A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/645606
corrected the offset. C90 evaluation validated that the radar fix worked and put out a change notice - effective 2/19/16 using the ORN as the primary feed for single sensor FMA/ PRM procedures. Now that that is taken care of, implementation of the terra fix removal at OR9 and DPA can finally commence. o Common Terminal Digitizer (CTD) Testing: The CTD is an integral part of the back end of the TAMR Segment 2 waterfall to digitize th e remaining ASR - 8 radars, as a STARS system only accepts a digital radar feed. In - plant DTE testing of the CTD system began at the Telephonics facility on January 20 and completed February 5 with the post tes t review completed February 11. Regression to be compet ed in two parts at Telephonics: Event A scheduled for February 29 (Sunhillo build) and Event B pl anned for March 15 (IE build). CTD First Article shipment to WJHTC was scheduled for February 19, installation and checkout will begin the follow ing wee k. This system will be used f or onsite DTE and OTE testing. These efforts should officially commence mid April. The two keysites for the CTD are Roc kford (RFD) and Roanoke (ROA). As the first keysite, RFD will also be utilized for some additional "delta OT E" testing and AT User Evaluations including side - by - side comparison of the analog ASR - 8 feeding the ARTS2e with the CTD - digitized AS* - 8 feeding the TAMR system. o Radar Accuracy at SCT: One of the main residual issues at SCT is poor tracking performance due to inaccurate r adar reports in certain areas. However, the outlier radar reports are due to the surrounding environment and are not a maintenanc e or radar optimization issue. While the radars are displaying very good accuracy overall, some are displaying inaccurate target reports in very specific localized areas. These localized areas correlate to a structure (trees, towers, hotels, office buildings, etc) in the path from the radar to the aircraft. The obstacles are corrupting the aircraft returns thus cau sing the positional inaccuracies of all aircraft at and below the elevation angle impacted by the tops of the buildings. A radar analysis tool was modified to help identify these precise areas automatically. Several sample days of radar data was "crunched " using this tool and the results were handed over to TSLE so that the data could be leveraged with the R3A Drop 5 software release to make better tracker decisions and/or eliminate the "bad areas" from these radars into the tracker. The 72 - hour test run at SCT occurred ov er the weekend of February 19. Additionally developed a presentation for SBS A48WG regarding the environmental struggles of the LAX radars (i.e. poor locations) and the performance impacts due to those struggles. o ERAM Surveillance Analysis: Investigating the reactions of the different radars and radar configurations when an aircraft changes codes yet the Mode S (and/or ATCBI - 6) do not receive the proper response from the aircraft to detect the code change - the flight status bit was not set in the transponder replies. ERAM (Lockheed) has provided examples and analysis has started to validate the examples and also quantify the different reports that will come from the different radar co nfigurations when this occurs. This information should pro ve helpful in the eventual ERAM software fix. o CTD ASR8 Performance Analysis/"Health" Assessment: There are significant issues with some of the ASR - 8 facilities that are cause for