Squawk 1000

[Joaquin Blanco]

While flying this evening I was surprised when the Eurocontrol West and Bordeaux asked every pilot to squawk 1000, as I have never experienced this before. Appreciate that under Mode S this is permitted Can the experts explain the reason and the benefit of this?

 

Thanks

 

[Andreas Fuchs]

Identification is done via callsign-information taken from Mode-S transponders, not via SQ-code. The number of possible transponder codes is limited so this method was deployed years ago. There is "1000-zone" where this code is assigned instead of individual transponder codes.

EDIT: this is valid for quite a lot of countries in Europe, even here at VATSIM, so I am surprised you never experienced this before.

There is a plugin for Euroscope that checks if flights are eligible for this transponder code: https://github.com/ogruetzmann/ModeS

 

Edited May 31, 2020 at 08:14 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Joaquin Blanco]

Thank Andreas, no I have never experienced this that's why I was surprised, some other pilots online were also asking about this to the controller. Thank you for your very good explanation. The areas I was flying through were EURO Control West and Bordeaux once I entered another ATC Control area it was back to squawk code.

Best regards

 

[Andreas Fuchs]

Yes, that's realistic. Actually, I found a list of countries (first letters of their ICAO-codes) that use SQ1000 at VATSIM: EB,EL,ET,ED,LF,EH,LK,LO,LIM,LIR, EP.

Edited June 1, 2020 at 01:29 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Martijn Rammeloo]

@Andreas Fuchs 837251Where did you find this list? Really useful for Dutch VACC's SSR plugin...

[Andreas Fuchs]

3 hours ago, Martijn Rammeloo said:

Where did you find this list?

At the above mentioned GitHub page. https://github.com/ogruetzmann/ModeS/blob/master/ModeS/ver.txt

[Martijn Rammeloo]

16 minutes ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

At the above mentioned GitHub page. https://github.com/ogruetzmann/ModeS/blob/master/ModeS/ver.txt

Thanks, but I was hoping for a source with more 'authority'. I'll keep looking...

[Andreas Fuchs]

2 hours ago, Martijn Rammeloo said:

Thanks, but I was hoping for a source with more 'authority'.

That's the current list of countries applying the SQ1000-rule at VATSIM. This plugin is being maintained.

Edited June 1, 2020 at 09:27 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Mateusz Zymla]

Create a issue on Git to add yours EH**. All of these FIRs use this plugin, so we receive and set 1000 to countries involved. It works in this way: If you fly outside this country, while you could potentially still receive 1000, because you'd be identified via S mode identification, you'd not get identified over i.e. Belarus - and the idea is to limit squawk code changes to minimum. Knowing that, you won't get 1000 flying outside "1000-zone".

Edited June 2, 2020 at 06:15 PM by Mateusz Zymla

[Martijn Rammeloo]

@Mateusz Zymla

The devil is in the details in EH-land. Based on (outdated?) real-life data, only flights departing from EHAM and EHRD can receive 1000, and then only flying to a specific set of airports. However, I am looking for a single-point of truth for this list.

 

For example Germany: based on my list, the only destinations that are valid for 1000 are: 'EDDB', 'EDDF', 'EDDL', 'EDDM', 'EDDP', 'EDDV', 'EDDW'. According to your plugin, all German (ED) destinations seem to be fine.

Another example: I understand that Poland has been accepting 1000 since 1 or 2 AIRACs ago. However, I am looking for a good source to verify this.

Martijn

 

Edited June 2, 2020 at 06:31 PM by Martijn Rammeloo

[Andreas Fuchs]

Yeah, but do we REALLY want and need to simulate it to such a level of detail.

2 hours ago, Martijn Rammeloo said:

I understand that Poland has been accepting 1000 since 1 or 2 AIRACs ago

Yes, that's why they were added to the list 1 or 2 AIRACs ago 😄

Edited June 2, 2020 at 08:55 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Mateusz Zymla]

We added it exactly 5 days after operational implementation in real life - yeah, like 2 AIRACs ago. Previously, S mode was avail, but not as main source of identification, therefore regular squawks were assigned. 

We introduced that on VS ASAP, because with 56 codes available for entire FIR we could easily spend entire range in 15-30 mins during events, getting tons of DUPE warnings. 

Edited June 3, 2020 at 12:55 AM by Mateusz Zymla

[Luke Brown]

On a bit of a tangent but...

Can we stop issuing Squawk 1000 to aircraft entering/transiting EGTT/EGPX? Nowadays it seems almost every aircraft heading from the east or especially an EURx sector is given this incorrectly!

Gets rather tiresome after the 25752849263th recycle.

[Martijn Rammeloo]

4 minutes ago, Luke Brown said:

On a bit of a tangent but...

Can we stop issuing Squawk 1000 to aircraft entering/transiting EGTT/EGPX? Nowadays it seems almost every aircraft heading from the east or especially an EURx sector is given this incorrectly!

Gets rather tiresome after the 25752849263th recycle.

I can guarantee that traffic departing from the EHAA FIR to the UK will "never" have a 1000 SSR. 

To be honest though, I never check overflights. 

May I suggest that you ask NATS to join our 1000-club?? 🙂

Edited June 3, 2020 at 05:22 PM by Martijn Rammeloo

[Andreas Fuchs]

18 minutes ago, Luke Brown said:

Can we stop issuing Squawk 1000 to aircraft entering/transiting EGTT/EGPX? Nowadays it seems almost every aircraft heading from the east or especially an EURx sector is given this incorrectly!

Okay. On EURM_CTR, for example, a new SQ is only assigned to pilots with DUPE or invalid/unassigned transponder codes. The ModeS-plugin should normally take the destination into account, but obviously it doesn't always work.

On the other hand, is it really tiring to press F9 to assign a new transponder code and tell the pilot to set it? Or just add 1000 as squawk code for mode s transponders, problem solved.

[Bill Casey]

I had this yesterday overflying France inbound the UK; as it's not used in the UK I simply reverted to 2200 on joining UK airspace. 

[Andreas Fuchs]

Is 2200 the official non-discrete code in the UK? No, it is not. As per ICAO the standard IFR code is 2000 until ATC assigns you a specific code, such as 1000 😄

2200 is valid for the USA only.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transponder_codes

 

[Robert Shearman Jr]

... and using 2200 for "IFR, in non-controlled space" is really just a VATSIM-ism anyway.  If you file IFR but squawk 1200, the FSD server apparently throws a command back to your pilot client to automatically kick your transponder to 2200 just so you won't appear as a VFR target on controller's scopes.  FSINN definitely recognized and responded to this command.  I'm not sure whether xPilot and vPilot do; I think not, but I don't know for certain.  Swift developers encountered this issue shortly after the client's release because they didn't know about that command and early versions of Swift did not know how to handle that response from the server, crashing the client.

[Andreas Fuchs]

By standard (just like in the real world) I always set SQ2000 at the end of my flights to have the XPDR readily set for my next leg. Only in the US it would be 2200, obviously.

Edited June 4, 2020 at 04:12 PM by Andreas Fuchs

[Bill Casey]

22 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

Is 2200 the official non-discrete code in the UK? No, it is not. As per ICAO the standard IFR code is 2000 until ATC assigns you a specific code, such as 1000 😄

Long discussion/debate many many years ago determined that for VATSIM purposes 2200 worked best in the UK. I use 2200 because of that and then 2000 is for non-radar environment, i.e. Oceanic. I'm not revisiting that debate.

[Andreas Fuchs]

50 minutes ago, Bill Casey said:

I'm not revisiting that debate.

That's sad that you are completely disregarding reality. "Many years ago" we did not have Euroscope. With Euroscope ATCOs can define "2000" as non-discrete transponder code or whatever. If you personally feel better by setting an unrealistic code like 2200, then go on. You could also set 7777. Same result.

I don't understand some of you. On one the hand people want to simulate reality the die-hard way, but on the other hand they are straight-out refusing to upgrade their knowledge and adapt their procedures.

[Tom Szczypinski]

2 hours ago, Bill Casey said:

Long discussion/debate many many years ago determined that for VATSIM purposes 2200 worked best in the UK. I use 2200 because of that and then 2000 is for non-radar environment, i.e. Oceanic. I'm not revisiting that debate.

In the UK AIP (ENR1.6 2.2.2.1.3), the conspicuity codes are defined as such;

*7000 – VFR conspicuity code: when operating within United Kingdom airspace in accordance with VFR and have not received a specific instruction from ATS concerning the setting of the transponder.

*2000 – IFR conspicuity code: when operating within United Kingdom airspace in accordance with IFR and have not received a specific instruction from ATS concerning the setting of the transponder.

The UK differentiates between the conspicuity codes (something which, as far as I am aware, wasn't the case before February this year). The new revision of CAP413 (Radio Telephony Manual; effective 8th June 2020) includes a change to the phraseology too for leaving controlled airspace.

Old:
"BAW123, squawk 7000"

New:
"BAW123, squawk conspicuity"

I think that with the changes, especially that the UK now differentiates between the two, then it is unfair to say that it shouldn't be used especially if we have the chance to simulate slightly more realism, without any difficulty whatsoever.

Edited June 5, 2020 at 09:59 AM by Tom Szczypinski
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