Stay Vigilant and Watch For Missing Aircraft (B.C.)
https://www.bcaviation.ca/bcga-news/stay-vigilant-and-watch-for-missing-aircraft-bc
Great article put together by the B.C. General Aviation Association.
Fred Carey
About Fred Carey
Posts by Fred Carey:
Practice ELT Update
The transfer from 123.1 to 121.775 hasn’t been easy here in BC to get started. The Pointer 6000 series in the 6XXX-X serial number range requires some circuit modifications. If you received a crystal for your unit and it doesn’t work, or if you need it updated anyway, please send it to me at 6-18300 Ford Road, Pitt Meadows BC V3Y 0C6 and I will turn it around in a couple of days.
The Little Helper units are much easier to do, so you can send me those, or if we will be meeting up at anytime, I can do the mod with a Philips screwdriver in a couple of minutes.
The LL16 units do not require and modifications as it is programmable.
The Yellow Pointer 406 units now modifiable!!!
If you have any questions, just pop me an email, or give me a call.
– Fred
TMMS is here and it’s all we have to work with!
TMMS is here and it’s all we have to work with!
I like it. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect but it is already better than it was.
It sorts names alphabetically by FIRST name. That’s on the “Better Get That Fixed” list but you’re going to have to help me by providing first names in the paperwork. As a trade-off, the membership numbers are much less important in normal operations/paperwork.
We’ve lost the OSR. Part of that loss is made up by the Certified / Current Report and the Training Report but neither of them tell you what the Member needs without a bit of hassle. It’s on the BGTF list.
There’s more but not as much as you’d expect from a new program. Do you remember the problems when we got CMS? It was much worse!
I get more practice with TMMS than you do so please let me know what problems you are having. If I can’t help you, I know who can,
Keith
Keith Bennett
860 20 St SE
Salmon Arm, BC
V1E 2J8
(250)833-8012
New Expense rates with an easy to remember explaination!!
PEP Air/JRCC Mileage/Meal Rates Effective April 1, 2018
Breakfast $19.45
Lunch $19.20
Dinner $48.15
Mileage $0.515/km
PEP Tasking Rates:
Meals $15.00 per meal
Mileage $0.53/km
Training Meal Rate:
$12.00 per person per day.
For further info on rates, please refer to Provincial Policy Manual F-010 on the WEB Site or in Documents in ForeFlight.
Task Numbers dictate the amounts claimable:
Six digit Task Numbers (180199) are from EMBC.
For EMBC tasks you can claim $15.00 for every three hours on task starting after four hours and a maximum of four times per 24-hour period. Mileage is at the EMBC rate.
Training Tasks are designated by an EMBC six-digit task number followed by letters and maybe a combination of letters and numbers (180299-4-X / 180199AB / 180199C-6).
Claims for training are restricted to a maximum of $12.00 per member per day supported by receipts. Mileage is restricted to target/ELT placement at CASARA rates unless approved by the ZC.
JRCC is the only other Agency we can work for. When we work for JRCC we still need the six-digit EMBC number plus, we need the JRCC case numbers which will be 3-5 digits and may be in the format V2018-00315. In this case, the “V” indicates Victoria JRCC, the “2018” is the year, and the “00315” or “315” is the sequential number of this case in Victoria JRCC.
Reimbursement for JRCC tasks (cases) is the CASARA rate.
TMMS is ready for viewing! (CMS Replacement Software)
Hi Everyone,
The TMMS Software to replace the CMS software is finally picking up momentum. There is still a lot of work to do ( mostly in the training ) as a lot of the bugs have been resolved and the system seems almost ready for rollout. The best part is that the programmers have been able to integrate the CMS database into the new system ( no easy task ) and we should be able to keep CMS up to date until we are ready to roll over, which will give us a completely up to date system after the rollover.
One of the biggest issues I have seen is that the TMMS software is much more intuitive, and gives everyone better visibility to our inventories, certifications and training scheduling, not to mention real time mission management capabilities. This is an issue that makes the short coming of CMS quite glaring, as we can now keep track of our inventories ( which have been sorely neglected at the zone level due to access issues) and certification verifications that were not really following the National Policy Manuals.
The good definately out weighs the bad, and I suggest all members log on and take a look. If you are an admin or an area deputy or Zone Commander, you should have all access to events, members and all the admin access required to to maintain your zone certifications and planning which are a requirement of our contribution agreement with the DND.
I urge you all to log in and take a look, at :
https://tmmsqa.aareus.com/
Log in using your CMS access. If you had a user ID, use your CMS number and your password.
I will be out of the country from March 31st to April 19th. ( family holiday ) and I hope to put together some workshops upon my return, and some further online training.
Cheers!
Fred Carey
Deputy Director (BC)
PEP Air/CASARA
ELT Practice Frequency Change – National
CASARA National has been advised by DND to change the ELT practice homing frequency to 121.775. There are already some provinces using this frequency, however it has recently been approved by the Government of Canada Technology Branch (replacement for Industry Canada) for national use.
In BC we currently use 123.1 for our training ELT’s however, the reality is that this frequency is an operational SAR frequency for Snake Operations with 442 Sqn. There are two operational frequencies; Snake 1 ( 123.1 MHz ) and Snake 2 ( 135.9 MHz ). 123.1 was decided upon sometime in the 80’s as it is closer to 121.5 which left 135.9 (Snake 2 ) for tactical comms for PEP Air/CASARA aircraft normally for training tasks.
Snake 2 frequency of 135.9 is way at the top end of the aviation spectrum, and the efficiency of transmitters and antennas are least efficient at the end of the performance scale.
Aircraft antennas are normally tuned to center band around 121.5 as this is the emergency frequency, and most quarter wave antennas have a lower “Q” (wider bandwidth) but even still, by the time you get up to 135.9, you are usually outside the best performance range of the antennas, ant there is a lot of return loss… especially on the transmit side.
Moving the ELT training frequency to 121.775 came with a bit of push back stating that it’s “too close” to 121.5.
Actually it is 275 kHz away from 121.5 and an airport emergency receiver on 121.5 has a receiving bandwidth of maximum of 6 KHz. ( 3 KHz on either side of 121.5 ) which shouldn’t be an issue at all.
Just for a test, I sent a modulated ELT signal on 121.775 into a 100 watt amplifier into a gain base antenna, less than half a kilometre from the Pitt Meadows Tower, and they opened the squelch on thier emergency receiver, and heard nothing. We did some additional intermod tests to see if there were any harmonics, and nothing came through at all.
This proves that with clean setups, technically there shouldn’t be any issues, however, the unknown is the integrity of the vintage and somewhat geriatric ELT transmitters we will be updating may create problems when close to aircraft or other towers, however, the low power outputs should resolve any problems if the battery is charged and the antenna is good.
ALWAYS check with the tower that you are not interfering with anything if you are close to one, and always let JRCC know that you have one operational.
By freeing up 123.1 for use in training and operations, I believe we’ll see a much better communication performance as we’ll be operating well within the design specifications of our air radio equipment. 135.9 can then be used a the “backup” frequency, but it has always had it’s limitations in basic spectrum design.
We will be calling for all Pointer ELT’s and the Little Helper receivers to be returned to PEP Air (Zone Commanders will be advised of where to send them) for upgrading to the new frequency so we can have them all converted before the good spring weather arrives.
Fred Carey
Deputy Director (BC)