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Radio and airplanes?

R

radiogeek07

Are you permitted to listen to a radio on an airplane? I am flying to Boston and I was curious as to what I would get in the sky.
 
NO, they actually get a little weird if ou even listen to a cd player. Ive had a flight att. come over and ask me "thats just cd right"? because apparantly it somehow messes with THEIR radio and or other instruments. Then again Ive had flight crew people come over and ask me to turn my ipod down, so they're a little sensitive to a lot of things.
 
Not really. When I flew Southwest to Pittsburgh by way of Philly, the flight attendants told us to look at a certain page of the Southwest magazine which described what could be used "sometimes" and what can NEVER be used, and a radio is in the "never" category (even a small Walkman). An Ipod/mp3 player might be OK but not a small radio. (I had mentioned "DX reception in airplanes" on the DX board and was immediately told--
wait, you're not supposed to use a radio!) Can interfere with pilot communications, supposedly...even though my teeny weeny Walkman doesn't seem to be the type that can cause interference...

Ask the flight attendant or maybe someone at the airport and I think you'd be told the same thing,.

This is the one I'd brought aboard: http://www.buy-tv-dvd.com/cache_ima...walkman-with-25-memory-presets_B00008W7LS.jpg
 
raccoonradio said:
Can interfere with pilot communications, supposedly...even though my teeny weeny Walkman doesn't seem to be the type that can cause interference...
Click to expand...

If I recall an earlier discussion on this topic correctly, It has something to do with the walkman re-broadcasting a signal 10.2 mHz higher. So while you can technically listen to radio stations that broadcast below 97.9 mHz (as the aviation band starts at 108.00 mHz), it would be fairly hard to control what passengers are listening to.

CD players are fine to listen to: the real reason that these are banned during takeoff and landing is so they don't fly across the cabin.
 
I suppose listening to AM would be OK, then...but I'll tell you, if you try,and please don't (...I did, last year on a flight to
Nashville) you won't get anything on AM anyway. Interference. On FM I got various stations that quickly faded.
Again, this was before I knew you weren't supposed to use them!

I do have an mp3 player which comes with an FM radio so I guess if I just stick to the recorded files and not the tuner...
 
I did not have any trouble using my Ipod Shuffle on a American Airlines comming back to Texas. Used it the entire flight. So there.
 
One time when I was 14 years old I had the opportunity to fly in a private plane and -- knowing that radio listening was generally against the rules on commercial airliners -- took the opportunity to listen to a small transistor radio I had with me.

I was surprised by how "thin" the signals seemed to be. And stations seemed to be coming in from all over. (Well, of course, we were up in the air!)

I would think that, for a DX'er, radio listening while airborne would tend to be interesting.

Now, so far as aviation rules and regulations are concerned, that's a whole other story.
 
This is the one I'd brought aboard: http://www.buy-tv-dvd.com/cache_ima...walkman-with-25-memory-presets_B00008W7LS.jpg
[/quote]

Between 1988 and 1991, I brought an ancestor of that particular walkman on board airplanes, several times without incident. (Sony SRF-M40W) I always requested a window seat and would DX FM up and down the East Coast, from Boston to Miami. Reception was amazing although the stations tended to be overtaken by co-channel stations, usually within minutes. No flight attendants ever questioned me. Perhaps in today's age of paranoia, it would be more difficult to do this. I don't know. I haven't flown since 1991, and don't have any present plans to so, anytime soon....
 
I was told to turn off my radio Walkmans while flying back in the late 80's and 90's. I still snuck in a few listens here and there, though.

On FM, you can get stations from hundreds of miles away, and co-channel stations are all intermingling on top of one another. It's difficult to catch any one of them long enough to get full ID's. You sometimes just get snippetts of stations fading in and out over one another. Hearing all those stations at once also really hits home how all the cookie cutter music formats sound exactly the same everywhere.

You get practically nothing on AM unless you're flying directly over a strong station.
 
FM Reception on planes is very similar to listening to e-skip. Generally, it all depends on what side of the plane you are on and how close you are to the window. You will probably have a radio horizon of 200 to 600 miles, depending on how high you are. Chances are, you will get about 5-10 minutes of reception before another co-channel or adjacent channel station takes over. Many times, the dial is flooded with stations five or ten deep. Prior to 9/11, a few airlines did allow radios on planes before take-off and after achieving cruising altitude. Now, the airlines make a very thorough check to make sure you DON'T listen to radio or watch TV on the plane, period. It's a safety issue now and rightly so. But, I recall flying over the Rockies back in '86, I was amazed of how far these FM'ers traveled. I actually heard a new station testing with a tone (and Stereo pilot) for about 10 minutes before it faded into obvillion (DAMN, no ID's). I got KATT/100.5 ("The Katt") in Oklahoma City while flying over Nebraska that same year. Of course today, I don't do DX'ing on the plane anymore for obvious reasons. It's a shame it not allowed anymore.

-Pete
 
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
FM Reception on planes is very similar to listening to e-skip. Generally, it all depends on what side of the plane you are on and how close you are to the window. You will probably have a radio horizon of 200 to 600 miles, depending on how high you are. Chances are, you will get about 5-10 minutes of reception before another co-channel or adjacent channel station takes over. Many times, the dial is flooded with stations five or ten deep. Prior to 9/11, a few airlines did allow radios on planes before take-off and after achieving cruising altitude. Now, the airlines make a very thorough check to make sure you DON'T listen to radio or watch TV on the plane, period. It's a safety issue now and rightly so. But, I recall flying over the Rockies back in '86, I was amazed of how far these FM'ers traveled. I actually heard a new station testing with a tone (and Stereo pilot) for about 10 minutes before it faded into obvillion (DAMN, no ID's). I got KATT/100.5 ("The Katt") in Oklahoma City while flying over Nebraska that same year. Of course today, I don't do DX'ing on the plane anymore for obvious reasons. It's a shame it's not allowed anymore.

-Pete
Click to expand...
 
Many radios use an IF of 10.5 MhZ. Possible that a harmonic (multiple) of that frequency could bother the plane's electronics, if it is in close proximity.

I recall going up in a 4-passenger airplane, back in the day, with a couple of ham operator friends. We brought the VHF
2-way radios with us and operated some simplex channels from, say, 5,000 feet. Amazing what 1/2 watt will do from a 5,000 foot "tower"!

On the flip side, commercial avaiation is, indeed, paranoid about such things. I actually had a stewardess on an Air France flight last March (do yourself a favor and NEVER fly Air France!) get on my case trying to tell me they could not land the plane properly if my window shade was closed. This, after I started to get some much needed sleep, after being awake 24 straight hours. I was not amused, nor convinced...

73,
Jeff WA1RFF
 
I've listened to my CD player numerous times on flights. The only time I was ever spoken to about it was during takeoff. I did listen to a Walkman radio once many years ago before I knew it wasn't allowed. It was hard to tell what I was picking up and there was a lot of static so I'd just prefer not try.
 
Oh, I got the Snakes on a Plane reference. Saw preview (upcoming movie). Wonder if it'll be an "in flight
movie". There's a good one to settle the nerves of passengers.

From what I read in the Southwest magazine, a radio is never to be operated on a plane IN FLIGHT even after they tell
you it's OK to operate a small personal device. CD player with radio is OK if you run just the CD, I guess.
mp3 player with radio is OK if you just run mp3s, etc.

From the Southwest site (using them as example):"While the forward-entry door is open, these devices may be turned on and operated: cellular/mobile phones, pagers/two-way pagers, AM/FM radio receivers, and television receivers.When indicated by Flight Attendant announcements, during the cruise phase of flight these devices may be operated: DVD, CD, and tape players, personal digital assistants (PDAs or hand-held computers), electronic calculators, hand held electronic games, electronic cameras, Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receivers, and devices that compose e-mail or text messages without transmitting or receiving."

Notice it did not say radio; tape players, DVD, CD, PDA, all fine, but not radio. Hmm.
 
encarta95 said:
If I recall an earlier discussion on this topic correctly, It has something to do with the walkman re-broadcasting a signal 10.2 mHz higher. So while you can technically listen to radio stations that broadcast below 97.9 mHz (as the aviation band starts at 108.00 mHz), it would be fairly hard to control what passengers are listening to.
Click to expand...

Yep. 10.7, actually (or in many newer radios, 10.6 or 10.8).

FM radios contain a "local oscillator" circuit, actually a tiny VERY low-powered transmitter transmitting dead air. It's always adjusted to operate 10.7MHz higher than the station you're listening to. The local oscillator dead air signal mixes with the desired station to create a copy of the desired station *on* 10.7Mhz, which the rest of the radio then amplifies & sends to the speaker/headphones. (the 10.7MHz mix is on the same 10.7 frequency regardless of what station you're tuned to, which is the point)

In theory, this signal is confined to the radio's internal circuits. In practice, not so much so, especially on cheap radios.

So yes, if you're tuned to a station on 97.3 or higher, the local oscillator signal falls within the frequency band used for aircraft communications & navigation. Obviously, interference to the control tower (or the navigation instruments) is not a good thing!

Terrestrial experiment: While driving in heavy traffic, listen to a weak station above 98.7. Especially, try a station that's exactly 10.6 or 10.8MHz above a popular local station. For example, if 95.5 is a popular station in your area, try tuning to 106.1 or 106.3. Chances are, sooner or later, 106.1 will get "sucked out" by a station broadcasting dead air. With a bit of practice, you can often figure out *which car* is listening to 95.5.
 
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