Airband
Airband listening is the hobby of tuning into the VHF radio frequencies used for civil aviation, mainly to hear communications between pilots and air traffic control.
Introduction
The civil aviation airband is the VHF range from about 118 to 137 MHz, used mostly for voice AM communications :
- Routine ATC like clearances, hand‑offs between tower, ground, approach/departure, and traffic information
- Airline operations between aircraft and company dispatch or ground staff, usually in the upper part of the band (128–137 MHz)
- Automated broadcasts like ATIS, giving weather and runway information for nearby airports
- Sometimes special-use traffic like firefighting aircraft, balloons, etc
Military aircraft typically use a separate UHF AM band roughly 220–400 MHz, which is distinct from the civil airband.
A scanner or radio that covers 118–137 MHz in AM mode, or a RTL‑SDR USB dongle and SDR software could be used to listen to airband communications. An antenna tuned for around 120–130 MHz; even a simple quarter‑wave ground‑plane or an “airband” whip placed high and in the clear greatly improves reception.
(source: youtube.com)
Quick tutorial
- run
gqrxsoftware defined radio - set center frequency to one from
118 MHz - 137 MHzrange - select
AMdecoding mode
another method could be :
-
launch
rtl_fmand redirect output to audio playerGAIN=20 SQUELCH=-150 RATE=48k VOLUME=50 FREQ=131M:134M:33k rtl_fm -M am -g ${GAIN} -s ${RATE} -l ${SQUELCH} -f ${FREQ} \ | play --volume ${VOLUME} --rate ${RATE} --type raw --encoding s --bits 16 --channels 1 -V3 -
Legal considerations
Laws differ by country: in some places, merely listening to airband without a license is an offense; in others (like the UK), listening to navigation/weather-related transmissions is allowed but rebroadcasting or using the information operationally can be restricted.
Transmitting on airband without proper authorization is illegal and potentially dangerous everywhere; this hobby is strictly receive‑only.