ATIS in terminal airspace with one radio

[Posthumane]

Good day,

Most of my private flying has been in not very busy airspace, usually in class G and E with the occasional visit to someplace like Calgary/Springbank class C. And while much of my non-private flying has been in class B/C/D airspace, it's in more complex aircraft with 2, 3, sometimes 4 radios. Now I find myself sometimes flying around Victoria and the lower mainland with only a single radio which doesn't have the capability to listen on the standby frequency, and I'd like to get your thoughts on getting ATIS when flying in terminal airspace.

So, let's say I'm flying from Victoria to Abbotsford. No problem getting ATIS at YYJ, then clearance del, Gnd, Twr, and Tml through handoffs. Coming in to YXX though, I get handed off from Tml to Twr just before entering the control zone. What's the best way to get ATIS before this happens?
a) Tell terminal you need to go off their means to get ATIS before you get there. The annoying thing about this is the terminal frequency can be busy sometimes and you're adding extra verbiage when going off and coming back on their freq.
b) After the handoff from terminal to tower, take a minute to listen to ATIS before calling tower. The issue with this is sometimes the handoff can be right at the edge of the zone and the ATIS messages are sometimes lengthy.
c) Don't bother with ATIS and just get the winds and altimeter from tower. They'll give them to you anyway, but sometimes there is other useful info in the ATIS broadcast (like which tower frequency is in use).

What is your preferred method? Something I didn't mention? I know the obvious solution is get a second radio, but that has obvious financial drawbacks. I thought about patching in my handheld radio to the intercom, that might work. I've also recently discovered you can get ATIS over the phone, but that only works on the ground since I can't patch my phone into my headset right now.

[CpnCrunch]

Phone 877-517-2847 and you can get ATIS for YVR, YXX, YNJ, YYJ, YCD, ZBB.

[Posthumane]

Thanks CpnCrunch. As I said, I did recently discover this (probably from one of your previous posts). This would work great for a short flight, though I'm still curious about procedure where you can't call by phone, either because the flight crossed the hour mark or because there is no phone ATIS for that airport.

[photofly]

What answer are you looking to hear?

If it helps, you are hereby granted our permission to be that douchebag pilot that insists on flying in busy airspace without the equipment to do so most conveniently for your fellow pilots. Feel free to tie up the frequency or not get the ATIS, to suit your wallet. You are forgiven.

Now go in peace.

[Posthumane]

I was looking to hear how other pilots deal with the situation of having only one radio. I'm sure my aircraft is not the only one in Canada with a single radio. In fact, I've rented a few over the years that only had one radio. So while I do have the option to spend some money to alleviate the issue and will likely do so in due time, not everybody has that option. Are you implying that having 2 comm radios is an unstated requirement for flying VFR in populated areas? Or do you simply not have anything constructive to add but felt you had to get more posts in today?

[CpnCrunch]

Thanks CpnCrunch. As I said, I did recently discover this (probably from one of your previous posts). This would work great for a short flight, though I'm still curious about procedure where you can't call by phone, either because the flight crossed the hour mark or because there is no phone ATIS for that airport.

Sorry, I missed that. A while ago I was at zbb and just realised I'd forgotten to get a code after starting the engine. My buddy phoned Kamloops with the engine running and his phone next to his ear, and it seemed to work fine (no bluetooth). Not really ideal if you still have to listen to ATC on the radio at the same time, but it might sorta work.

[digits_]

The proper solution is likely to ask ATC to leave the frequency for a few minutes to get the ATIS. That should likely work in a small plane, as the distance you are covering in 5 minutes is not much.

Or get it while you are switching frequencies, but keep switching back and forth (once per second for example), so you can check if you missed an atc call. It's surprising how little you need to hear from the ATIS to be useful. Not a very professional solution, but if you don't want to tie up ATC with extra requests, that could help.

Have you considered a cheap portable radio for ATIS purposes?

[Posthumane]

I do have a portable radio, which is what I was talking about when I said I thought about patching it into the intercom. I suppose for receiving only I could just feed the audio into my mic to hear it through the headset side tone. I might try doing the same thing with the telephone ATIS to see if I could hear it. Cheers guys.

[photofly]

I was looking to hear how other pilots deal with the situation of having only one radio.

Other pilots ask to go off frequency, or get a second radio. What do you think they do?

[5x5]

Maybe photofly was a bit terse, however the essence of what he said is pretty much true. You do have the right to fly any aircraft with any radio configuration in pretty much any airspace you want. But having the right doesn't necessarily mean that it's prudent to exercise it. Since you're asking the question you apparently already feel somewhat uncomfortable which degrades the overall level of safety and you also seem to know how to solve the problem.

Flying isn't cheap and operating in busy airspace with un under-equipped aircraft simply to save money may not be the wisest decision you could make.

[Blowin' In The Wind]

I assume your radio doesn’t have a monitor function? If not, perhaps consider selling that radio for one that does, then you can monitor the reserve frequency, ie ATIS, without the risk of missing pertinent communications.

[Blowin' In The Wind]

I assume your radio doesn’t have a monitor function? If not, perhaps consider selling that radio for one that does, then you can monitor the reserve frequency, ie ATIS, without the risk of missing pertinent communications.

Never mind… re-read your first post and you literally address this in the first paragraph. My bad!

[Posthumane]

Oh I'm not disagreeing that having a second/better radio is the obvious solution, I even said so at the outset. A radio upgrade is on my list, but it competes with other upgrades which also increase safety an effectiveness. For the last decade it simply hasn't been an issue on account of where I've lived and has lost out to other upgrades like an attitude indicator and transponder upgrade, but has now become an issue because of a relocation. There are interim solutions though, and techniques to deal with this on an occasional basis such as the three I mentioned, and I was wondering what people's preferred techniques are.

If someone gets a nail in their tire and asks how to put on a spare until they get the original repaired, a response like "Get a new tire, you douchebag!" is not particularly helpful.

[lownslow]

If it’s VFR what do you really need from the ATIS at a controlled airport? They’ll usually give you the altimeter on initial contact, you can see the sky condition, and ask for a wind check if needed. NOTAMs are unlikely to have changed significantly since you took off and if they have it’s not like ATC is going to clear you to land on a closed runway just to see what you do. Obviously do a good read of your METARs, TAFs, and NOTAMs before you depart so that any changes you hear are just minor modifiers to what you already knew was going on.

[photofly]

I assume your radio doesn’t have a monitor function? If not, perhaps consider selling that radio for one that does, then you can monitor the reserve frequency, ie ATIS, without the risk of missing pertinent communications.

You would want to "monitor" the ATC frequency and "listen to" the ATIS, in order for the ATC frequency to break through the ATIS when there's a communication. If you "monitor" the ATIS, because it's transmitting 100% of the time, the radio will demodulate that frequency by preference, all of the time.

Regardless, it's not worth the bother. If the ATC frequency is so busy (is it, really now?) that asking to go off frequency to pick up the ATIS is a trouble then even if you set up the monitoring frequency as I suggested, you'll never get to listen to enough of the ATIS to make sense.

Suck it up and buy a second radio, or, as suggested, skip the ATIS.

[kevenv]

For IFR a/c we sometimes see them take 2-3 mins to check in on terminal frequency after the electronic handoff from the en route people. I always assumed it was because they were getting the ATIS before calling me. No biggie as if there was an issue it would be fixed before you were switched.

[AirFrame]

Having flown in the lower mainland for the last 30 years, a single radio is adequate for flying into any airport short of maybe Vancouver International. For the route mentioned, YYJ to YXX, you'll be handed off to YXX long before you get to their zone. If not, ask for an earlier descent, and drop below 2500' near the shoreline. Terminal will set you free, and that will give you time to listen to the ATIS before calling YXX.

Plan a dead zone in your route where you don't have to be talking to someone. Even flying YYJ to YNJ, after leaving YXX I have time to get the YNJ ATIS before calling them or encroaching on their zone... I'm in uncontrolled space long enough.

[Posthumane]

For IFR a/c we sometimes see them take 2-3 mins to check in on terminal frequency after the electronic handoff from the en route people. I always assumed it was because they were getting the ATIS before calling me. No biggie as if there was an issue it would be fixed before you were switched.

Interesting, thanks. It's always nice to get the viewpoint from the other side of the transmission.

Having flown in the lower mainland for the last 30 years, a single radio is adequate for flying into any airport short of maybe Vancouver International. For the route mentioned, YYJ to YXX, you'll be handed off to YXX long before you get to their zone. If not, ask for an earlier descent, and drop below 2500' near the shoreline. Terminal will set you free, and that will give you time to listen to the ATIS before calling YXX.

Plan a dead zone in your route where you don't have to be talking to someone. Even flying YYJ to YNJ, after leaving YXX I have time to get the YNJ ATIS before calling them or encroaching on their zone... I'm in uncontrolled space long enough.

Good info, thanks. So far my only experience over the mainland was when I moved my plane to YYJ from AB, and I stayed at 8500 until the straight. Vancouver Centre was surprisingly quiet, but once handed off to Vic Tml it was pretty rapid fire. I think it was just a busy period though, an hour later it was pretty calm again. Now that I'm your neighbour in Sidney, I might just have to hit you up for some more local knowledge.

[praveen4143]

I once used a handheld radio to tune into the ATIS and placed the radio’s speaker against my headset’s microphone so that my student and I could both hear the ATIS over the intercom while still monitoring the TMNL/TWR frequency while “bar-hopping” YXX, YNJ and YPK.

[triplebarrel]

Get atis before terminal in uncontrolled

Then you call terminal with your intentions and say you have info whatever at wherever

[pelmet]

I have had this situation a few times. What I have tended to do is get the ATIS in pieces. When the controller starts talking to someone else, I press the appropriate switch to listen to the ATIS for a few seconds. Then I go back to the primary frequency. Then when the controller starts talking to someone else again, I do the same. If it is a long ATIS and I hear that I am at a portion that I already know, I go back to ATC and wait for a bit.

After a while, I have the information. I am more likely to do this just after having gotten an instruction from ATC as it is less likely that they will be calling me again very soon. Sounds strange and cumbersome, but on a busy frequency, I likely won't be making a transmission to tell the controller that I am leaving the frequency.

Another good time to do some ATIS listening may be when given a new frequency to contact ATC.