"Neil" wrote in message
...
I've always been a keen aircraft enthusiast, but have only just got my
first
scanner (PSR282 from Maplin) for Xmas, having had my interest re-awakened
by
watching the final Concorde museum flights.

In the first week or two I've picked up various overhead airband
transmissions from home in southern England, but had begun to question if
it
was going to fulfill my expectations. That was until yesterday when I
spent a *great* few hours listening to and watching arrivals and
departures
at Heathrow, from what appeared to be common vantage points with others.

I could work out the general order of frequencies that arriving and
departing planes used, and have a database found on the web of
country-wide
frequencies, but would appreciate some thoughts/help on a few aspects....

1) is there anyway that you can "link" the call-signs that planes have,
with other details about them - eg. registration; destinations etc?
Thus
"Speedbird 16" or "Shamrock 21" were a little meaningless to me, except
clearly describing the carrier. Are these flight numbers as per
timetables - i.e. BA016 etc?

2) is there a list somewhere of the call-signs for each carrier, as some
seemed a bit obscure, as did the markings on some less common airlines
from
abroad.

3) can anyone recommend a good book to read as a starter? Not
necessarily
for frequencies, but more in explanation of navigation, air traffic
control
handling; where named beacons are geographically etc? i.e. anything to
help
me understand a little more about it all.

4) the Heathrow Visitor Centre advised me that the old Observation deck
at
Queens Building is now closed. That's sad. I can imagine this for
security reasons, though don't quite understand what the issue with
security
could be there that wouldn't be far worse elsewhere? Is there
anywhere else apart from the HVC or the runway ends/sides that makes a
good
vantage point at Heathrow? Or in fact, where is the best airport in the
"South" for GOOD viewing of fairly frequent takeoffs/landings?

cheers
Neil.
UK

Two books I can personally recomend , having bought them my self .

Flight Routings by T T and S J Williams
comes out every year gives you the airline flights within the
U.K , so if you say hear speedbird 16 calling London
Air Traffic then you will know its the a Sydney Heathrow
and theres pages and pages of different companys flight details.

Air Band Radio by David J Smith
is a very informative book gives frequencies and and call signs of most of
the worlds different airlines , and different
articles in the book are very interesting.different beacons and interesting
articles on the air traffic control set up illustrated with diagrams to
explain it better .

There is also a book dont know if its still published
called High In The Sky , which was also very helpful for registration, type
of aircraft selcal etc

but the first two I mention are very good
cost about 20 quid for the two but if you can afford them well worth it

No I am not a rep to sell scanner books just an old enthusiast