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Is there anything better than LiveATC to get accustomed with RT phraseology?

I would like to “train my ear” for RT communications and I tried to listen to approach of Dublin’s Airport. I simply can’t understand more than 50% words because of loud background whistle and poor (quiet) sound quality, although the mp3 player shows 320 kbps. Do they sound just like that in real life too?

Is there anything else with better quality other than LiveATC (apart from personal receiver)? I would like to get accustomed with ICAO phraseology, so US airports will not suit my needs. I also would like to know, is there any way to listen to whole radio communications of any flight №XXXXX (from engines startup to landing) instead of listening to distinct frequencies (ground, tower, approach atc.)

Thanks for taking time to reply!

Last Edited by superjet100 at 27 Mar 05:42

The only other option I see is loking at videos with ATC on youtube.

jfw
Belgium: EBGB (Grimbergen, Brussels) - EBNM (Namur), Belgium

I think LiveATC gets it’s Feeds from People living near the Airport, who Setup an Receiver and Steam it to LiveATC. So the Transmissions of Aircrafts may be disturbed by Buildings and Terrein between the Aircraft and the Streaming Receiver, while the Tower Transmissions may be fine as they are a few feet up the Air (I hope this makes sence ;) )

I can recommend the Feeds from Zurich (LSZH) they are good in Quality and the Controllers are easy to Understand.

I also would like to know, is there any way to listen to whole radio communications of any flight №XXXXX (from engines startup to landing) instead of listening to distinct frequencies (ground, tower, approach atc.)

There are a few People on Youtube recording there Flights and most of them also record the ATC Audio

Hope that helps somehow ;)

Matt

Austria

Yes I think public videos are a starting point for European ATC. Here is one, showing an IFR flight UK to Croatia, and there are others there.


Another one UK to S. France. Around 6:50 you get a great example of poor ATC English coupled with a poor (for the distance) transmitter


As for the legibility comment, I am afraid a lot of aviation radio talk is like that

  • poor / knackered radios are widely used though mostly in the VFR community
  • some ATC units have poor radios, or transmitters with not enough power to cover their area
  • terrain shielding
  • a lot of ATC, especially in southern Europe, speaks very bad English

When you have been flying for a bit, you know mostly what to expect, so interpretation is easier.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Matt_FK wrote:

ecommend the Feeds from Zurich (LSZH) they are good in Quality and the Controllers are easy to Understand.

Thanks! The quality seems to be good.

Peter wrote:

Yes I think public videos are a starting point for European ATC. Here is one, showing an IFR flight UK to Croatia

Thanks, that’s something I was looking for. I tried to search on youtube, but 90% videos are flightsim recordings.

You also may not find a lot of VFR flight recordings, especially ones that are worth anything as educational, due to the irregular nature of radio contact during VFR flight and, sorry to say this, due to low currency of many pilots.

You can do most/all VFR without any radio contact (especially if not crossing national borders). And the format of the calls can be a lot more casual (which confuses the hell out of much foreign ATC because they know only aviation phrases ).

Recording any decent audio during a flight is also not completely trivial. Obviously you can’t do anything with just a mike or a camera in the cockpit, due to the noise. You have to either poke a little mike into the headset or make a connection to the aircraft intercom (which is what I do nowadays).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

My journey towards ATC speak:
- Ivao flightsim
- Buying own transceiver and listening out frequencies close to an airport: you can follow aircraft from Ground to Tower to Departure or the other way around while switchibg freqs with the aircraft u follow
- listening to complete flights on channel 9 on United Airlines flights – do they still do that??

Abeam the Flying Dream
EBKT, western Belgium, Belgium

If I remember correctly, the feed from Dublin Airport is monitoring multiple frequencies. So it might be monitoring Ground, Tower & Approach and possibly other frequencies too. If it hears a transmission one one frequency it swaps to that. When that transmission finishes it swaps to the next one.

So this makes it all but useless for your purpose, as all you are hearing is bits of different conversations. Even I as a pilot well used to using Dublin Airport, find it totally useless to follow LiveATC.

Your second part suggests that the ultimate solution is getting your own receiver. That was something that I did, and to be honest, it didn’t really work either. You don’t generally hear aircraft on a handheld until they are relatively close to the airport, and at that point you’re probably going to hear 2 transmissions at most as they’ve already made contact and passed their usual details.

The best solution, but probably the most difficult, is getting a backseat ride with someone else. Not being part of the “crew”….not needing to fly….leaves you plenty of time to follow what’s really going on. You’ll pick things up much faster when ATC is the only thing you are thinking about. But as I said, harder to organise than to say!

EIWT Weston, Ireland

I really like this guy’s videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVXC91krqimsR70WHMsyrVQ

He is flying around Europe in a DA42 and you get ATC clearances, etc. Plus he is explaining a bit about what he does, so you get familiar with an IFR flight.
Unfortunately, he has not uploaded anything recentl…..

Last Edited by mmgreve at 27 Mar 17:48
EGTR

Niner_Mike wrote:

listening to complete flights on channel 9 on United Airlines flights – do they still do that??

Apparently, yes, on international flights. It’s been a while since I flew on United Airlines but last time I listened to almost the whole flight from the US to Europe. It was particularly interesting to hear the radio protocols at each end of the ocean crossing, and also to hear Air Canada talking French in Quebec.

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