Communicating With Airplanes

Was just reading my latest issue of American Hunter. Within is a collection of "near-death hunting fiascos" titled: When Things Go Wrong (p. 45, Feb. issue). One article in particular caught my eye about a solo sheep hunter in Alaska who fell prey to a falling boulder that struck his backpack and knocked him over a cliff and onto a ledge that overlooked another big drop-off. He spent the next 10 hours hauling his broken body down the hill to the valley below. Unable to walk, he butt-slid along in a caterpillar-like fashion. He had to leave his backpack behind, but was able to take his FAK, some survival gear (no details) and "a small radio that transmits and receives aircraft frequencies". His rescue came about as follows (and I quote from the article): "After about 10 hours, I heard the faint sounds of a jet. Sending a Mayday on the standard emergency frequency (121.5 MHz) I reached the airplane, a FedEx cargo jet". He goes on to say that the pilot contacted a hospital in Anchorage and that he, our downed hunter, communicated his whereabouts with the hospital via the jet. A helicopter was dispatched and he was rescued.

I am very impressed with a hand held radio that can communicate with an airplane that is probably tens of thousands of feet in the air and I'm thinking this radio sounds like a great piece of emergency gear that should always be with me in the woods, but I'm not familiar with just what kind of radio this really is. I have a scanner that will receive all kinds of frequencies, but will not transmit, of course. Does anyone in the forum have any experience with just what kind of radio this may be and where to get one? This could be much better than a cell phone, or at least another good option.

Several manufactures produce handheld tranceivers that can communicate on the International Aircraft Communication Band. (Referred to as the Com Band) It is for voice communication, and runs from about 118-137MHz. The radios operate on VHF FM, and the quality of communication is surprisingly high. The size of these units has dropped over the past 10 years to make them very reasonable to carry. You do not need a license to operate them from your aircraft in the US. However, to transmit from ground to aircraft, you need to operate under an FCC ground station authorization. Typically, people granted that would be associated with aviation services like airports, pilot training businesses, chase crews for ballooning/soaring. This is similar to Marine radios, which can be used without license on your recreational boat while it's on the water, but, can't be used on land without a special license.

The handhelds will often also have other features, like navigation band (108-118MHz) for VOR, as an example. They will usually have the weather channels included in coverage, and since they are based on Amateur Radio transceivers, many can be modified to cover multiple bands. (You have to have an Amateur Radio license.)

One company that produces some very reliable products in this area is ICOM. They also provide police/fire radios, amateur radios, marine electronics, etc. I have had several of their radios, which perform very reliably. I understand from friends that Yaesu (now called Vertex Standard I think) produces a very nice combination unit that covers the aviation and amateur VHF bands and US weather channels in one very small unit for about $400.

You don't need a license to use the aircraft band freq's. 121.5 is the international distress freq and governed by line-of-sight. It is monitored by most military and government agencies. Also, passing general aviation and commercial MAY be monitoring. The rules have increased for flying since 9-11 so the number of aircraft monitoring 121.5 has greatly increased.

The small handhelds put out 5 watts of transmission power. I don't know what that means but I've been 4,000' above the ground and talked to ATC from ~30 miles out.

Carrying and charging them can be a real pain.

I really don't know very much about either the radios, or the legalities, but I'm interested in learning.

My first question is "What is the most economical handheld capable of transmitting on emergency frequencies" but maybe I need to learn more about it before I start asking things like this <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

A triband HAM could do this couldn't it?

Other than radios....

I remember something about 3 fires in a triangle being recognized as a distress signal. If you made one, out in the wilderness, and it was seen at night by a plane, would they usually report it?

Likewise, 3 smoky fires?

It would seem to be more efficient that wearing out the seat of my pants scooting along the ground.

Sue

If you are going to spend money on a radio to contact a plane possibly flying overhead, why not simply consider a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB).

http://www.equipped.org/faq_plb/default.asp

Pete

I am very interested in a small radio that would do all you say--aircraft transmit, amateur, weather. I am a licensed ham and would appreciate the model number of this Yaesu radio. Thanks

The Yaesu / Vertex Standard VXA-700 covers air and amateur bands. I found it listed a couple places online, here's one example:

http://www.wingsandwheels.com/page6.htm

I want to emphasize, however, that I checked the FCC web site, and my earlier post is correct that although you don't need a license to operate an avaition band handheld from your private plane operating in the US, you DO need a license to operate it from the ground.

I think that for survival situations, a better way to improve your chances for being noticed, and located, would be the personal locator beacons with GPS.

Let's not scare folks off from this technology with irrelevant regulatory BS. While technically correct regarding the legalities, NOBODY bothers with an FCC license these days for aviation handhelds and for use in an emergency it would not be relevant in any case. There's at least one marine case I am aware of where someone died rather than use a ham set for which they had no license. Darwin at work, perhaps, but...

Moreover, these handhelds are used everyday by pilots and others in ground to aircraft communications and if you can find an instance of anyone using it properly in such manner (not boosting the signal or using it fraudulently posing as ATC, as has been done) being violated, I'd be most interested in seeing the cite, because when I researched this a few years ago there were none.

Having said all that, they also have some notable drawbacks. Not all take regular AA batteries, some can only be used with proprietary rechargeable battery packs. That's a problem for survival use, from my POV, so if you have one, be sure it takes regular batteries or you carry a spare charged battery pack. In addition, their range is generally limited and being VHF is line of sight only. Sometimes they will reach that 757 flying overhead, but other times we've had difficulty communicating with aircraft in the landing pattern. Lot depends on antenna location on the aircraft and other related issues.

Also, a point to make that some may not be aware of. The naive user often points the antenna at the aircraft they are trying to communicate with, which puts it in the antenna's cone of silence and significantly reduces the chance it will work. When trying to communicate with such devices, do not aim the antenna at the object with which you are trying to communicate.

If already carrying a handheld for communications with an aircraft, as is often done in places like Alaska, then use what you have to save your butt. Otherwise, For the weight involved, you would do far better carrying a 406 MHz PLB and the cost is not far off. Just my opinion, of course.

A question for you radio capable tech types. Would a folding dish with center mount antenna and an alligator clip to your antenna be any better in directional transmission than just your stock antenna?

Is there info available regarding best reasonable size of the dish and the dishes antenna relative to the frequency you are broadcasting at?

Bountyhunter

Susan:

I'm picturing you scooting through the sand on the seat of your pants and the only thing I can think of is that you backed into the fire, and there is no water available.

Not really an LOL moment, but kind of humorous. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter

I was REFERRING to the guy in the original post, Sir!

Sue

Didn't the guy in the original post couldn't walk? Not to mention building camp fires?

Radio in this case was much better alternative. But if it was to me even if you left me the most sophisticated equipment on earth I wouldn't know what to do with it (I cried about my radio problems multiple times). That's why I rent VHF motorola radio whenever I ocean kayak in maine. It has all the marine frequencies and coast guard.

Aren't avaition radios AM? And as for Amateur (HAM) multi-band, DC to light coverage hand held radios, none that I'm aware of are designed to transmit in non-Ham bands, including avaition bands, out of the box.

So don't count on being able to talk to aircraft unless you have a radio desiged to talk to aircraft.

/Neal

You can calculate the optimum antenna length if you know the formula, but if you are going to be transmitting on the aircraft emergency frequency (121.5 MHz) then I would try to jury rig a dipole antenna with end-to-end length approximately from my left shoulder to the fingertips on my outstretched right arm (approximately 3.65 feet). In an emergency situation I doubt I would be capable of building a directional antenna (and if I did, it would be a Yagi, not a parabolic dish).

I have a VHF aircraft h/h from my days as a private pilot, and I have been known to throw it in my backpack if I'm going backpacking. Mine is from Sporty's Aviation (www.sportys.com) but as Doug says, if you're not going to use it for its intended purpose, you're better off spending the money on a PLB.

If you're a pilot and have one, it should always be with you in the plane. (Except I'm sure the TSA would probably find it suspicious - I'm waiting for the day when they refuse to let the flight crew board the airplane because they find it suspicious for three guys with pilot's licenses to be travelling together <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

Far more useful than being able to rig a better antenna, though, would be to know the frequencies in use. Airliners are supposed to monitor 121.5 but only if they have a spare radio. Aircraft at altitude will, however, be communicating on the Center frequency. (Swing by your local flying club and they will be happy to give you a list of useful frequencies, especially if you listen to a brief sales pitch <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

(Go to the ETS Home Page, scroll down to the link ?A Question of Survival?, and read William Waldock?s excellent article.)

Also, if you're able to travel at all, you might be better going up than down - from the east side of the Canadian Rockies, you might be able to contact Ground Control in Calgary, but from the west side you'd be lucky to contact an airliner flying overhead.

Also, if you do have to transmit, make sure you say which frequency you?re using. In one case that I know of, a US military AWACS on a training flight picked up a distress call, then had to spend several minutes trying to figure out which frequency the pilot was using, out of the dozens of frequencies they were monitoring. (He was using 121.5 - ?Victor Guard?, which was probably not a huge surprise to them, but there are many other emergency frequencies: 245 MHz for airborne UHF, another one for marine radios, another one for HF, etc.) The pilot in that instance did survive, although whether he ever figured out just how lucky he was to be able to contact anyone after flying into a mountain canyon in bad weather is unknown. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Thanks to all for your input. As I quietly suspected, for the most part, a transceiver of this ability would likely be a tad expensive. I know, I know . . . what price should we place on our survival? I'm just glad we all have as many choices as we do. Really a lot of good info in the posts. There are some very knowledgeable folks on this forum. I know I learned a lot. And . . . if I'm truly in a survival scenario, I can say for sure my life-saving efforts WILL NOT be interrupted by licensing protocol. I will be glad to take responsibility for whatever my actions may be, but at least I'll be alive to defend my decisions.