Another ID change for Smoketown? (37PA, Q08, S37)

"Jeff Saylor" wrote in message
...

But my point is, what is the compelling reason to change now?


Does there have to be a compelling reason? Criteria for identifiers have
been established, many identifiers are being changed because they don't fit
the criteria. I think that's all there is to it.



Some non collocated VORs have had their ID changed from the
same as the nearby airport (e.g. Williamsport, Pa), some have not
(e.g. Manchester, Nh; Pottstown, Pa).


Yes, I believe I mentioned that. It appears the VORs that are fairly close
to the airports have been left alone while those that are further away have
been changed. The cutoff appears to be five miles.



Perhaps the relatively recent K prefix for lower 48 airports has
rendered the changes unnecessary.


There's nothing recent about that K.

I wonder why they don't synchronize this with the Sectional publication
dates. The next San Francisco chart will come out in early September.

Sectional charts are updated during their 6 month lifespan via the
Aeronautical Chart Bulletin in the Airport/Facility Directory.


If the date of a change is optional, it would be better for pilots if the
change were synchronized, so that there would be fewer updates for pilots to
have to manually add to their charts. CDW recently changed its freq also, it
would have been nice if they had waited a few months.

Jose


--
(for Email, make the obvious changes in my address)

"Teacherjh" wrote in message
...

I wonder why they don't synchronize this with the Sectional publication
dates. The next San Francisco chart will come out in early September.

Sectional charts are updated during their 6 month lifespan via the
Aeronautical Chart Bulletin in the Airport/Facility Directory.


If the date of a change is optional, it would be better for pilots if the
change were synchronized, so that there would be fewer updates
for pilots to have to manually add to their charts. CDW recently
changed its freq also, it would have been nice if they had waited a
few months.


Frequencies are not changed on a whim, they're changed to correct a problem
somewhere. Delaying a change for a few months means putting up with the
problem for a few months. Updating a chart is easy.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Jeff Saylor" wrote in message
...

But my point is, what is the compelling reason to change now?


Does there have to be a compelling reason? Criteria for identifiers have
been established, many identifiers are being changed because they don't fit
the criteria. I think that's all there is to it.


Some non collocated VORs have had their ID changed from the
same as the nearby airport (e.g. Williamsport, Pa), some have not
(e.g. Manchester, Nh; Pottstown, Pa).


Yes, I believe I mentioned that. It appears the VORs that are fairly close
to the airports have been left alone while those that are further away have
been changed. The cutoff appears to be five miles.

I looked at a number of airports that have common identifiers with VORs, or did
in the past and compared whether the VOR had its identifier changed or not. I
couldn't find any definate criteria, some VORs had been changed that are closer
to airports than VORs that had not been changed. Curiously, I couldn't find
where the replacement VOR identifiers came from; they must have been randomly
generated.

Airport / VOR distance
KMHT / MHT VOR 4.8 mi not changed
KABE / FJC VOR 4.5 mi changed
KAVP / LVZ VOR 4.2 mi changed (high terrain)
KLNS / LRP VOR 0.0 mi changed ON FIELD
KLEB / LEB VOR 5.0 mi not changed (high terrain)
KMPV / MPV VOR 8.6 mi not changed (Montpelier, VT)
KROA / ROA VOR 4.7 mi
[KROA also has ODR VOR on field!]
KAGC / AGC VOR 6.8 mi not changed
KHLG / HLG VOR 6.2 mi not changed
KTCL / LDK VOR 4.4 mi ID *and* name changed 9/2003
"The fact that the VORTAC and the airport are not
co-located has led to confusion among users. To
eliminate this confusion, the Tuscaloosa VORTAC will
be renamed ``Crimson VORTAC,'' and will be assigned a
new location identifier ``LDK.''" (lack of low level
radar coverage a factor) Docket No. 02-ASO-24
KMGM / MGM VOR 6.0 mi not changed
KCHA / GQO VOR 5.1 mi ID *and* name changed
Chattanooga VOR changed to Choo Choo to avoid confusion



Perhaps the relatively recent K prefix for lower 48 airports has
rendered the changes unnecessary.


There's nothing recent about that K.

I don't remember it being used before the mid 90s or so. When did the ICAO K
prefix begin to appear in front of FAA continental USA 3 letter ID's?

Yes, it's a tough job changing those id's. The 100k a year guy spent
weeks on the S, and then there was the 3 and the 7, whew. Tough work,
but I guess that's why they get paid the big money.

Go to Alaska, the same airport has TWO id's (or at least they did, not
sure if they've cleared up that mess yet).

Apparently there is the FAA way and the ICAO way and sometimes they
are different. And do you put a K in front of the ones with a number?
Sometimes, I've seen programs where you do.

And another thing, you look on the WAC's and it says, Carlsbad (CA),
or maybe something else. Look in the Terminal charts, nope you won't
find them under Carlsbad, hmm, maybe San Diego? They have id's why
don't they use them? Noooo, they gotta use the NAME. I thought this
was the whole reason to have id's, so we don't have two names the
same.

Oh well, some things never change. Like, life is chaotic.

Jeff Saylor wrote in message ...
I noticed in the new New York Sectional (just came out a few days ago)
that the Smoketown, Pennsylvania (just east of Lancaster) has a new
identifier, S37.

Ok, identifiers change sometimes, but a few years ago Smoketown changed
from 37PA to Q08, presumably in the effort to make public use airports 3
digits.

Now it changed yet again...why? Was there a problem with Q08--perhaps
being confused with somebody else in the area? (Most one letter- two
number airport IDs in Pennsylvania/ NJ begin with N.)

What's even stranger is that 37PA was subsequently used by a heliport
(IIRC) and it is now the identifier for private use Roadcap Airport in
western PA, which was previously known as 31N. 31N has not been
reallocated as far as I can tell.

So what's with the musical identifiers? A secret evil plot by the GPS
database providers?

In article ,
Jeff Saylor wrote:
I noticed in the new New York Sectional (just came out a few days ago)
that the Smoketown, Pennsylvania (just east of Lancaster) has a new
identifier, S37.

Oh NO! I just realized this is a new anagram of my home airport (7S3),
so now all 6 exist. The trip that includes all of them is MUCH longer.

My original geeky post about this:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...21%40rwcrnsc54

It raises the 7,S,3 roundtrip from 1472nm to 4237nm!

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

"Jeff Saylor" wrote in message
...

I don't remember it being used before the mid 90s or so. When
did the ICAO K prefix begin to appear in front of FAA
continental USA 3 letter ID's?


I don't know when that began, but I suspect it was about the time
international air travel began to flourish after WWII. I started work at
Chicago ARTCC in 1983, they were in use by all international flights then.
You probably only became familiar with them when GPS manufacturers began
using them to distinguish between airports and navaids.

"Doug" wrote in message
om...

Go to Alaska, the same airport has TWO id's (or at least they did, not
sure if they've cleared up that mess yet).


K is used to prefix 3-letter airport identifiers only in the 48 contiguous
US states. The letter P is used in the Pacific region; Alaska uses A, F, O,
or P as the second letter of an ICAO identifier, Hawaii uses H. If the
first letter of an Alaskan 3-letter identifier is A, F, O, or P, then the
ICAO identifier can be the normal 3-letter identifier prefixed by P. An
example is Anchorage, the 3-letter identifier is ANC, the ICAO identifier is
PANC. If the first letter of an Alaskan 3-letter identifier is something
other than A, F, O, or P, then the ICAO identifier is usually created by
prefixing the first two letters of the 3-letter identifier by PA, PF, PO, or
PP. An example is Elmendorf, the 3-letter identifier is EDF, the ICAO
identifier is PAED.



Apparently there is the FAA way and the ICAO way and sometimes
they are different. And do you put a K in front of the ones with a
number?


No.



Sometimes, I've seen programs where you do.


Yes, some GPS manufacturers follow that convention, but a proper ICAO
identifier has no numbers.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

"Jeff Saylor" wrote in message
...

I don't remember it being used before the mid 90s or so. When
did the ICAO K prefix begin to appear in front of FAA
continental USA 3 letter ID's?


I don't know when that began, but I suspect it was about the time
international air travel began to flourish after WWII. I started work at
Chicago ARTCC in 1983, they were in use by all international flights then.
You probably only became familiar with them when GPS manufacturers began
using them to distinguish between airports and navaids.

Interesting. When seminars discussing the then-new METAR and TAF reports
(that replaced the SA and FT wx reports) were popping up in 1995 and 1996, I
remember hearing about the "new" K prefix.

The K is beneficial to remove ambiguities in databases though I didn't have a
GPS unit back then

"Ben Jackson" wrote in message
news:RMqrc.4833$ny.958355@attbi_s53...
In article ,
Jeff Saylor wrote:
I noticed in the new New York Sectional (just came out a few days ago)
that the Smoketown, Pennsylvania (just east of Lancaster) has a new
identifier, S37.

Oh NO! I just realized this is a new anagram of my home airport (7S3),
so now all 6 exist. The trip that includes all of them is MUCH longer.

My original geeky post about this:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...21%40rwcrnsc54

It raises the 7,S,3 roundtrip from 1472nm to 4237nm!

Yes, I remember the original. Look at it this way...it could include
a trip which takes you to lots of interesting places on the way if
you don't just take the end point as the goal!

Paul