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| The Shanwick receive antenna array at Ballygirreen, Shannon, Co. Clare, Ireland, not far from the Atlantic. |
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| Antenna at Ballygirreen, Co. Clare, part of the Shanwick receive aerial array. |
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| On a miserable wet Irish day it was hard to know whether to leave the colour in the images or not. |
You can have a better look at the Ballygirreen antenna system using Google Maps Street View below:
View Larger Map
You can explore the Ballygirreen antennas on Google Maps at this link.
For those of you who listen to Shanwick radio, you might be interested to learn that there is a plan for increased use of HF, and indeed for the provision of additional HF frequencies in 2011. This is from the Irish Aviation Authority website:
Shanwick Radio keeps in contact with all flights in Oceanic Airspace mainly by means of High Frequency Radio (HF), but also uses VHF (Very High Frequency) and Satellite Phone (SATPHONE). HF can provide global coverage because of its ability to bounce off the ionosphere and can span the globe in a series of skips. VHF coverage, on the other hand, is limited to line-of-sight range. Shanwick Radio uses over 20 HF frequency channels and 2 VHF. At peak times it handles in excess of 1400 aircraft in a 24 hour period. In 2008, the station handled in excess of 1 million messages from 422,086 aircraft. To cater for the growth in HF frequency activity it is planned to introduce additional frequencies during 2011. Read more here.
Hello Anthony and Ann, very nice photo's from this famous station. Enjoyed it. 73, Bas
ReplyDeleteBas, thanks a million. I've forgotten how much I loved listening to Shanwick. I have a receiver set up in the shack here currently listening to 8.906.
ReplyDeleteI concur with Bas...nice photo's and getting back to listening to 8 mhz and other bands reminds me of how I got into ham radio....
ReplyDeleteMike, indeed since I got married (13 years ago this Monday coming) I have had a HF receiver in the house. I remember passing many hours, especially late at night, listening to various aeronautical HF conversations between pilots and controllers in Shanwick and New York and Santa Maria and Gander and even further afield.
ReplyDeleteJust to make a correction:
ReplyDeleteWE ARE RADIO OFFICERS/OPERATORS, not controllers, in Shanwick, New York, Gander and Santa Maria.
I work at Santa Maria, so I know it for sure :DD