Gene Whitt wrote:
Jerry,
It's been a few years since I flew down to San Jose to watch your first
solo. This thread of some 46 responses made my late arrival all the more
interesting.
*** Greetings Gene! I still have the photos you took up on my
refrigerator!


There is an interesting side light to the SCK 29 ILS that I learned before I
had my instrument rating which was not required for my CFI back then. I was
flying as safety pilot in VFR as a rated pilot was shooting the ILS to 29
when somewhere about 600' the localizer needel went crazy and all the way to
the right side even though the runway was directly ahead. This was some 30
years ago.

Interesting as to why this might be and happen and I will tell you why but
make your best guess now.

It could be that equipment was not as sensitive as it is today

*** Or it could be that it was more sensitive. I have two NAV
receivers: a
KX170B and a GNS430. The 170B is definitely more sensitive.


but suggest
those of you who
want to see what happens I suggest that you set the localizer to 110.1
instead of 109.1 and fly the procedure and see how the localizer works, if
at all. Under the right conditions it
should give the same response as I have described. 110.1 happens to the the
Localizer
frequency at one of the two runways (21RL) at Travis AFB.nearly 30 miles
away but in line with Stockton's 29.

*** The localizer signal is AFAIK produced by two transmitters, both
amplitude
modulated. One has a 90Hz tone, the other one has a 150Hz tone. It
looks
like a sort of positional diversity took place where one of the signals
had an
obstruction way out there in the Valley somewhere.

When I did my Private X-country, I tuned in the wrong VOR and
merrily
navigated on it for about 10 miles. These days, I try to be very
disciplined about
always ID-ing navaids before using them.

- Jerry Kaidor ( )