FAA proposes eliminating Hazardous Inflight Weather Advisory Service

[tf51d 284]

Looks like the FAA is proposing or will eliminate the Hazardous Inflight Weather Advisory Service (HIWAS). Is this service still considered a necessary tool by pilots, or has it become redundant by newer technology?

[Chock 17,769]

Apparently the decision is not a certainty yet, the FAA are seeking opinions from users of the service, so I guess it's up to people who do use it, if their numbers are sufficient, to make their feelings known. I suspect it will go, ousted by the Internet, mobile devices, more sophisticated avionics and the desire to trim costs, even though coverage can't be guaranteed when in the air for many of those other options.

But you never know, if it had a format similar to, and enjoyed the same fondness among the populace as the Shipping Forecast enjoys with the British people, there'd probably be a revolution if it ever stopped (and no, I'm not joking, it's bizarre how pretty much everyone loves listening to that in the UK), Actually, it's about to enjoy its 151st anniversary in a few days' time (on the 24th August).

[scianoir 610]

7 hours ago, Chock said:

But you never know, if it had a format similar to, and enjoyed the same fondness among the populace as the Shipping Forecast enjoys with the British people, there'd probably be a revolution if it ever stopped (and no, I'm not joking, it's bizarre how pretty much everyone loves listening to that in the UK), Actually, it's about to enjoy its 151st anniversary in a few days' time (on the 24th August).

We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid as there was no reception where I lived near Shannon Airport in the west of Ireland until 1962 (unless you were prepared to put up a 200ft high aerial!) so we listened to the radio a lot. One of my earliest memories of that is hearing the Shipping Forecast on the BBC Light Programme and it is something that I have always loved listening to ever since. I don’t know why it is so attractive but in a weird way it is somewhat comforting to be in the warmth and safety of your own home listening to often adverse weather reports from sea areas, many with somewhat exotic sounding names, and being thankful for not being in some rust bucket of a ship at sea! I guess people also like it because continuity it provides as the format of the Shipping Forecast has essentially remained unchanged over the many decades since I first heard it and even the voices of those who read it seem strangely similar even though I’m sure there have been many changes of presenters over the years. The people’s love of the Shipping Forecast would surely be a great subject for a thesis for someone studying psychology!

Bill

[skelsey 765]

9 hours ago, Chock said:

if it had a format similar to, and enjoyed the same fondness among the populace as the Shipping Forecast enjoys with the British people, there'd probably be a revolution if it ever stopped (and no, I'm not joking, it's bizarre how pretty much everyone loves listening to that in the UK), Actually, it's about to enjoy its 151st anniversary in a few days' time (on the 24th August).

Rumour has it that if R4LW ever goes off air the nuclear submarine commanders are under instructions to prepare the nukes: as obviously if R4 is off air the apocalypse must have taken place!

Not sure what they'll do when the last remaining valve in the transmitter at Droitwich blows; I gather there are fewer than 10 spares anywhere in the world and no more being manufactured.

Amongst the highlights of my broadcasting career will always be pressing the button to start playing in 'Soul Limbo' at the start of Test Match Special, which in turn means opting out for 'the ships' twice a day -- when the TMS commentary team cue the shipping forecast, in Sports Extra we send a feed of R4LW in to the commentator's headphones whilst they continue commentating. They can then hear when the Shipping Forecast ends, so they can seamlessly welcome back R4LW listeners. The trick is to stop sending the feed of R4LW during the brief pause between the R4 announcer cueing back to TMS and the commentary team picking up, as otherwise they hear themselves coming back with a delay which is very off-putting!

[skelsey 765]

1 hour ago, scianoir said:

even the voices of those who read it seem strangely similar even though I’m sure there have been many changes of presenters over the years.

The Shipping Forecast is read by the duty R4LW Continuity Announcer, so it does vary from day to day/week to week. Naturally, of course, there is a particular sound and style associated with the network which is fairly consistent!

[JRBarrett 3,072]

1 hour ago, skelsey said:

The Shipping Forecast is read by the duty R4LW Continuity Announcer, so it does vary from day to day/week to week. Naturally, of course, there is a particular sound and style associated with the network which is fairly consistent!

Besides flight simulation, my other main hobby has long been amateur radio, and being 60+ years old, I have always had a fondness for old-school technology in radio. Though my location in the northeastern US is well beyond the range R4LW is intended to cover, I can often hear the broadcasts on 198 kHz here at night (but only in the winter months). I do use a high-end communications receiver, and an amplified (British made) Wellbrook loop antenna specifically designed for long wave frequencies.

Of course, I can stream Radio 4 or other BBC programming online anytime I want, but it’s not the same as being able to hear it directly from the source. I’ll be sad when the last valves pack it in, and R4LW finally comes to an end.

I cut my teeth in radio as a teenager listening to international shortwave broadcasts, and that interest led directly to my career in avionics and aircraft maintenance. Shortwave broadcasting is another technology that is a mere shell of what it once was. The ready availability of streaming almost everywhere makes it difficult for broadcasters wishing to reach an international audience to justify the cost of operating high-powered radio stations to reach a rapidly dwindling audience. The BBC closed down their international broadcasts directly to North America several years ago, though they still do maintain shortwave services to parts of Africa and other less developed areas of the world.

I have always enjoyed listening to HF aeronautical communications between Gander and Shannon to aircraft traversing the NAT tracks, but with the wide adoption of satcom-based CPDLC, there is much less activity on aeronautical HF than there once was.

The march of progress....

[John_Cillis 2,406]

2 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Besides flight simulation, my other main hobby has long been amateur radio, and being 60+ years old, I have always had a fondness for old-school technology in radio. Though my location in the northeastern US is well beyond the range R4LW is intended to cover, I can often hear the broadcasts on 198 kHz here at night (but only in the winter months). I do use a high-end communications receiver, and an amplified (British made) Wellbrook loop antenna specifically designed for long wave frequencies.

Of course, I can stream Radio 4 or other BBC programming online anytime I want, but it’s not the same as being able to hear it directly from the source. I’ll be sad when the last valves pack it in, and R4LW finally comes to an end.

I cut my teeth in radio as a teenager listening to international shortwave broadcasts, and that interest led directly to my career in avionics and aircraft maintenance. Shortwave broadcasting is another technology that is a mere shell of what it once was. The ready availability of streaming almost everywhere makes it difficult for broadcasters wishing to reach an international audience to justify the cost of operating high-powered radio stations to reach a rapidly dwindling audience. The BBC closed down their international broadcasts directly to North America several years ago, though they still do maintain shortwave services to parts of Africa and other less developed areas of the world.

I have always enjoyed listening to HF aeronautical communications between Gander and Shannon to aircraft traversing the NAT tracks, but with the wide adoption of satcom-based CPDLC, there is much less activity on aeronautical HF than there once was.

The march of progress....

I loved listening to Oceanic calls from my Radio Shack shortwave radio.  In California, with my cable antenna stretched down the hallway, on a clear night I could get transatlantoc broadcasts.  My Radio Shack radio had one problem, when one turned the dial the audio muted so if you were scanning for broadcasts from aircraft or shortwave stations, you would miss them.  But there were BBS's, pre Internet at the time that said what to do, one had to cut one wire out of a swath of wires to turn off the muting function (which was placed just to be gentle on the ears anyway).  Cut the wrong wire, no more radio so I rehearsed the procedure several times like surgery before I cut the right wire.  Turned on the radio expecting sparks, fireworks or dead silence, but the muting mod worked and I was able to capture a lot more air traffic, oceanic.  So today we have computer hackers, back then we had shortwave radio hackers.  I also had a regular air/police/fire scanner so I could listen to Napa airport, Oakland center, and SFO departure and approach, with my handy whip antenna I added on to it.  Nowadays we have websites that let us listen in on ATC, but one day comms will go digital and that will be the end of scanners and shortwave.  Just a matter of time, and is already happening with police and fire.

John

[Orlaam 306]

The scanning hobby died long ago.  There is literally no police or public service around here on analog, expect DPS, and I think they're migrating to APCO25 as well.  It's a shame.  Back when I was involved in amateur radio, it was a lot of fun to listen to police and know what was happening around you.  Especially when you'd hear the police feed, then the new report a totally inaccurate story.  Heck, you could even listen to phone calls on cell and cordless.  Crazy times.  I don't foresee the aircraft band changing anytime soon, simply due to the fact that everyone would be required to change their transceivers.  And digital has a lot of short-comings, so it'll have to be a drastic change before a new band and technology is introduced.  I remember when Phoenix PD was adopting APCO25.  They often couldn't hear the officers and had to repeat transmissions often.  Real safe.  I think it's improved mainly because they have had to install more repeaters around town.  Motorola gotta keep themselves in business.

[scianoir 610]

9 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

I have always enjoyed listening to HF aeronautical communications between Gander and Shannon to aircraft traversing the NAT tracks, but with the wide adoption of satcom-based CPDLC, there is much less activity on aeronautical HF than there once was.

The march of progress....

This thread is bringing back quite a few childhood memories for me! When I was a kid I was lucky enough to be able to visit the Oceanic HF station at Ballygireen situated about 5 miles from Shannon Airport. This was purely a communications station which acted as an intermediary between aircraft over the Atlantic and the air traffic controllers at the Shanwick Oceanic Centre. The station was surrounded by multiple high transmission towers with long wires stretching in all directions between them, testifying to the difficulties inherent in long range HF communications.

In those days, although there were far fewer transatlantic flights than today, there still seemed to be a large number of controllers on duty with banks of large radios along the walls stretching almost from floor to ceiling. On the day I visited, the HF reception was particularly poor because of weather conditions and I can remember the controllers struggling to communicate with some aircraft. In those pre-computer days, messages and progress reports were punched on to tape which was then fed into banks of machines which were used to send the message to other stations. It all seemed very impressive and almost like science fiction to a young boy around 1960!!

Bill

[JRBarrett 3,072]

1 hour ago, Orlaam said:

The scanning hobby died long ago.  There is literally no police or public service around here on analog, expect DPS, and I think they're migrating to APCO25 as well.  It's a shame.  Back when I was involved in amateur radio, it was a lot of fun to listen to police and know what was happening around you.  Especially when you'd hear the police feed, then the new report a totally inaccurate story.  Heck, you could even listen to phone calls on cell and cordless.  Crazy times.  I don't foresee the aircraft band changing anytime soon, simply due to the fact that everyone would be required to change their transceivers.  And digital has a lot of short-comings, so it'll have to be a drastic change before a new band and technology is introduced.  I remember when Phoenix PD was adopting APCO25.  They often couldn't hear the officers and had to repeat transmissions often.  Real safe.  I think it's improved mainly because they have had to install more repeaters around town.  Motorola gotta keep themselves in business.

Digital scanners are now pretty common that will decode standard APCO25, but they won’t be of any help with encrypted communications. 

There is still voice activity on the aeronautical HF frequencies of course, but CPDLC is now almost mandatory on the NAT tracks. HF voice comms are still the rule on the routes going down to the Caribbean, but that will eventually change.

Standard VHF AM 118-136 MHz aeronautical communication has been thoroughly entrenched for decades, and I don’t see it ever going away completely. It’s one radio service that will probably be audible on even older scanner receivers for years to come. But, domestic CPDLC for enroute ATC will be broadly available in the US quite soon, so there will be a gradual reduction in the number of airliners heard using voice on Center frequencies. 

[Orlaam 306]

40 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

Digital scanners are now pretty common that will decode standard APCO25, but they won’t be of any help with encrypted communications. 

There is still voice activity on the aeronautical HF frequencies of course, but CPDLC is now almost mandatory on the NAT tracks. HF voice comms are still the rule on the routes going down to the Caribbean, but that will eventually change.

Standard VHF AM 118-136 MHz aeronautical communication has been thoroughly entrenched for decades, and I don’t see it ever going away completely. It’s one radio service that will probably be audible on even older scanner receivers for years to come. But, domestic CPDLC for enroute ATC will be broadly available in the US quite soon, so there will be a gradual reduction in the number of airliners heard using voice on Center frequencies. 

APCO25 killed scanning around here.  Nearly all the police transmissions are encrypted.  If it's a "hot" call, forget it, it's on C deck and that's encrypted.  Basically you hear very mundane comms between units and dispatch.  For the cost of a good unit and better antenna (which is almost always needed with digital), you are left hearing the most boring traffic ever.  Plus CAD cuts off a lot of traffic as well, since it's sent to the computer in their car instead.  I know some departments don't encrypt as much, but Phoenix is ridiculous about it.  And unlike the old days, I'd have been able to hear Glendale and other sub-cities from my current location.  Digital is very directional and difficult to receive for a variety of reasons.  I've looked into it a few times.  A decent digital scanner that will program phase II and other trunking methods is around 500 USD.  Just not worth it anymore.

Thankfully, air traffic is still analog and easy to hear with cheap radios.  I see what you're saying about CPDLC, but I still think a complete overhaul is a ways off.  Traffic interventions, deviations, alerts and other time sensitive information should be relayed by a radio and not a computer.  You have a enough to look at in a cockpit.  Pilots should be looking outside a little. lol