Setting up the scanner

I followed a tutorial on how to setup a radio freqency scanner. It’s a really clear video. So if you want to do the same you can defenitely follow along that video.

A radio scanner allows scanning through a range of radio frequencies and finding the ones that go over a predefined dB (decibels) threshold. If you set it to -60dB for example all the frequencies are matched going above this.

I live very close to Brussels airport, so I could pick up all these airplanes during their final approach. The most active one, at that time, was: 118,250 Mhz.

Radio frequencies BRX

After finding the freqency which was very active, I asked myself the question: “What are all the different frequencies of BRX?”. One Google search later and I found a website which provides the following table:

FrequencyTypeToneAlpha TagDescriptionModeTag
132.475BMCSQATISATISAMAircraft
130.550BMCSQAbelagUnicomAbelag UnicomAMAircraft
118.250BMCSQApproachApproachAMAircraft
120.100BMCSQApproachApproachAMAircraft
122.500BMCSQAMC CivilApproach Military CrossingAMAircraft
121.950BMCSQClearance DelClearance DeliveryAMAircraft
126.625BMCSQDepartureDepartureAMAircraft
127.575BMCSQFinal 25LFinal 25LAMAircraft
129.725BMCSQFinal 25RFinal 25RAMAircraft

Final thoughts

Maybe it’s an idea for in the future to tune into all these at once. The same youtuber has a video on how to setup listening to multiple frequencies at once. video Here however we have a problem because the maximum sample size of the device I use to monitor the radio frequencies is limited to 3.2 Mhz. So in order to do this we will have to order a few more of these devices.

Result

I made a little youtube video if you want to check out this little interaction.

References

markdown table generator: https://tableconvert.com/markdown-generator