Re: LF: Re: NDBs & WRC-12 LF band allocation

[M0FMT <m0fmt@yahoo.co.uk>]

 

Hi Jim and group

 

Non flyer's seem to think an air pilot just uses instruments to the exclusion of all other senses. I have done flight training on light aircraft, gliders and mixed with professional flyer's in previous jobs. They are a very conservative bunch and very sceptical about what their instruments tell them. Mark one eye ball being the best instrument. When learning there is a strong tendency to concentrate on the instrument panel but the call from the instructor is always for "eyes out of the cabin". It is not the case that an air pilot will follow to his death an erroneous signal. All instruments give more than one clue as to what is going on. Radio instruments are used with a great deal of circumspection and will be crossed checked against visual sightings, dead reckoning and ground radar assistance. It is never the case that just one instrument will be relied upon. At altitude many signals can be heard from great distances and propagation conditions too can enhance signals to levels so that they can block local signals. Air pilots are fully aware of this and also they are aware of secondary users on "Their" radio channels (viz; CIT is right in the middle of the MW BC band). There are a lot of flying "ears" listening to all the beacons as part of their daily work as a pilot and anything new is soon passed on by air to air contact and ground air traffic. The NOTAM system will inform all (and I mean all) air pilots of the changes and explain what is going on.

If you have not done flight training it is worth it just to learn what a sceptical bunch flyer's are when it comes to instruments. The older the pilot the more sceptical they are because they have seen so much and been let down by instrumentation.

So I can not support the notion that we will see terrible accidents occurring because Mal is rattling along at 25wpm to Chris adjacent to an aviation beacon, it just won't happen.  

73 es GL Pete M0FMT IO91UX

From: James Moritz <james.moritz@btopenworld.com>
To: rsgb_lf_group@blacksheep.org
Sent: Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 0:02
Subject: LF: Re: NDBs & WRC-12 LF band allocation

Dear Mal, Ken, LF Group,

G3KEV wrote:
> The band should be licensed for CW operators only so that they could recognize and read the CW  beacons and AVOID >them.

One does not need to be a morse code expert to realise there is a strong signal repeating  the same dots and dashes 24 hours a day on a particular frequency. One just needs a little common sense...

> Has OFCOM thought of this.  Neither should there be any amateur unattended BEACONS to jam the Primary user >Beacons even unintentionally.

Whether the transmission is a "manual" QSO or automated, or if an NoV for an unattended beacon was being applied for, the important thing for the amateur is to be aware of nearby NDBs and avoid transmitting on their frequencies - this is a matter of  observation and advance planning, not operating. If  a couple of amateurs are yakking away about the WX on a NDB frequency, in CW or any other mode, there is no way that the NDB will be able to break in at the end of one over and say "excuse me chaps, but there are aircraft trying to get a bearing on this frequency; would you mind QSYing - thank you so much"  ;-)

Think about this from the Primary User's point of view - if someone navigating an aircraft sets their ADF receiver to a particular beacon frequency and hears an assortment of amateur-generated morse code mixed up with the beacon ID, this is likely to cause confusion or error. So there is a strong argument for amateurs not to use morse code at all in this frequency range. It would be better to use totally different types of transmission that would not be confused with a NDB beacon signal.

Cheers, Jim Moritz
73 de M0BMU