A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/808779
is the new route information that gives a load prompt to the flight deck to change the current route and the free text messages are additional departure information that the pilot must manually load. At the end of the departure clearance if route i nformation has changed, the system will send the current route information in free text to the pilot for validating what has been loaded. This was an enhancement that was added in the middle of the deployment last year at the request of the pilots. The rou te information that is sent also includes associated lat/longs of the fixes in the new routing in case a fix is used more than once across the world. NAS VOICE SWITCH (NVS) Jon Shedden (ZFW) represents the NATCA membership as their Article 114 Repr esentat ive to the NVS project. His report is below. NAS Voice System (NVS) Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) Dry Run is still scheduled to begin the second week in April. FAT is now scheduled to begin the week of July 18th. Harris has begun assembling the 255 pos itions ATC Voice Node (AVN) for FAT, and is in the " scrape and load " process currently. They are also continu ing development of the formal test procedures, which will be run on the FAT system. Mr. Shedden and Christopher Lloyd (ZDC) received a formal deli very of the 75% System Configuration manual and the 75% Maintainer ' s manual. These manuals are relevant to air traffic as they contain the material that will become the Configuration Specialist manual. The Configuration Specialist role will replace the DEO in the en route world, and allow for terminal facilities to create/change their own position maps. Mr. Shedden was at the Harris test facility in Melbourne, F la., the week of March 13th, and at CFS the week of March 20th. Next Generation Air - Ground Comm unication (NEXCOM) continues deployment of new CM300/350 V2 radios to terminal facilities across the country. Deployment is going well. NAS Voice Recorder Progra m (NVRP) is the replacement for existing NAS voice recorders (DALR, DALR2, DVRS, DVR2). The Pr ogram Office presented to the JRC and received approval to proceed to Final Investment Analysis, leading up to the Final Investment Decision. Key site for NVRP will be Seattle Center in the 2018 time frame. Grand Rapids Tower/TRACON (GRR) is reporting mult iple issues with their aging voice switch. There ' s one outstanding issue where a RADAR site is causing interference in the t ower c ab. That issue continues to be worked. Potomac TRACON (PCT) is reporting a large number of tone events. The FAA sent a team o f engineers from the MMAC to their facility to try to determine the cause, and any possible resolutions. This has also caused NATCA and the FAA to take a closer look at the headsets to determine if they provide adequate protection against these events. Mee tings continue to occur regarding the FAA ' s memo for the handling of tone incidences. Mr. Shedden is participating in the rewrite of FAA Order 6510.4 (A/G Order). The last version was written in 1980. There are both new and existing requirements in the or der dictating how Air Traffic must use A/G frequencies. NATCA received a briefing from the Spectrum Office on September 27th. We have requested a SRM panel be convened to