Jesse wrote:
That is for the deadline, first the aircraft have to be converted, else you can not use your radio anymore
But why?….. unless you are allocated an 8.33 freq(which you can not select on a 25khz radio) your 25khz radio does the job!
It may be that the 25 khz freqs are being decommissioned and changed to 8.33khz in the Netherlands, but it’s certainly not happening Europe wide at a great rate.
Peter wrote:
We did the “8.33-25kHz interference” stuff hereThere is little or no evidence that transmitting with a 25kHz radio on an “8.33” channel which is actually a 25kHz frequency e.g. 130.000 does any harm. The transmission is exactly the same as it would be with an 8.33 radio e.g. the modulation depth is the same.
Yes, thanks Peter I read and posted on that thread.
My point is that it’s not possible to transmit on an 8.33 channel with a 25khz radio because you can’t select it. (excepting that if given 130.005 you could possibly be very naughty and select 130.00) 130.000 is a 25khz freq for backward compatibility
If you were given an 8.33 freq then presumably the surrounding 25khz freqs would have been decomissioned.
Some may recall in the distant past that we previously had 760, 720, 360 &180 channel radios by freq splitting(the 760 was a band extension), People simply upgraded their radios so they were able to access those new freqs, no big stick required!….surely its the same with 8.33, if you are going to need access, you will need to get one ….otherwise..
excepting that if given 130.005 you could possibly be very naughty and select 130.00
Indeed, and there is no way anybody could tell you have done that.
no big stick required!….surely its the same with 8.33, if you are going to need access, you will need to get one ….otherwise..
Not the way things are done in the Peoples’ Republic of Europe 
Carrots are superfluous. Only a stick is required. Much more efficient!
And… think of the wealth creation opportunities! Every time, in my business (electronics) we get some new and pointless regulation, the trade mags fill up with planted articles advertorials, saying what an “opportunity” this represents for innovation and introducing new products. As they say, follow the money, or as they used to say during the communist activities in decades past, find out who paid for the buses. I am a cynical old bastard 
But seriously I don’t understand why any 25kHz frequency should change to a genuine 8.33 one i.e. one which cannot be selected on a 25k radio.
For a start, that will shaft the considerable portion of GA which operates “outside the system” (e.g. most farm strip to farm strip activity, a large % of homebuilt activity especially that part which is on “foreign” registers within the host country, and assorted pilots who fly with a low profile and only locally) and these people will either pay up or fly non-radio, and since most of them can and do fly non-radio, that’s exacly what they will do, so what safety benefit does this bring?? In the UK for sure you can fly to most places of interest (to these communities) non-radio, and I am sure you can do the same in all of southern Europe where all kinds of stuff is easier anyway.
And already a large % of PPLs can only barely talk meaningfully on the radio – due to their training having been done say 30 years ago (the typical PPL demographic) and them having a currently very low currency. At the 10hrs/year level, it is really hard to do the radio properly. I remember my early days; I used to write down standard calls on bits of post-it pads.
IMHO this is a very blunt regulation.
It is also really aggressive because the moment a pilot with a 25k radio is allocated a real 8.33 frequency, he will be exposed, the whole circus up there will hear it, together with his callsign, and he will be left to hang out to dry while flying along at some 100kt and working out how the hell to get out of this mess.
Throw in a currently occuring CAS bust for good measure… it’s gonna be a real scream. So this is a regulation which not only f*ucks the pilot in a really big and public way but also f*ucks the ATC system because they won’t be able to talk to him while he is where he should not be.
They should have left 25k channels as 25k. And maybe accept that there will be some interference at the receiver as adjacent 8.33k channels get allocated AND ACTUALLY USED and then the owners will see a benefit in upgrading the radios.
It’ like the stupid transponder reg which makes it illegal to install a Mode C (except to replace an exact same type of unit). We did that to death elsewhere. I am sure this was “industry driven” too.
Peter wrote:
They should have left 25k channels as 25k.
Well they have, maybe 25khz are being decommissioned in Jesse’s neck of the woods, but not where I am!
Having said that, I am 8.33 compliant, because I may need it, but it’s staying in 25khz mode until I’m given an 8.33 channel to contact, and com 2 is staying too
RobertL18C wrote:
Has anyone managed to file a claim for the subsidy from the U.K. CAA, a pirep on this would be helpful.
I put in a substantial claim (GTN 750 and 650).
Brian Cook at Bournemouth Avionics was very helpful in ensuring that the paperwork was in order and the CAA was very helpful in ensuring the documentation was what they wanted to see.
The process has the potential to be a bit of a pain; for example, they say that you should fill in the form in Adobe launched from IE, so if you are not set up for that (as I was) it has the potential to be more effortful than I found it. Also, you need to have to hand things like your aircraft Radio Licence, the serial number of the boxes and you need to know the regulatory regime under which it was fitted.
If you have all the bits and pieces in front of you, and can comply with the IE/Adobe thing, the process is pretty easy, though a bit time consuming. But I have claimed £3,700, so the hourly rate is pretty good. I have also bought a £200 handheld and, frankly, for the £40 I am not going to bother.
But the CAA clearly want to spend the budget, and are as helpful as they can be, given the limitations and audit they have to prepare for, so I would recommend that people go for it, before the money dries up.
I am happy to handhold anyone who would like, but frankly it’s not that hard or challenging.
I’ll let you all know when I get the money.
So for a simple pilot like me with no knowledge of avionics intallation procedures I have a couple of questions please.
Firstly I have twin KX155 Nav/Comms installed and people talk about the KX155A for example. How does one know if it is A or B or ???
Secondly is there any decent Nav/Comm that is 8.33 enabled and a straight plug in to the existing tray?
Simple really!
Thanks
Threads which might be of interest are here (a possibly nonexistent KX155 replacement) and here (an easy slide-in KX155A replacement, but possibly not the cheapest nor, some would argue, the most attractive).
Apart from the product in the first link there isn’t AFAIK a slide-in KX155 replacement, despite the huge market for such a thing.
The radio is marked on the front
I had a telephone conversation with the CAA GA spokesman today, just to get the official word on 8.33khz requirements.
He confirmed that two radios are required for class A airspace and one for everything else.
He also confirmed that a 25 radio can be kept for listening purposes and transmitting on exempted frequencies (121.5).
His explanation on why you cannot transmit on the rest of the .25 frequencies brought out my cynical nature (but I said nothing).
According to him, if you transmit on a .25 radio on a frequency that is close to a 8.33 frequency, “you will hear two or three conversations at the same time”. I would love to know why as I suspect, this is tosh.What does EuroGA think?
He slightly misspoke (or you slightly misheard). If you transmit on a 25kHz box, you will fill three channels of 8.33kHz, the one you are on, the one above and the one below. Anyone listening to either adjacent frequency will hear interference, which could well be a flight safety issue.
I was at a presentation by the CAA man a few days ago and he made the point very clearly there, without misspeaking.
He slightly misspoke (or you slightly misheard).
Well, the bit about Class A needing two 8.33 radios is absolutely nonsense.
If you transmit on a 25kHz box, you will fill three channels of 8.33kHz
That’s not the case too. See e.g. here where we did that to death. That’s a very informative thread on 8.33, I think.
With AM (amplitude modulation) the sidebands (i.e. how much of the spectrum is taken up when transmitting) are equal to the bandwidth of the modulating signal. A 25k radio will be modulating the same audio onto the carrier as an 8.33 radio i.e. about 4kHz wide, max, (taking both sidebands), or 10kHz in the case of my ex wife.
The difference is only in the 8.33 radio having a tighter receiver selectivity when set to a channel designated as 8.33. So e.g. 130.000 sets the receiver to the wider selectivity (around 130.000) whereas setting it to 130.005 sets the receiver to a narrower selectivity (around 130.000).
It’s not easy to get one’s head around the bodge that’s been done, but somebody in charge of GA at the CAA ought to know this. In the above linked thread, I even feed a KX165A into a spectrum analyser to see what actual frequencies are transmitted on and made a video – because I could not quite believe the bodge which was done. But quite evidently the vast majority of other people don’t understand it either. You need to be into electronics to get it properly.
