Aircraft radio scanning – my new interest
A few days ago I was downtown putting gas in Subie when I heard a lot of roaring up at the airport. By the time I got up there, the last of 5 or 6 Firecats had just taken off. I decided that I really need a VHF/UHF scanner to keep track of the planes coming and going (and passing overhead on the way to who-knows-where). So I went back down the hill to The Source and found a nice unit by Uniden. But they wanted $159.95 for it – I would have handed over the plastic for $120 or so, but at $160 decided that I could do better online. As it turned out, I could do much better online.
Uniden themselves have “seconds” for $70, but I opted for new, and prices are all over the map. The low price for the same unit as at the Source, a Uniden BC72XLT NASCAR, was $83.99 at Buy.com, and it gets excellent reviews – mine arrived today.
I’m having fun with it tonight, listening to Whitehorse airport’s various frequencies for the smaller planes, and the Edmonton Control Centre for the guys way up high. I’ve discovered that having the scanner near the computer messes up the reception, so it’s now sitting on a windowsill 10 feet away. I dug out my old airport guidebook so have a few frequencies to get me started:
- Whitehorse ground: 121.9
- Whitehorse tower: 118.3
- Whitehorse radio: 126.7
- Edmonton Centre: 132.1
- Anchorage Center: 119.0
…and I saw my high-level aircraft route maps during my garage sale, so they’re not too far way… 🙂
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