A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/999359
The NEXCOM program office has kicked off the Emergency Transceiver Replacement. This program is looking to replace aging tunable transceivers at DEN, HNL, PCT, PHX, SCT, and SLC. There is a Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) scheduled in Denver the week of August 6th. NAS Voice Recorder Program (NVRP) is the replacement for existing NAS voice recorders (DALR, DALR2, DVRS, DVR2). The Program Office presented to the JRC and received approval to proceed to Final Investment Analysis, leading up to the Final Investment Decision. NVRP Operational Capability Demonstrations are schedule in Oklahoma City July 10th- 11th. Grand Rapids Tower/TRACON (GRR) is reporting multiple issues with their aging voice switch. There's one outstanding issue where a RADAR site is causing interference in the tower cab. That issue continues to be worked. The Tone Mitigation National Workgroup met in September 2017 to discuss potential mitigations to the number and severity of tone/noise events across the NAS. This workgroup kicked off largely because of the number of tone/noise events occurring at PCT. One of the outcomes from these meetings was exploring the use of new headset bases which incorporate an active limiter. Mr. Shedden traveled to Potomac Consolidated TRACON the week of June 18th to kickoff the evaluation of the new headset bases. After briefings, a Safety Risk Management Panel, and a controlled familiarization, six controllers will begin evaluating the new bases the week of June 25th. D10/DFW is currently working with the IVSR program office to resolve the outstanding issues preventing cut over of their new voice switch. The FAA will be conducting Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) to Internet Protocol (IP) conversion in the Bangor, Maine, area in the coming months. This technology will assist the FAA as local telcon providers move away from legacy TDM services to IP services. SURVEILLANCE BROADCAST SERVICES (SBS) OFFICE Eric Labardini (ZHU) is the Article 114 Representative to the SBS Office. Below is the update for SBS. The NATCA Surveillance and Broadcast Services (SBS) team includes: Eric Labardini (ZHU), National SBS Article 114 Rep, Craig Bielek (A90), Dan Hamilton (SFO), National Airport Surface Surveillance Capability (ASSC) Rep, Andrew Stachowiak (I90), Tom Zarick (ZDV), National Interval Management Rep, and Chris Aymond (MSY), National Terminal Interval Management Rep. ADS-B: As of June 1, 2018, the number of Rule Compliant ADS-B Out aircraft in the US reached 50,763. ADS-B In equipped aircraft reached 42,696. The growth in aircraft equipage has been significant, and some areas of the NAS are seeing high percentages of air traffic