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CTAF frequencies


Brian Smith
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Brian Smith
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Do the voice servers have enough capacity for pilots to use local CTAF frequencies now instead of the omnibus 122.800?  In most cases in Alaska, CTAF is 122.900.  I’m not sure if that would even work now the way vatsim voice works.  I thought I’d read a while back that eventually Vatsim would move to allowing realistic frequency usage. 

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Mats Edvin Aaro
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Short answer; not yet - continue using 122.800.

Long answer: Down the line, the plan is to implement local CTAF frequencies. However there is a multitude of problems and issues to resolve before that can happen.
Firstly, CTAF frequencies for all airports in the world would need to be documented, structured and implemented in AFV, which is a colossal task.

Secondly, those frequencies would need to be shown in the clients in an organized and easy-to-understand way so that everyone, including complete beginners understand which frequency to use.

Without that, the whole purpose of having CTAF in the first place is gone, as people will be on all kinds of different frequencies. Also, the usage of CTAF/UNICOM frequencies around the world vary greatly, from having airport-designated frequencies, to local frequencies, regional frequencies etc...

It's not that the voice servers don't handle the implementation, because they do; but having it the way it is now is much better until the developers can do it properly. Just like with 8,33kHz implementation, the technology is there, but it wouldn't make sense to implement it currently as it would only confuse pilots greatly...

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Mats Edvin Aarø
Assistant to the Vice President - Supervisors
VATSIM General Manager: Member Engagement
[email protected]

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  • 1 year later...
Jay Lusk
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Posted (edited)

A year since the above post... I'm a new user now seeing airport specific CTAF frequencies listed/highlighted in the Vatsim AIP (https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/aip).

Are these now the preferred uncontrolled "traffic" channels for Vatsim use, or should we still default to 122.800 in all uncontrolled locales? Thanks for the update.

J.

Edited by Jay Lusk
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Lars Bergmann
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No, it's still 122.800.

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Mats Edvin Aaro
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10 hours ago, Jay Lusk said:

A year since the above post... I'm a new user now seeing airport specific CTAF frequencies listed/highlighted in the Vatsim AIP (https://my.vatsim.net/pilots/aip).

Are these now the preferred uncontrolled "traffic" channels for Vatsim use, or should we still default to 122.800 in all uncontrolled locales? Thanks for the update.

J.

As Lars said, nothing has changed. This is simply a step in the plan to implement it in the future. 🙂

The membership will be greatly informed and educated on when such a transition were to happen, along with tutorial videos etc.

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Mats Edvin Aarø
Assistant to the Vice President - Supervisors
VATSIM General Manager: Member Engagement
[email protected]

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