A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/681981
radar feed. CTD First Article shipment to WJHTC was completed on February 19. This system will be used f or onsite DTE and OTE testing. Initial DTE testing was halted due to poor pe rformance of the system. The contractor has re - ev aluated and is currently re - assessing parameter changes to provide a better performing system. Evaluations will occur the week of May 18 and if the system is still performing poorly, then the primary contractor will deploy their engineers from Belg ium to r e - optimize the system. The two keysites for the CTD are Roc kford (RFD) and Roanoke (ROA). As the first keysite, RFD will also be utilized for additional "delta OTE" testing and AT User Evaluations including side - by - side comparison of the analog ASR - 8 feedi ng the ARTS2e with the CTD - digitized ASR - 8 feeding the TAMR system, this currently targ eted for October of this year. These activities are now at risk due to the cur rent state of the test system. • Radar Performance Issues: o Centennial, CO Tower (APA) - The false tag ups at APA are due to false beacon targets that are coming from the Parker (QPK) long range radar site. CARTS previously masked out these false targets in the past, whereas STARS has a higher s tandard for radar performance. Attempt s made by OSF a nd TSLE personnel to mask these false targets via STARS adaptation have helped but is not completely successful. There are limits and without a STARS software fix these false targets coming from QPK will continue to clutter the displays unless some optimiz ation is done at the QPK radar site. The QPK radar work effort has started but has taken awhile to get going mainly due to the Center's Tech Ops management's resistance to any changes to the QPK radar. A change to the radar's STC has been proposed and a n e valuation test will occur May 19. o Miami, FL (MIA) - The radar will occasionally reconfigure into IBI mode due to an overload caused by mis - wired aircraft taxiing close to the radar. While the best solution would be to ensure that all aircraft were fixed wi th regard to the mis - wiring condition (an unrealistic short term approach), analysis uncovered that the second best way to attack this issue was at the source - i.e. eliminate the overload condition by ceasing these aircraft from replying w hile taxiing nea r the antenna. Discussions between various stakeholders led to the conclusion that the removal of the Terra Fix at this radar would be the quickest and most effective solution. An SRM panel was held May 5th to accommodate this request. Implementatio n will occur after the SRDM has been approved. o Elmira, NY (ELM) - A tower raise is a necessity at this facility. Tree growth has been an ongoing issue at the radar site where coverage has suffered due to the foliage blocking radar line of sight. There have been several engineering studies that address the requirement for a tower raise. The issue, as it has been for years now, is the funding for such and the previous lack of priorit ization of an ELM tower raise. Setting aside the entire safety aspect o f these existing coverage problems due to the tree growth, another impac t would be to TAMR deploy ment. The ELM radar would not pass the STARS performance requirements to certify the system to be used into STARS without coverage improvements. Funding for the tower raise has now been approved and the time frame for the new, higher radar tower, optimization , and flight check is currently