First flight with my wife and we had an emergency landing

Salty said:
Do people actually keep a handheld charged and carry it on every flight? Seems like a real PITA when there are plenty of ways to deal with NORDO safely.
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My local airspace is pretty busy, so I always carry one. Admittedly, I've never needed to use it in the air. It's handy for checking the ATIS (I'm close enough to the airport that I can receive it from home).
 
I carried my amateur radio handheld with me when I was training. It couldn't transmit over the aviation band, but it could receive transmissions. I liked using it for weather while preflighting and I think I'd rather be able to hear ATC than be completely NORDO if in busy airspace.
 
SkyChaser said:
I carried my amateur radio handheld with me when I was training. It couldn't transmit over the aviation band, but it could receive transmissions. I liked using it for weather while preflighting and I think I'd rather be able to hear ATC than be completely NORDO if in busy airspace.
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Hey, that's right! I forgot you had your ham ticket. It's nice to have another ham in the family. Now you just need to get @2-Bit Speed to set up an outside antenna for you. :)

Me, too, for that matter. I have two radios sitting right here beside my desk, but haven't gotten around to replacing my antennas yet. I need to throw some wire into the trees soon and get back on the air.

I have my handheld aviation radio in the plane and cabled to an external antenna and plugged into 12V power. It acts as my second comm, and if I lose my electrical system it will just use its internal batteries and keep on going. Nice to have a backup ready to go instantly.
 
Salty said:
Do people actually keep a handheld charged and carry it on every flight? Seems like a real PITA when there are plenty of ways to deal with NORDO safely.
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I used to carry a 12v ELT battery that I could plug directly into my radio bus.
 
Salty said:
Do people actually keep a handheld charged and carry it on every flight? Seems like a real PITA when there are plenty of ways to deal with NORDO safely.
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Yep. Why not? It's maybe a pain with a radio with nimh batteries, but trivial with lipo.
 
Bill said:
I bought a hand held and threw it in the back of the plane somewhere in 2006. I wonder if it's still there???
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Dude. I am SOOOOOOOOOOO sorry. I meant to bring it back a long time ago and, well, you know...
 
Salty said:
Do people actually keep a handheld charged and carry it on every flight? Seems like a real PITA when there are plenty of ways to deal with NORDO safely.
Click to expand...

Pugs said:
Yep -although I only charge it once a month. I've even tested it in the plane.
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GaryM said:
My local airspace is pretty busy, so I always carry one. Admittedly, I've never needed to use it in the air. It's handy for checking the ATIS (I'm close enough to the airport that I can receive it from home).
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Me too. I carry one, check it every flight by listening to the weather and traffic while I'm getting the gear ready for the flight. Helps me with situational awareness before I fire up the engine and turn on the avionics.
 
I carry one but it uses lithium batteries (10 year shelf life) that I replace yearly as well as I keep the replaced batteries as spares. Also a 12 VDC cable to panel cig socket. My com #2 antenna has a break-out BNC jumper on the instrument panel so I can connect my handheld directly to the external antenna via a short BNC jumper cable. I have the Sporty's SP 400 (?) with ILS/VOR capability and I keep a spare headset configured for monaural audio as well as the headset to radio jumper cable. Amazing how much better the radio works with the external antenna compared to the "Rubber Ducky" inside the cabin!!
 
Half Fast said:
Hey, that's right! I forgot you had your ham ticket. It's nice to have another ham in the family. Now you just need to get @2-Bit Speed to set up an outside antenna for you. :)

Me, too, for that matter. I have two radios sitting right here beside my desk, but haven't gotten around to replacing my antennas yet. I need to throw some wire into the trees soon and get back on the air.

I have my handheld aviation radio in the plane and cabled to an external antenna and plugged into 12V power. It acts as my second comm, and if I lose my electrical system it will just use its internal batteries and keep on going. Nice to have a backup ready to go instantly.
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Well, add me to your list. I've been a ham a lot longer than I've been a pilot. And you are right about HTs being tuned to aviation frequencies. My HT currently has both VFOs tuned to the tower at PHLI and the approach frequency for the area. Once I get back home the scanner is tuned to the tower frequency at KOLM.

BTW, I've had the low voltage light flash a few times in the club's 182, but not in the past several years. One time was climbing out of KPUW. My wife just sat there quietly while I reset the alternator circuit breaker. All was well after that. Then she asked what would happen if that didn't fix it. I told her that we would simply have returned to KPUW and had a mechanic look at it and fix it. Nice thing about engines driven with magnetos, they don't need the electrical system to run.

N6TPT
 
Carried a handheld radio for over 20 years, but do not have it plugged into the plane for power, or antenna. For peace of mind, and emergency use, it does everything I want, and has enough range to talk a tower, or give/get a traffic advisory if my radios go down.
 
I have a handheld that I use in my office to cure boredom.
 
I've always carried a handheld. I use it sometimes to listen in at fly-ins, and from the second floor of my house I can pick up the ATIS from my home airport, 6 miles away.

I've used one to transmit only once, to alert an aircraft about to depart a fly-in that their baggage door was open.
 
Rich Holt said:
Those pesky IT guys with their prying eyes. :skeptical:
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Then I guess that also means that you cannot use flightradar24.com to follow along with the conversation then. Poor you. :(
 
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