NZFF

Hi All,

First up Merry Christmas, was wondering what was needed and how difficult the set-up is to scan the flights to and from the other side of the ditch. Have a scanner that picks up Chch well, but if I wanted to hear reports from say the Emirates flight on its way to Sydney how would I go about this, obvisously UHF but need some help to get started.

Cheers
Mark

You would need an HF radio receiver(fairly cheap on trade me these days).Trans tasman flights broadcast on HF freq 5643.You can also monitor flights to Asia and as far afield as Hawaii.More modern airliners probably now using satelite reporting.A friend of mine working night shift many moons ago listening to his HF scanner heard the Catalina ditch mid Pacific on it's delivery flight to NZ.That shows you the power of the radios.You sometimes hear ATC asking internal flights to monitor Auckland radio on 5643.Flights to antartica transmit somewhere in the 10000 band length.Ian.

Thanks for the help Ian and although I posted this close to 2 years ago, actually forgot about it was wondering if this is the sort of thing I need ??
http://www.trademe.co.nz/electronics-photo...n-409603999.htm

Cheers
Mark

Had a friend years ago who had an old WWII type radio , recall getting the valves was a problem , god wish i had put dibs on it , he passed many years back but we had some fun with it .

The thing is you not only need a scanner you also need an antenna and HF Antennas, although easy to build yourself take up alot of real estate. For example depending on the type of conductor used for your Antenna you devide 71.25 or 68 by the Freq in Mhz to get a quater wavelength antenna i.e. 71.25 for solid cooper wire / 5.643Mhz =12.62 meters for one leg, so your antenna would 25.25 meters in total.

You could spend a fortune and get an antenna that electrically loads to simulate that length also.

If you want further details PM me since antenna design is something that I teach as part of my job.

Paul

Cheers Paul, the mrs wont be happy with a 25 metre aerial, might just stick with the scanner that will keep me and her happy ! Thanks Mark

Hi Mark,

Without an antenna the scanner will only pick up very strong signals. The scanner only converts what is collected from radio waves by the antenna into audio that you can hear.

It’s a bit like having a TV without the aerial. The Coax will receive a little of the signal if it’s strong, and send it through to the scanner to be amplified, but without it you’d be lucky to hear something transmitting 50 km away let alone a few thousand.
There are ways that you can hide the antenna – i.e. put in the roof to keep the minister of home front happy.

Without an receive antenna you are buying a large paperweight.

Cheers Paul

My bad Paul didnt explain myself at all well, meant my Uniden Scanner that I use for Chch Airport comms as opposed to the one I linked above. Might see what the other one goes for, might be calling on your help for the rigging of that antenna if I buy it !! Thanks again for all the assitance in the above posts
Cheers
Mark