What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Northeast Aviation Edition
I was on my biweekly recyclable redemption run last night when I get a message from my friend Commo Guy about the air traffic shutdown. Commo Guy runs a scanner FB group and the FB group for E.A.S.T. - East American Survival Training. We got to talking last night, about communications monitoring in regard to the shutdown. He mentioned the lack of traffic on the Yankee TRACON (Y90 aka Bradley Approach). I didn’t have a receiver with me, and the skies looked pretty empty compared to the usual, but ADSB Exchange showed a few inbound international flights along with a but of military air traffic (of the type that shows up on the exchange). I mentioned to Commo Guy that he’d probably hear something on the ARTCC enroute frequencies, which he didn’t have. Told him I’d post a list up.
⚡So what are the frequencies?
You can find them on various scanner hobbyist sites, but in this case I’ll share primary sources with you.
You can find them on sectional and enroute charts. Here’s a picture of rhe NY Sectional Chart for the area surrounding KBDL, taken from https://skyvector.com/. I like to have physical maps of my AO, and if you want the sectional for your area, you can get one at https://www.mypilotstore.com/.
Here is a Low-Altitude Enroute Chart with the ARTCC frequencies for specific areas:
The frequencies of interest are in these boxes:
The High-Altitude Enroute Charts will have the frequencies for the high altitude sectors, which are often different:
Looking at the Boston Woodstock Sector we have 124.85 MHz. and 307.9 MHz. for low-altitude, and 135.325 MHz. and 360.6 for the high-altitude sector.
If maps aren’t your thing, you can probably get a frequency/sector list from a NOTAM from the FAA.
New York Center - This one is expired, but the frequencies are still good.
⚡How far can you hear the planes?
Inside with a 20” telescoping whip on a handheld, I’m hearing aircraft out to 20-30 miles. With the rooftop antenna I can get up to 100 miles for aircraft at the higher altitudes. Tune to a frequency. Listen for the flight number. Look it up on ADSB Exchange. If you shared your location with the site it’ll tell you how far the plane is from your location.
