This video demonstrates airplane start-up and takeoff from Toledo Airport (KTDO) in Toledo, WA, overflight of Olympia Regional Airport and arrival at Gig Harbor Tacoma Narrows Airport (KTIW). We made several 2 meter FM radio contacts while in-route which are recorded in this video. Upon arrival at Tacoma Narrows, the airport was saturated with arriving and departing airplanes causing ATC to place us in a hold over Anderson Island. The video concludes with landing at Gig Harbor.
I've talked to a couple of F-18 pilots out of Whidbey a few times. Both are ham operators. They can tune 146.52 FM with the gear they have in the jet. Anyhow, if you fly over the Vancouver/Portland area you'll find 146.52 is pretty active. Should be easy to make contacts. 73 Phil K7JBL
Hi Phil and thank you for the info. I believe they also have HF capability. When I was on a special operations mission aboard a C-17, me and a teammate were hams and asked the pilot if we could use his HF. We tuned up on 20m and put out a call from 30k feet over the ocean. Quite the pileup quickly developed. The pilot kept reminding us of OpSec when we tried to give our QTH. It’s been super cool now having 2m in my own airplane. I was wondering about using the national call frequency for air mobile comms. Seems like I’m clogging up the frequency preventing folks from monitoring it. What are your thoughts on that? I want to be courteous of other operators.
146.52 is pretty active for local chatting around here. It's been that way for many years. If you want contacts and you're around here, use 146.52. Nobody will give you grief but you might cause a pile-up.
