How To Listen To Air Traffic Control

If yous have even been to the end of a track at a larger and busy airport you lot may have seen the hoards of aviation enthusiasts with their cameras and aviation radios. The chatter of pilots and air traffic control can be heard floating on the air current every bit the frenzy of camera lenses takes position for the side by side incoming aeroplane. But there seems to be some confusion about the legality of listening to aviation radio transmissions.

It is illegal in sure countries, nevertheless, the ease in which aviation radios tin be purchased allows for anyone to heed to ATC transmissions making it difficult for government to notice and enforce. Almost countries only prosecute when nuisance transmissions begin to bear on flight rubber.

The legality of listening to Air Traffic Command, usually shortened to ATC, is i that is very state specific and making it obvious that y'all are breaking those laws could accept repercussions, but, in reality, the cases of a person existence prosecuted is very, very rare.

Legality Vs. Reality of Listening to ATC

Some countries like the Great britain, Frg, and New Zealand take advice laws written to protect radio users. Transmissions that are meant for full general reception to the public ARE allowed to be listened to, however, in these countries, ATC radio transmissions are just meant to be heard by other pilots or air traffic controllers, thus technically making them non for general public reception.

The other issue people run into is those same countries also ban the recording and re-distributing of whatever shipping radio transmissions. So then the questions come:

"Why Can I purchase a radio for listening to air traffic command if it is illegal?"
"Why don't aviation enthusiasts get prosecuted?"
"Why are there endless YouTube Channels dedicated to ATC recordings?"
"Why is in that location apps & websites broadcasting live ATC transmissions?"

These questions seem to be legitimate and get confronting the rules every bit we accept all seen the aviation enthusiasts sitting there listening to air traffic control, heck, even my ATC instructor when I was learning to fly told me to go and buy a pocket-sized hand held receiver to be able to listen to ATC!

The rules forbidding people to listen to ATC seem to be a very gray area that is mostly overlooked in those countries. For the U.S. however, at that place is no problem listening to or recording and retransmitting air traffic control communications. This is why we accept online apps like LiveATC (More than on this after).

For those listening in the UK, you seem to be safe, but people have been prosecuted by listening and providing a information feed into the LiveATCwebsite every bit this is a little easier to track, compared to Mr Smith sitting in his thou with is minor manus-held receiver.

What Tin can't I Do When Listening to ATC?

By far the main thing anyone listening to ATC cannot practice is TALK! Unless you are flight an aircraft or working at the airdrome you lot are not allowed to talk on a VHF airband radio frequency. In some countries like Canada and the UK you also demand a Radio Operator Document to legally talk on the radio. It is a punishable offense which affects flight safe when a person begins to unlawfully interfere using rogue radio transmissions and i that is dealt with swiftly if information technology occurs.

Air traffic control at a busy drome is a choreographed trip the light fantastic toe of aircraft arriving, landing, taxiing, taking off, departing, and transiting and both pilots and air traffic controllers build a mental motion picture in their minds of where all the other aircraft are. When a rogue radio call is heard this distraction tin can lead to severe implications that tin can endanger the lives of hundreds of people.

It is very rare, but it does happen, although not past the enthusiasts that enjoy the world of aviation. To date, I have never heard whatsoever rogue calls over the radio, but I always make certain to requite the enthusiasts a wave or a good angle for their photos as I fly by – I was once there as a kid and loved watching!

How Tin can I Listen To Air Traffic Control

At that place are 2 principal ways to heed to air traffic control and the pilots. One is for local shipping shut to yous, and the other is to listen to air traffic command from all over the world:

Online/App

Alive ATC.net is the world's most popular online and smartphone-based streaming service for listening to air traffic control. Volunteers, enthusiasts, companies, and the airports themselves install a radio receiver at their location and live stream the feed to LiveATC.

LiveATC then allows anyone in the globe to select and listen to a radio feed of that air traffic control frequency. It'due south really cool! You can heed to many of the frequencies for your selected drome including:

Approach
Departure
Tower
Basis
Clearance Delivery
Centre

LiveATC is available online at LiveATC.net or by downloading their apps for iOS and Android

Radio

The second choice for listening to ATC is by using a VHF radio receiver. Yous tin hands purchase a hand-held version or a non-portable, base station version and tune in to any of the VHF aviation frequencies listed for your local aerodrome. The principal things to notation about the radio you select are:

It needs to exist able to operate on the airband frequencies betwixt 118Mhz – 137Mhz
Information technology needs to exist able to select channel frequencies downwards to 25kHz
A Receiver allows you to listen only. A transceiver can listen and transmit

To aid you observe the frequency you wish to listen to there is a great free website called SkyVector.com. By clicking on the 'Airports' icon at the acme and entering either the airport's 4-letter of the alphabet ICAO identifier or typing in the name of the airport, will bring up all the information most it, including a section listing ALL the airport communication frequencies.

If yous are not certain almost the airports' ICAO identifier, just type the airdrome name into Google followed past 'ICAO identifier'. Google may prove you just a three-letter code, just that works in SkyVector too.

SkyVector has listings for airports all over the earth and I establish every airport I tried while testing information technology. I employ it a lot when planning a cross-country trip as it is mainly aimed at pilots simply it'due south great to get all the information you would need every bit an enthusiast.

You can detect SkyVector.com Here

If you wish to look at a nice pick of aviation airband radios, besides every bit many other aviation products, I put together a small collection to aid you selection at my store which yous can observe hither:

To Finish

Officially listening to aviation communications in some countries is still deemed illegal but is such a gray area that the resources used to enforce those laws are spent meliorate in other areas. No matter if you are an enthusiast or a pilot-in-grooming, listening to air traffic control can be a peachy style to spend some time, accept some bully photos and even introduce your kids to aviation – This was exactly how my seed was sewn at a very young age!