Monday 8 October 2012

More South Atlantic HF Logs

I have been on holiday in the UK and spent the early morning hours monitoring 6535khz and 6649khz USB.
These frequencies were very busy around 0500-0700UTC with traffic in the EUR/SAM corridor. Atlantico Radio on 6649 was a faiurly good signal most mornings and it was a joy to hear the female controller talking portuguese to the TAM pilots and then trying to translate the numbers and some of the conversation!

However the most interest SAT catch for me was on 6th October back at my main QTH when I heard Aeromexico 028 trying unsuccessfully to raise Cenamer control on 6649 in Spanish at 0626UTC. I was only recently saying how little I now hear in South America itself compared to years ago, so it was a joy to know that at least Cenamer listen on 6649 and that pilots call on this frequency which I shall pay closer attention to from now on, especially since I saw yesterday on DX Atlas that the grey line will link SW England with NE Brazil in the coming months. This Aeromexico flight, by the way, was en-route from Mexico City to Buenos Aires.

I also heard a US pilot with callsign xxxx 908 call on 6649 at 0609UTC today, the 08th October. Knowing AA and UA used to have flight to South America beginning with a "9" I typed American Airlines 908 into the "Flightstats" website, and sure enough an AA908 was currently en-route from Buenos Aires to Miami with an ETA of 1101UTC.

I'm guessing these South American flights no longer routinely use HF across the Amazon region but call in from time to time, perhaps when VHF contact is lost or when the CPDLC link is lost or further perhaps when they are CPDLC-linked and require a flight level change (which I am not sure can be made via CPDLC.....??).

73 for today, Adam

1 comment:

  1. I am also an aviation HF freak. Do yo happen to know the SSB HF frequencies for American Airlines, Delta, United. Please send me a note to jose.aparicio30@yahoo.com Thanks a million and lots of 73s for the New Year.

    ReplyDelete