RESULTS OF SIMULATION EXPERIMENTS DESIGNED TO SHOW THE EFFECT OF TONE BURST DISTURBANCE UPON AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL AIR/GROUND COMMUNICATIONS

Results of simulation of sectors in the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC), New York Common IFR (instrument flight rules) Room, and terminals within the New York control area are described. The simulation experiments were designed to show the effect of a proposed Federal Communication Commission (FCC) regulation concerning tone burst identification of privately owned transmitters on air traffic control (ATC) air/ground voice communications. The results are presented in 180 pages of output data showing the effect of tone burst duration on communications delay and channel utilization over both long (2-hour) and short (1-minute) term time durations for nine distinct sector types. The unmistakable conclusion is that implementation of the proposed regulation will adversely affect air/ground communications unless some way is found to prevent tone burst identification procedures from extending the duration of pilot-initiated transmissions. For example, observed percentage increases in average channel utilization, i.e., the fraction of a 2-hour period during which the air/ground channel is busy, ranged from 11 to 18 percent when the tone burst length was set at 0.5 second. At tone burst durations of 1.5 seconds, the observed range was 35 to 54 percent.

• Corporate Authors:

  National Aviation Facilities Experimental Center

  Federal Aviation Administration
  Atlantic City, NJ  United States  08405
• Authors:
  • MULHOLLAND, R G
• Publication Date: 1976-2

Media Info

• Pagination: 42 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air traffic control; Air traffic control facilities; Enroute traffic control; Instrument flying; Interference; Radio transmitters; Regulations; Signaling; Simulation; Speech; Time; Voice communication
• Old TRIS Terms: Air to surface; Air traffic control terminal; Burst transmission; Channels; Disturbances; Tone signalling
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Law; Operations and Traffic Management; Terminals and Facilities;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00094534
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Technical Information Service
• Report/Paper Numbers: FAA-RD-75-187 Final Rpt., FAA-NA-75-44
• Files: NTIS, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: May 14 1976 12:00AM