Thick smoke affect radio comms?

gkainz

gkainz

Final Approach
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
8,401
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Arvada, CO
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Display name:
Greg Kainz
Got this question from a club member who was flying today, wondering if thick smoke can affect radio comms?
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Returning to BJC yesterday for more than an hour we experienced poor radio communications. Continuous background static and the controllers barely audible at times. Seems the auto-squelch of the G650 was not working, although the backup radio was not much better.

In the end I did not squawk this and assumed it was due to all the smoke in the air resulting in interference.

Does anyone know if this is the correct assumption, and if so, why is it not called out in comm NOTAMs?
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Unlikely at VHF.

More likely: One of their tower sites lost power and they’re on a backup site.

Even more likely: Controller working multiple radios selected the wrong one for where you were located.

:)
 
The CTAF frequency at my airport is 122.725Mhz. It used to be 122.8 until about a year ago. We've always had periods where lower priced radios, like handhelds and the cheaper panel mount radios would break squelch constantly. We also get garbled coms that are apparently from a Canadian non-towered airport north of us. We thought going from 122.8 to 122.725 would solve this. It hasn't. I can go weeks without any problems. And, then all of a sudden, for 3 or for days at a time, the radio is a PITA.

One thing I've found that helps is to not use those USB battery packs that a lot of folks use to power their Stratux and/or iPads. Those thing are noisy in RF. Other than that, I think its just a matter of setting the squelch level up and living with what you got. Or, buy a newer, more expensive radio.
 
I'm not sure about smoke but sometimes flying through clouds in the embraer radios will get unusable with massive static. I just switch between 1 and 2 to find which one is less annoying.
 
falconkidding said:
I'm not sure about smoke but sometimes flying through clouds in the embraer radios will get unusable with massive static. I just switch between 1 and 2 to find which one is less annoying.
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That’s static buildup on the airframe but maybe another culprit... those static wicks aren’t always working or effective. :)
 
denverpilot said:
That’s static buildup on the airframe but maybe another culprit... those static wicks aren’t always working or effective. :)
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I was going to guess this too. Smoke particles causing static buildup. But I don't know enough about radios and static for it to be more than a guess.
 
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