Plane spotting

[Pilot52]

I've been flightsimming for the past 2 years now and want to move on to more realistic stuff. I want to start photographing flights at my local airport CYOW. I'm wondering where I could get one of those radios that can listen to ATC frequencies. Also I would like to know where to find those frequencies for a given airport.

Any help is appreciated as I don't know where to start.

[crawfo_2001]

You can buy Air-Band radio's from most flight shops, or a well known radio shop, the basic ones cost between £30 - £100 and the better ones can cost up to £400! (Sorry I cant tell u the prices in $$$) You can find frequancy lists on the net, just search for them! Hope this helps!
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[evh347]

Yeah, the flight shops have those radios (example: King Schools at http://www.kingschools.com/scripts/WebObjects.exe/Storefront
But you might also check with your local Radio Shack. Their radios are less expensive. Besides, you're probably not going to require a radio that picks up both the COM and NAV frequencies if you're just going to listen to ATC.

As far as getting frequencies, if you know your airport's identification (example: KMSP), go to this site and type that in and you'll have the frequencies you desire: http://www.airnav.com/airports/

Have fun.

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[Pilot52]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-17-02 AT 02:49PM (EDT)[p] Thanks a lot for your help. There's just one problem. I live in Canada and that site doesn't give you the frequencies for airports outside the US.

[HVB]

Scanners are indeed a lot of fun. I have one and its really cool. For frequencies go to http://worldaerodata.com/ This site has lots of airport info of every airport in the world. What kind of camera do you plan to use?

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[Pilot52]

To start I plan to use a regular Kodak APS camera but I'm looking to update to a cheap but reliable digital camera so I can upload my pictures onto the computer.

[ahmedmumeni]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-17-02 AT 05:31PM (EDT)[p]I bet you can get a radio at Radioshack for around $150-$400. And about the frequencies, go down to a Flight School and ask them for it!

Good luck!

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[3reen]

I would always always use 35mm SLR wet film camera and have your prints put onto disk & try auto focus


Graham

[lnuss]

One thought on cameras. For taking pictures of airplanes, especially in flight, you'll need something more than a "normal" lense. A bare minimum of a 3:1 zoom (optically), which is the equivalent of going up to a 150mm lens on a 35mm film camera, and going to 5:1, or 250mm on a 35mm camera, would be a lot better.

Even though your eye sees the aircraft fine through the viewfinder, you want to be able to take up more than just a speck on the picture.

I mention this because you said a "cheap" camera. On the other hand, if you're just taking pictures on the ramp from close up, then almost anything will work fine.

Larry N.

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[McNasty]

I have the approach plates to pretty much all the airports in Canada, although I have yet to go to many of them... I have a few frequencies here that might help you...
CYOW:
ATIS 121.15 132.95 (French)
Dep. 128.17
Arr. 135.15
Twr. 118.80
Gnd. 121.90

CWMX:
ATIS 125.70 126.10 (French)
Dep. 124.65
Arr. 125.15
Twr. 119.10
Gnd. 121.80
Apron 122.40
Clnc. 121.80

Hopefully that helps, and if you need more, just say so.

Adam
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[3reen]

Larry's right, I use 28-80mm 75-300mm and 'T'con(lose couple of stops) with a tripod and thats all I need buy s/hand and check lenses for finger prints, forget flash try for auto focus. SORRY WRONG FORUM.