Tag Archives: Aeronautical

Carlos’ FM DX in a Flight Over Europe and North Africa

(Photo by Maria Sleptsova)

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Carlos Latuff, who shares the following FM radio recordings made while flying over northwest Africa. Carlos writes:

Flying over Northwest Africa towards Paris yesterday I managed to listen and record FM stations from countries like Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco and Spain, at an altitude of 10668 meters, using the native FM radio of my cell phone. Interesting thing is that it was only possible when I got close to the plane emergency exit. Back to my seat I wasn’t able to listen.

94.3 FM, Senegal, May 11, 2023:

95.0 FM, SNRT Amz Morocco, May 11, 2023:

101.7 FM, Spain, May 11, 2023:

91.0 FM, Mauritania, May 11, 2023:

Thank you for sharing this, Carlos. Impressive reception from your cell phone’s FM receiver!

Without fail, I always try to listen to FM stations as I fly. This also reminds me of a post from our archives when Ivan used a small SDR to DX while on a flight.

Thank you again and happy travels!

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Aeronautical RDS: Ivan’s impressive collection of in-flight FM stations

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:

Last week I took an Eton Satellit with me on a flight from Tampa, Florida to Washington DC. The radio is very light, portable and packed with features. I have used an SDR radio before for inlight FM reception where I recorded audio, but this time I decided to only count stations with an RDS lock. With so many signals battling RDS is tricky to catch as every 10 seconds or so one station comes on top of another. The flight was just short of 2 hours and I divided my logs into three 30 minute segments. Not suprisingly looking into the technicalities I noticed RDS is commonly received from stations 50 -100 kW of power and tall towers.

Interestingly signals seem to be stronger a lower altitudes. My theory is that FM broadcast antennas heavily favor gain on the horizontal plane parallel to the terrain and send as little signal as possible out into space. I overlaid my logs onto three maps and also a video:

Click here to view on YouTube.

Impressive Ivan! I’m taking a flight later this month and might even try this with the FM radio built into my Moto G6 smart phone which also includes RDS (although I doubt reception can match that of the Satellit.

This is fascinating, Ivan! Thank you for sharing.

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New book: History of the Birdlip Aeronautical HF Communications Complex

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader and author, Colin McKeeman, who shares the following announcement:

As a mature aviation historian and keen HF monitor since the mid-1960’s, as you will note from my blog this has prompted me to produce this detailed record of the [Birdlip Aeronautical HF Communications Complex, U.K.] stations activities.

[…]The activities of this station are currently handled by ‘Shanwick’ (Shannon and Prestwick) for air traffic on the North Atlantic.

I attach a summary of its content which may help to clarify the scope and nature of this publication.

Click here to download the full press release (PDF).

Fascinating, Colin! I think you’ll find a number of our community members love reading about the history of HF stations. Thank you for sharing your press release!

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Video: Ivan’s Airborne TV DX catches

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:

A while back I shared a short story about FM reception from commercial jetliners. I do that regularly on my flights but I also gave “Airborne TV DX” a try.

My equipment is as follows:

Windows laptop

Hauppauge USB dongle receiver WinTV-HVR-955Q

3-inch stick antenna

The receiver comes with its own WinTV software for tuning, scanning, watching and recording TV programs. It is one of the few USB dongle size receivers for North America’s ATSC digital TV standard. A have posted a video of my reception recordings from a roundtrip flight Miami to St Louis.

The video is located here:

Click here to view on YouTube.

My notes regarding this activity:

Reception from commercial airplanes is possible as far as 400 miles with the simple unobtrusive “stick” antenna.

Channel scanning is pretty slow and it is possible that by the time you detect a signal, save it, and tune to it you are 50 miles away from the point where you detected it.

Many times signals are detected but no video can be shown due to weak signal. Users in Europe may have a different experience as the availability of DVB-T USB dongles and software is much wider.

TV DX can make a coast to coast flight a much more interesting experience!

No doubt, Ivan! Thanks so much for sharing.

Ivan is quiet adept at logging and recording FM and TV DX while in the air and at sea. Click here to view his previous posts.

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Aeronautical SDR: Ivan’s in-flight FM spectrum captures

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ivan Cholakov (NO2CW), who writes:

Thomas, not sure if this is something relevant but airlines now state it is OK to use an am/fm radio on board aircraft.

Not much possibilities for AM unfortunately but on a recent flight from Ft Lauderdale to Dallas and Albuquerque I hooked up an SDRPlay receiver to a 3 inch stick antenna and recorded a few stations I was able to pick up along the way.

The first video is posted here:

I did take a few more videos flying between JFK and MIA as well.

I used the following equipment:

1. 13 inch laptop that I also use for work
2. SDRPlay receiver
3. Old scanner antenna that I happened to have
4. SDRUno software to drive the radio
5. Screen recorder that comes with the Win 10 Xbox app
6. Windows movie maker to stitch the individual clips together and annotate

If needed, the size of the setup above can shrink further if a smaller laptop/tablet is used and an RTL dongle instead of SDRPlay.

You will also need to equip yourself with a window seat. Otherwise, signals are significantly weaker.

I did not place the antenna in a special position, just next to me on the seat where it could not be noticed by other passengers. I uploaded a few more videos from my weekly shuttle flights between MIA an JFK.

Ivan NO2CW

Wow! Thanks so much, for sharing this, Ivan.

I’ve always packed a simple FM-capable radio in my one, compact carry on bag and typically try a little FM DX travel while in flight. I was never aware there was a restriction on using an FM receiver in flight, but I’ve always kept my radio listening very discrete so it’s never been a problem.

I love the idea of doing in-flight FM spectrum captures! It would be fun to watch signals on the spectrum shift and change as the flight progresses. Very cool, Ivan!

Post readers: Have you ever made in-flight FM spectrum captures like Ivan? Please comment!

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