on casette. Unforgettable!
Here in Finland I can hear Bombay, Bangkok, Shannon, Pearce, Gander, Karachi, Australia, China, Singapore……I haven’t done a serious listen for all of them but maybe one day for a box ticking exercise. The location here is superb even LRA36 in Antarctica came through really well!
As a young boy in the 1960's i used to love litening to aircraft such as Pan Am clippers crossing the pacific To here in OZ and trying to work out their location from position reports Which you can still do with todays aircraft Just another feature to make the hobby more interesting But totally relying on satellites maybe not such a good idea because of solar activity And i guess military actions first target would be satellites for eyes ears a gps Like the closing of Shortwave stations to change to the easily bloked, censored and destroyed internet just cutting the under sea cable Good video Cheers
There has been few great reissues of formats past decade... to name a few: vinyl records and film photography... that last one I am partly responsible 😂. Radio is another one and it is save to say that you Lewis are single handedly responsible for this... I take my hat off... Thank you my friend!
Blimey the bit about SELCALL brought back memories of one of my job's as a Field Service Technician. We had Radios in our Vans and later Car's that had a SELCAL light on the front of the radio that would let me know i had been called by the Service desk Girls so i could call them back to see what they wanted me for. It worked really well. We later got given Pager,s aswell. We didn't have Mobile phone's back then 😊
Excellent research Lewis. I used to listen / track the north atlantic aircraft on Shanwick / Gander but also spent a lot of time monitoring BA Speedbird Control on 5535 kHz. Speedbird Control used to handle company traffic for a number of airlines in addition to BA. There would be lots of interest from ordering supplies, reporting passenger loads, technical issues and medical emergencies. Speedbird Control had doctors on hand to give advice to Captains and aircrew. I remember one instance of a person ill on a Qantas flight heading for London and over Russia at the time. A doctor on the flight had determined a heart condition and that the patient needed treatment ASAP - when discussion about the nearest airport determined it was a Russian one London Control said words to the effect "The doctors here think it will be better for the patient to fly the extra hour and divert to Copenhagen" - the Captain agreed and diverted. Such was the faith in the Russian medical services!
I had on many occasions heard the BA and Air France Concordes crossing the Atlantic from my receiver down here in New Zealand. Back then I had a Phillip PL2999 and latterly a JRC NRD-525. Not so much HF aeronautical traffic but have the odd tune-in for old times sake.
This bring back memories! I well remember the RAF used to have an airfield colour state transmission using the callsign Architect. My most exciting communications I heard (and still have them on tape!) was Helen Sharman on board the MIR space stion, and Richard Branson whilst on his Virgin Flyer Balloon crossing the Atlantic.
I used to listen to Shannon back in the late 1960s. No automated speech synthesisers then - it was normally an Irish M/F duo reading out reports (? off a Telex) with occasional talking and ringing telephones in the background. The Irish fellow was particularly distinctive, announcing the station as "Shannon Air Radio" (not Volmet). One New Year's Eve, he sounding distinctly well lubricated. The long distance air corridors back then were much more sparsely populated, a certain romance (to this young lad) about aircraft making the long hops from the Americas, hopefully listening out for Shannon as a marker of journey's end. That's the magic of SW listening - a pity radio waves didn't propagate as that boy imagined; I expect 5kW Shannon could often have been heard in New York.
I remember listening to Shannon ATC back then to, with both the male and female air traffic controllers. Their Irish accent was always a delight to listen to, fab times!
I worked on Collins Rockwell HF Transmitters, in the middle east, in the early 80's. Many KW into huge log periodic antenna mounted on rotators. I also had a pal who was a ham and an airline pilot who used to work HF aeronautical mobile, and I believe many of pilots who were hams did the same. I can't see that happening these days. Thanks for refreshing my memory with this interesting look at present day HF comms with an aeronautical twist.
I like to pair it up with flight radar. It's relaxing. I use to hate the noise as the planes go over my house but I make the best of it now and can tell what's up there just by ear.
I find air traffic radio to be very relaxing for some reason. I sometimes put my Eton radio on the local airport control tower frequency, set the off timer, turn the volume down a bit and drift off to sleep to it. Almost like listening to distant train horns, it's somehow comforting to hear people traveling through the skies at night communicating.
Thanks for this video with the technical specifications. I am a SWL from Rome and I listen to the main Volmet and HF voice stations almost every evening. Good job.
This was a "blast" from the past. Back in the 80s I use to go to sleep listening to London VOLMET main and London VOLMET South on VHF. Thanks for posting. All the best.
This is some great nostalgia that brings back years of great memories from the time when radio actually had relevance in the world and actually had a use. Sadly, radio has been replaced with electronic communications via the internet that nobody can monitor.
VOLMET stations are also very handy propagation beacons, useful for testing conditions and receivers. Another frequency pair worth monitoring aree the SAR frequencies on 3023kHz and 5680kHz. Used to be very busy when RAF had SAR role, Kinloss Rescue always especially busy during Scottish winter mountaineering season.
This is absolute gold, Lewis! I didn't know how Volmet worked regarding allocation and where I could hear it. I do use Shannon for getting an idea of conditions on 60m but was unaware of the other frequencies they use. Well done on Oz!
Absolutely excellent video. Amongst other activities, I process inbound and outbound ACARS MVT (movement) messages to and from our company aircraft worldwide. Your well-written structured video is a pleasure to watch and I learnt a lot new information. Thank you!
It used to be fun listening to Shandwick when concord was around as in those days everyone reported knots but speedbird concord reported Mach. Also worth noting a quick ref to all the freqs is in the Klingenfuss book. A useful ref for everything that moves.
Brilliant, been watching your channel for years, always very interesting. So much so I got my self the foundation license!! Passed it on weds. Im just waiting for my call sign now, then hopefully catch you on the hills round Manchester.
My favorite is 5505 Shannon volmet..it's also a pointer to propogation towards Europe. I have many video recordings of ATCS worldwide in my youtube channel. Also have a flightradar24 nod at home where I can track every aircraft in the sky anywhere in the world.
Not VOLMET but 8891 kHz, USB, Gander, Newfoundland is interesting to listen to. They work all the North American - European flights flying a great circle route in the Arctic regions.
Great synopsis Lewis. One of my favorite things to listen to. HF ACARS and marine DSC transmissions are also fun to look for and can be decoded using free software.
I want to thank you lewis for giving me the right information on listening to airband. I tried 7 different airband receivers. 3 were airband prominent the others were radios that had airband with other bands and for my area and me which I'm about 40 miles in-between 2 busy airports the only thing that worked was a bcd996p2 that worked flawlessly on picking up both airports and aircraft. I did use the Moonraker desktop discone antenna I had a portable yeasu Sony and Midland airband receivers that did not pick up anything. I had my bearcat BCD996P2 programmed with proscan I can get both airports. Ty very much lewis for the helpful information cheers!!!
The magic of skip. I recall in the early 80's talking to guys in the US from my home in Adelaide Australia using a 12 watt SSB CB radio and a home made 3 element yagi. Some nights they'd hit 9x5 and with them would come a wave of chatter noise from all the others dotted around the propagation path. That was another solar peak time making skip incredible after sundown.
Shannon is always clear here in the UK. Other VOLMET freq reports are great for checking HF propagation. Never ventured out to the other HF aircraft/weather freqs. Great research as always. VOLMET is well explained. Gives us radio people something to check out giving all those regions and transmitter locations you pointed out. Cheers de G8HCB
Some of my earliest SSB listening on HF when I got a radio in the early to mid 1980s was HF airband. The frequencies of 5598, 5616 and 8891 are ingrained on my memory.
Someone has just pinged me on the mesh from 30000 feet. Seems to be genuine as they said what height they were at and a Newcastle to Tenerife flight matched. They were over the wirral when I got the ping. They were gone in seconds too. There is also a kite or two been launched in the last two days. My first week on the mesh has been great fun. Random and quirky but fun.
Nice introduction and overview. I'm near London and I've never picked up the Alice Springs broadcasts, but I have picked up two weather broadcasts from Australia, which, in a forum online, were explained firmly to me, 'are definitely not Volmets'! They are two stations broadcasting general and maritime weather from the Australian BOM, or Bureau of Meteorology. On 12365 kHz, usually in the afternoon hours in the UK, you can sometimes pick up VMC Charleville, Queensland, broadcasting weather for Australia East. Often, just nearby, on 12362, you can hear VMW, from Wiluna in Western Australia, broadcasting weather for, you guessed it, Australia West. A rabbit-hole that your viewers might want to enjoy are the maritime weather reports from all around the Mediterranean. These are often low-power broadcasts for specific areas of the Med. The Italian service has many such frequencies and there several for Greece and Turkey. They do broadcast in their native language mostly, but there are scheduled English broadcasts at times throughout the day. Handy if you fancy taking your yacht our for a cruise. Generally between 2500 kHz and 2900 kHz. Keep up the good work!
As a shortwave listener in the 70s, I listened to both Shannon and Shanwick Oceanic and other aircraft using an Ekco AM broadcast tube receiver, plus 100 ft end fed wire plugged into the external aerial socket. With the much lower band noise of the time , down to atmospheric backround noise, meant it was very easy to hear the much weaker aircraft transmissions on AM. Fast forward later to the complete switch over to USB in the following decades, and improved communications RX FRG7, proved to be a listening delight. Heard many interesting aircraft transmissions, from all over the world during sunspot maxima. All you had to do was listen at the right time of day or night, and know the primary frequencies. Much more information was passed over the airwaves back then, so it was always very busy and interesting to listen to. Sometimes with the lightning static crashes, it got even more interesting lol! Lots of man made electrical noise around these days though, spoils listening quite a bit on HF, unless you live well away from LED and SMPS QRN .
Well done, cracking video. Big subject which as you say could fill a series, would that be a good idea? As well as my own kit I use the websdr in Enschede which I find has excellent coverage especially 8879 where both Mumbai and Shanwick can be heard. It’s interesting listening to the holiday flights to places like Tenerife using the oceanic routes all tracked at the same time on FR24. Good work Lewis 👍
I remember finding an online radio thingy many months back that was in I think Utah (closest I could find to me) and there were some weird things I heard. I recall getting what appeared to be military air traffic control briefly, and various bits of weird sounds that were probably data of some kind. I tried to record some of it, but going back to the recording I found there wasn't any audio for some reason.
for the fans of digital modes: DWD (german weather service / Deutscher WetterDienst) broadcasts maritime weather-information on HF over RTTY, HFFax, and some marine-specific protocolls. they have some handy PDFs with timetables and frequencys on their homepage. the TX is located in Pinneberg near Hamburg and has a sortiment of transmitters for the different frequencies, ranging from 1kW to 20kW.
Before the collapse of maritime HF use, there were extensive broadcasts of MET information to ships. Mostly in Morse - often using a number code - with a few audio such as the USCG signal you mentioned. For an example, listen to the opening few bars of Planet Claire by the B52s which features a recording of a MET transmission from CFH Halifax, Canada
Friends ask me frequently how to track an aircraft from its departure to its arrival. Maybe that is a tip for a future video. Like your video's for some time and always like them as they are very informative. Keep up the nice job. 73'
Thanks for this information. I have been listening to hf aviation already since the 80's. However not much in recent times. Good to see the 52450 kHz RAF Volmet location. Recently I received it here in the south east of the Netherlands stronger than Shannon Volmet.. What I found interesting is the selcal you let us hear. Apparently they use a different system nowadays. The ones I use to know is those with the double tone, a low and than a higher tone. What you have let us hear here, is a short tone follow by a digital burst. I will keep an eye on that!
Awesome video, i do abit of SWL in the evenings here in NZ i listen to Auckland radio on 8867 as well as Brisbane radio on 13261 and san Francisco on 8834 or 8836 i believe its somewhere around that
This channel JUST appeared on my recommendations. I know nothing about radios! 😅 QUESTION: I'm 59. Back when i was a kid, the most exciting thing for my friend and I to do, was to listen in to aircraft pilot transmissions on the radio! 😅 It was just an ordinary radio... I'm guessing short wave and long wave? Could someone please explain to me why we were able to pick these transmissions up? I have a feeling that we also got faint police conversations too, but I'm not sure. I think we picked them up, but they were too fuzzy to really hear any details. I loved listening to pirate radio too! It always fascinated me, to think that they were broadcasting from the North Sea! My other favourite thing to listen to was the shipping forecast! 😅 ....imagining all these shipping areas out there, and what sort of conditions fishermen were working in! PS. We would have been listening from Norfolk, Endland, uk. Thanks 💐
Great video! 😊 HF is to me the most wonderful band, and one I grew up with. It’s sad to see so much decommissioning of stations, when they hold the ultimate in decentralized-reliability. When I was a kid, there was hardly a clear space; and you could see the frequency shifts with time of day. I was a bit taken aback in the spread of aircraft frequencies (even within each band of propagation); I’d think they’d be much more closely spaced for optimizing the aircraft’s antenna system. Do you know the details of the aircraft’s HF antennas and/or tuning/matching networks? Do the aircraft actual have just a simple single fixed antenna? Maybe another video idea? Thanks & 73 to you… 😊
There is also HFDL or HF ACARS that you can decode with software like PC-HFDL and then plot it on the map using DX Atlas which i find more fun than just listening to weather info
As a mobile HF operator (not that often) here in Australia, I used to be able to tune into Radio Australia, ABC to hear news etc. Unfortunately I believe that service has now been discontinued. I mainly use my radio when travelling remotely so services like that were great! I found some weather forecasting but they all seem to be the other side of the country & I've been unable to find local stuff which is a shame. I'm only licenced to use the frequencies that my radio club has but at least I can listen to others but not being able to ask for info on air is a pain. I realise you are in a different country, but i was wondering where a good place might be to find out what frequencies I might be able to use? I have Googled it extensively but have not found much. I must try the Australian frequency to see if I can pick that up. Cheers!
Look at NAVTEX on 490 and 518 KHz as that is coastal WX and comes from places like St. Bees, Portpatrick ETC. 518 is a general message and gives out warnings of UXB and danger to shipping while 490 is offshore WX. As it is coastal I have picked up French TX and some northern Germany and Norwegian signals as well.
Excellent video. Thanks! I noticed the your your Icom receiver was set up for LSB. Aren't most if not all of the frequencies you mentioned operating on USB?
Very instructive for most aircraft, but If you are attempting to listen to the voice traffic from a United Airlines flight, it's easier to walk out your front door and pick up the cockpit voice recorder from off your front lawn. Love the vids man!
listening to Trenton Military VOLMET on 6.745 MHz USB - I just got my RM recommended GA800 Active Loop on a RTL-SDR V4. Antenna is away from electronics, using SDR#, Sturtevant, WI, USA
Interesting, I first though I would be unlikely to hear a lot of these as I'm on the wrong side of the planet, then one of your first was in Australia, where I am, so I'd better have a listen, However with a S9 suburban noise floor I'm not expecting much. Actually as the vid started I kind of assumed it'd be about using remote listening stations via the internet, probably a better solution for me given my noise floor.
Great video how much are the are the radios to buy like the one you use I have a few scanners but I want a better one to pick up more aircraft the ones I use I can only hear the pilot and not ATC
The Icom 7300 in this video is a HF transceiver, and overkill just for listening. You can use any SSB capable SW radio, just get a good long wire antenna up. For listening to VHF airband, it's not a case of the quality of radio/scanner, it's how far you are from the transmitter site (maybe the airport) and how high you can get your antenna.
I used to enjoy looking for ATC transmissions popping up on various HF frequencies both on my own receivers and online SDRs around the world. However, it's been a while since the last time I did it. Still though, I found a few errors in your video: 1) the "Australian" Volmet you recorded is actually Thai. Bangkok Volmet broadcasts at 10 & 40 minutes past the hour on 6676 kHz, while Australian is on the air at both TOH & BOH on the same frequency. This also applies to 2965 & 11387 kHz but these are active part-time. 2) You wrote 3745 kHz for a frequency for Gander Volmet, whereas it actually uses 3485 kHz. 3) SELCAL used two pairs of audio tones, but your recording captures only one. I don't know if it was an error on the station's side or a glitch in your recording, but something's definitely wrong. And you repeated it a couple times! Lewis, I appreciate your effort introducing shortwave radio to the general public, but please, be more accurate! 73 :)
Very interesting vid that. I have an HF receiver, but have not so far used it for aviation communications. A wire antenna was mentioned a couple of times in this. Could anybody please direct me to a resource to help me set that up?
Because of it' consistency, I am usually using VOLMET on 5450 to test my SDR's reception. If it's eventually gone, what should I use as an alternative?
