Why don't voice radio communications use FM?

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Emily writes:

Really? Can you cite some statistics? I'd be very interested in
reading them.

Just look through accident and incident reports. Radio communication
is one of the weak links in the aviation safety chain.

If you're going to make the claim, point to a viable source of information.
Without providing data, it is just your opinion.

I have read thousands of NTSB reports and don't remember a single one where
the technological limitation inherent in AM radio was a significant cause of
the accident.

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KB

Mxsmanic schrieb:

If you hear something that could be "five" or "nine," you're much more
likely to choose the number that suits you than you are if you hear
something that is unambiguously one of the two.

That's exactly the reason why it's "niner".

Stefan

Mxsmanic wrote:

The worse the sound quality is, the more pilots must "fill in the
blanks," and the more likely they are to hear what they want to hear.

If you hear something that could be "five" or "nine," you're much more
likely to choose the number that suits you than you are if you hear
something that is unambiguously one of the two.

You are not a pilot, it seems. These claims of yours read as if they are
opinion based on an outsider's perspective, not one who actually has some
hours of aviation radio experience.

With regards to aviation communication, "niner" is the proper phonetic
pronunciation of nine and "fife" is the proper pronunciation of five,
although admittedly "fife" is not as widely used as it should be.

--
Peter

Mxsmanic wrote:

From the NTSB and several books on the subject.

Have a name of one of these books that claims that aviation communication
is the leading cause of aviation accidents?


It's routine in linguistics to unconsciously guess. A person
listening to familiar sounds in a familiar context will "fill in the
blanks" for any sounds that cannot be unambiguously distinguished, and
he will do this without thinking.

You imply that this is a very common occurrence. Sorry, but I am unable to
accept your premise without some evidence to back up this claim.

If he guesses wrong, trouble can
result, and accidents have happened in aviation for this reason (the
most famous probably being the one at Tenerife).

My understanding of the accident at Tenerife is that it had more to do with
a fateful heterodyne and a captain who was asserting his own way, rather
than misunderstood communications.


--
Peter

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Ron Natalie writes:

No actually, it's just historical. Early av radio used AM, and for that
reason we still do.

If that were the only reason, nothing would ever change in aviation.


Actually, not much does change in aviation compared with other fields of
human endeavor . But changing to FM would require a new radio to be
simultaneously installed in every cockpit in the world. The only way to
accomplish that would be for every plane with a new radio to transmit in
"parallel" (as someone already suggested) for a period of years on both the new
mode and the old mode. What are the chances of AOPA allowing that to happen?

That said, I would really like to see it. It would be great to have enough
frequencies to go around so that you would not have to be constantly mentally
filtering out the transmissions from adjacent uncontrolled airports.

Vaughn

Peter R. writes:

My understanding of the accident at Tenerife is that it had more to do with
a fateful heterodyne and a captain who was asserting his own way, rather
than misunderstood communications.

Some of the words on the cockpit recording are impossible to
understand even today. That's pretty strong evidence that
misunderstood communications had an important role in this accident.
In fact, there are several instances of misunderstood radio
communication involved.

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Stefan writes:

That's exactly the reason why it's "niner".

They still sound the same if the channel is noisy enough.

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Peter R. writes:

With regards to aviation communication, "niner" is the proper phonetic
pronunciation of nine and "fife" is the proper pronunciation of five,
although admittedly "fife" is not as widely used as it should be.

They still sound very much the same.

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Mxsmanic,

From the NTSB and several books on the subject.


Like which?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Mxsmanic,

Do you use an ANR headset?

No. The source of the noise is not anything around me, it's coming
from the channel itself.


ANR headsets enhance speech as well as reducing noise.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)