Radio Blues. . .

[Phil Perry]

One of our Student pilots had his first solo last weekend at Halfpenny Green airport, - our Instructor Mad Mick was a little 'Peed off' because the aircraft concerned is a Sport Cruiser, which, in the UK is too heavy for Microlight max AUW of 450 Kgs. . . .

 

Which means that a GA Instructor was required for eldest Son to use it for training (.His DAD keeps the aircraft at our field ) Dad said that since his Son was going to fly that plane going forward, that it was a bit pointless him learning to fly a Microlight ( Eurostar ) with different characteristics and lower inertia, for thirty / forty odd hours. . . then having to have a Microlight / GA conversion course onto a completely different aircraft. ( Sensible )

 

So Dad flew the machine to HG, then Son had his lessons there. ( In later training, his Instructor tried to land at Otherton but said it was waaaay too short for that aircraft to use safely ( Bloody Wuss. . .it's Based there. . . )

 

Anyway, going back to the title of this post,. . . .Young lad gave me a radio he'd bought off Ebay yesterday, and asked me ( As the Radio Guru on the site ! ) to prog in some useful local airfield frequencies.

 

I had to inform him by phone this evening that this Baofeng Chinese hand held VHF / UHF radio unit is exclusively FM. He thought that at a cost of £16.90 delivered,. . . that it was a good deal. ( Kids eh ? )

 

Where it is indeed 'Possible' to 'Slope Detect' and Almost understand an FM signal when using an AM radio,. . .the reverse situation does not work. I suggested he look around for a VHF scanner,. . .these are quite cheap if you just want to listen to the banter on air band to get the feel of it.

 

( There's plenty of Banter around these parts. . .)