A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/654612
o Mr. Shedden will be in Melbourne, F la. on March 29th and 30th for the NVS Training Guidance Conference. Tom Adcock (A48 Training) will also be in attendance. o NVS and ERAM began working together to ensure installation compatibility in the DSR console. There will be an NVS demo given to the ERAM CHI team the week of May 9th at the Tech Center in Atlantic City. • Next Generation Air - Ground Communication (NEXCOM) continues deployment of new CM300/350 V2 radios to terminal facilities across the country. Deployment is going well. 10 new radios are in work or are going operational in January at various sites across the NAS. • In May, Houston Center (ZHU) is set to begin testing the new RCAG replacing the ARINC ' s VHF Extended Range Network (VERN) in Cancun. The FAA successfully replaced the Key West VERN last summer. These VERNs provide long - range directional radio coverage in the Gulf of Mexico. • NAS Voice Recorder Program (NVRP) is the replacement for existing NAS voice recorders (DALR, DALR2, DVR S, DVR2). Vendor meetings occurred between November 19th and December 3rd. There was an NVRP Stakeholder meeting on January 21st discussion requirements and information from the vendor RFIs (Request For Information). We will continue to work on refining re qu irements for the new recorder. • The Headset contract (Plantronics) is expiring in June of 2016. The FAA program office is currently in the vendor selection process and expected to announce the selected vendor in the spring 2016 time frame. There will like ly be changes to the availability of existing headset models regardless of the vendor selected, although the most popula r models will remain unchanged. • Grand Rapids Tower/TRACON (GRR) is reporting multiple issues with their aging voice switch. The Voice Sw itching Team in Oklahoma City (AJW - 173) is working closely with GRR to resolve their issues. There ' s also a radio coverage/spectrum issue being worked, as well as an issue with Tech Ops staffing and training. There are now additional issues, mostly environ mental, keeping ATC and Tech Ops out of the TRACON delaying wor k on the communications issues. • Waterloo Tower/TRACON (ALO) is reporting issues with the phone system used operationally in the tower. One of the issues has been resolved (inaudible phone) whil e the second one remains in work. NEXTGEN: Kevin McLaughlin (SCT) is the NATCA Na tional NextGen Representative. Mr. McLaughlin's update to the membership is below. • There is often a great degree of overlap between the programs that fall under the NextGen Rep and the programs under the responsibility of other Re ps such as the PMO for example. o Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is one of those programs. The CDM Charter document describes Collaborative Decision Making as " a joint government/industry initiati ve aimed at improving air traffic flow management through increased information exchange among a viation community stakeholders." o CDM is comprised of representatives from government, general aviation, airlines, private industry and academia who work togethe r to create