The Silence of the Birds

Well, the actual birds are not really silent, of course. On the contrary, it has been found, that under the current 'lockdown-conditions', birds can be heard better than before. Check out our Warners Birdwatch Magazine, if you like.

https://www.warnersgroup.co.uk/active-outdoor/birdwatch-magazine

The ‘metal-birds’, however, are a different proposition altogether at the moment. I have never seen the skies over Lancashire this empty. The image (from The Times) shows what I mean. Using one of my Signal Communications airband receivers, in combination, perhaps, with some tracking app, such as AirNav RadarBox or Flightradar24, I can still see some activity.

But the current 'lull' gives me the opportunity to check out other aeronautical transmissions, for example voice on HF and VOLMET broadcasts. RAF VOLMET is on 5450kHz, and Shannon VOLMET on 5505kHz. The other HF aeronautical frequencies are easy to Google, and our columnist Nils Schiffhauer has written about HF data communications such as High-Frequency data Link (HFDL) in RadioUser, December 2019: 60-64.

Time to visit the lesser-known areas of airband listening, per chance? Not to say anything about the military airband….