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Flying over Denver is weird!

J

John Con

Member
Hi Everyone! I am new to the forum. Glad to be here. Every time I fly from KAPA in Denver to KBJC (also in Denver) My radio starts receiving static. luckily it stops about 7 miles from KBJC and about 8 miles from KAPA, so I can make my radio call to get in. When I fly ANYWHERE else, this is never a problem. On the flight I go near numerous large antennas positioned on Lookout Mountain and other mountains west of Denver. Could it be disturbance from these? If so is there something I could do with the wiring, cables, anything else within the aircraft to eliminate this? It is quite annoying and both airports can be busy, so I like to be able to hear the tower further out than about 7 miles as I'm doing 170 mph. My radio is a KLX 135A, GPS and COMM.
Thanks! John
 
ask ATC

A few months ago we were getting an AM radio program over the tower frequency coming in from the west at BTR. Don't know how or why, but ATC knew about it because so many pilots complained or commented. They must have tracked down the culprit because I haven't heard it for a while. John
 
I fly that area often and have never had that experience. I would check your coax cables, connectors and type.
 
I'm based at KAPA and fly all over town in my RV-8 and my Mooney and have never experienced this. Good luck tracking down the problem.
 
concentrate

Cheyenne mountain certainly has some high tech RF energy onsite... for NORAD. But, it is likely something else.
An RF rich environment (ie. towers, TV, digital, countless other sources) are higher in places. You can tighten the squelch in that radio...
Look for bad coax or antenna grounding etc. It can be fun and you can learn about radio stuff. In the meantime... learn to tune it out and concentrate on the flying tasks. I work with pilots that listen to 6 radio frequencies at a time... It can be learned. Have fun too !
 
Sounds like you may have an issue with one or more grounds in your comm system. Make sure all shielded wires are grounded at one end only and are all tied to a common grounding point.

Shielding is there to protect your signals from interference.
 
FM

I have experienced this in a wide variety of airplanes at a number of locations. Some of the time with top line avionics. I don't believe it has anything to do with installation, antenna etc.
No experience in Denver area recently.
 
ppilotmike said:
The static you're experiencing is likely noise generated from telepathic calls for help from the aliens we have imprisoned underground in Colorado. ;)
Click to expand...

MIKE! That info is not for public consumption!

All, Mike has been under a lot of stress lately. What he was referring to was nothing more than swamp gas from a weather balloon trapped in a thermal pocket and reflecting the light from Venus. Nothing to see here....move along.
 
I had a similar problem in my glider over a location near York, PA. If I was within about 3 miles of an antenna that belonged to an FM broadcast station there, I could hear nothing but static on 123.3. The radio was a becker AR4201 which is a decent radio with a very simple installation. Further I went to the same area in my RV with a KX 165 and observed the same problem. If I tuned off 123.3 by 25 khz, the noise lessened and at 50khz, the interference went away. My conclusion was that the antenna was the source.

I also noted that this only occurred below something like 3500 ft.
 
Thanks!

Thank you all very much! Going to start checking some wiring and grounds in the aircraft. If that doesn't work I will make a hat out of tin foil and see if that works.
 
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