Spooky flights

On 31 Jan 2007 06:51:53 -0800, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

In the days when the U.S. was still a free country, I liked to go to
the airport just to watch aircraft take off and land. I even liked it
when I was very young: I would insist that my parents take me to the
noisy, open observation deck so that I could see planes take off and
land. And I liked the smell of kerosene because it reminded me of
airplanes.

I don't know what part of the country you lived in, but we still do
all of that today, right here in the USA. Any time we'd like!

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved. We're
going to move the fence and create a large viewing area with picnic
tables.. or tables that look something like picnic tables, along with
stuff for the kids to climb on, as soon as the ground thaws and dries
out enough so we don't lose any trucks.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

"Roger" wrote in message
...
On 31 Jan 2007 06:51:53 -0800, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

In the days when the U.S. was still a free country, I liked to go to
the airport just to watch aircraft take off and land. I even liked it
when I was very young: I would insist that my parents take me to the
noisy, open observation deck so that I could see planes take off and
land. And I liked the smell of kerosene because it reminded me of
airplanes.

I don't know what part of the country you lived in, but we still do
all of that today, right here in the USA. Any time we'd like!

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved. We're
going to move the fence and create a large viewing area with picnic
tables.. or tables that look something like picnic tables, along with
stuff for the kids to climb on, as soon as the ground thaws and dries
out enough so we don't lose any trucks.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Make sure they stick an industrial-grade speaker out there and relay the
CTAF.

A really big hit in places where I've seen/heard it done.

Jay B

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 01:14:01 -0700, "Jay Beckman"
wrote:


"Roger" wrote in message
.. .
On 31 Jan 2007 06:51:53 -0800, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

In the days when the U.S. was still a free country, I liked to go to
the airport just to watch aircraft take off and land. I even liked it
when I was very young: I would insist that my parents take me to the
noisy, open observation deck so that I could see planes take off and
land. And I liked the smell of kerosene because it reminded me of
airplanes.

I don't know what part of the country you lived in, but we still do
all of that today, right here in the USA. Any time we'd like!

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved. We're
going to move the fence and create a large viewing area with picnic
tables.. or tables that look something like picnic tables, along with
stuff for the kids to climb on, as soon as the ground thaws and dries
out enough so we don't lose any trucks.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Make sure they stick an industrial-grade speaker out there and relay the
CTAF.

Yup, UNICOM is clearly audible over the entire transient area as well
as the proposed "viewing" area.

A really big hit in places where I've seen/heard it done.

Jay B

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Jay Beckman wrote:
"Roger" wrote in message
...

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved.

Make sure they stick an industrial-grade speaker out there and relay
the CTAF. A really big hit in places where I've seen/heard it done.

I've, uh, "viewed" several lunches and dinners at the shelter area at
the local GA airport. I could tell basically what was going on by
watching, but it made more sense when I remembered to bring my scanner
with me. (It's a fairly busy, towered field though.)

I have pondered a few designs for a viewing area radio. You can always
hide the radio and the speaker way up in the rafters of the shelter,
which might protect them from vandalism. You can get fiberglass
electrical enclosures and if the signals are strong enough, you might
get away with an antenna entirely inside the enclosure. That way you've
only got two holes in the enclosu juice coming in and speaker wires
going out. Depending on the location, you might want to have a timer
that shuts off the radio in the wee hours, if somebody might object.

For a busier field, I've thought of something like an old crystal-
controlled scanner in a Pelican case with a clear lid, plus external
speaker. Many of these scanners had an LED for each channel, and it
would be easy to make up a little placard for the LEDs showing which
channel is which, like "Tower", "Ground", etc. You could do the same
thing with a later-model scanner with a numeric LED or LCD, but then
(for most scanners) you'd need to provide a list of frequencies on
a placard and expect people to match up 123.45 on the scanner display
with 123.45 on the list. Either way, you have to put the radio down
lower so people can see it, and it might be more prone to damage.

Some people like to watch trains instead of airplanes and there are
apparently a couple of busy rail lines in Rochelle, Illinois. The city
built a shelter that has a scanner so people can listen to the trains;
you might talk to them to see what works and doesn't work.

Matt Roberds

Roger writes:

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved.

I thought it was a free country. Why can't you call it a picnic area?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Yup. We're in the process of building a picnic area..er...Have to
call it a "viewing area" or parks and recreation gets involved. We're
going to move the fence and create a large viewing area with picnic
tables

Hey, we're doing that here in Iowa City, too! And, yup, we couldn't
call it a "picnic area" for the same reason.

The fence was moved last summer, and we'll be adding picnic tables and
playground equipment later this spring. It's going to be a great draw
for bringing families to the airport!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"