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All of these ATC feeds are from SDR stations close by that monitor the same frequencies. Your local airport sounds better because someone has a better SDR rig t
by Shank 3y ago
All of these ATC feeds are from SDR stations close by that monitor the same frequencies. Your local airport sounds better because someone has a better SDR rig to receive it. Generally the audio is crystal clear in the cockpit and on the ground — it’s just that the SDR stations don’t have as good antennae as the real systems do.
- MBCook 3y agoI’ve always wondered about that. When I hear recordings online they’re often so bad I wonder how there aren’t more issues. That explains it.
- thedrbrian 3y agoI know it’ll be a long time coming but wait for the ATC recordings to come out. They’ll be crystal clear.
- wlonkly 3y agoYep, it's a line-of-sight transmission, so in a way the aircraft has the advantage of being a really, really tall antenna. The volunteers running the feeds around YYZ are at the airport, IIRC. I'm in Halifax now, and the (single) YHZ feeder has had a really hard time finding a new place to set up after he lost his previous location. There's a "feed setups" thread (or a whole forum) in the LiveATC forums, it's interesting to see how big or small the feeders' setups are!
- ac29 3y agoAntenna quality is unlikely to be a significant factor in audio quality if the stations are actually somewhat close to the airport. The difference between a very good and very poor antenna is maybe 5-7 dB in the VHF airband, which shouldnt noticeably degrade quality unless you are already at the margins of signal availability. Antenna location is going to make a much, much bigger difference.