information zulu current

You get the current weather from the ATIS recording (Automatic Terminal Information Service). It is an audio recording by the control tower on it's own communication frequency, specific for each airport that has it. This frequency is annotated in the airport communication information, map mode and also within the GPS communication pages. Most large and medium size airports have it. You would get the weather from the tower at airports that don't have ATIS. The ATIS changes every hour (or when there is a significant change) and is prefixed by a new phonetic alphabet (Alfa, Bravo, Charlie). 🙂

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Terminal_Information_Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nato_phonetic_alphabet

This is probably a stupid question but what does "WINDS 240 at 9" mean

It means the winds speed is 9 knots coming from 240 degrees (magnetic) i.e. around South Easterly direction 😉

SouthWesterly 😉

PH wrote:

SouthWesterly 😉

Thanks 🍻

crjcaptain i understand that in the real world you use the airport ATIS to get the current weather by tuning it into your radios. I am referring to when you fly online using squawk box. I have tried entering the atis frequency when flying online but i get nothing. I was informed one time by a controller to pull up the controller info and it should give you weather but it doesn't and often time the controllers have no info

I have found that at low levels (under 10,000 feet AGL), you cannot recieve ATIS much more than 30-35 miles from the airport in SIM. That is unlike the real world where it is often available up to 100 miles out, assuming no major mountains are in the way to obstruct radio transmissions.

ATIS also provides more than current weather. At a minimum, it will contain information on which runways are being used for take offs and landings and for instrument approaches. If necessary, it will also contain any warnings about problems in the airport environment (closed runways or taxiways, construction activity close to the runway, etc.).

so what your saying don is that i should be able to receive atis information even when signed in using squawk box and flying online by tuning to the atis frequency!! Well i will try this and see if i can get it to work

okay well i just tried sitting on the ground at O'Hare with a chicago center, chicago approach, ohare tower and ohare ground on and i entered the atis frequency into my comm1 radio of 135.4 which is the atis for ohare and i get nothing!!!! Am i missing something???

This might be of interest to some people:

fcpoker,

Is this of any use?

http://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?t=9620&highlight=atis&sid=031146ef0814d00959667b2cd26c5a01

Heres a list of posts related to ATIS which you might find your answer in - I had a quick look but don't have time to go through them all

EDIT: The bottom link isn't working properly for some reason - just type ATIS into the box at the top right 😉

Fcpoker: I don't have squawk box. The frequency for KORD is correct and I have verified that the ATIS does work in Flight Simulator. Make sure that after you enter the frequency in the standby position that you transfer it to the active position. I was able to receive the ATIS 85+ miles from KORD at altitudes 3000-10000 feet, not limits but only what I tried. 🙂

fcpoker: Actially, I wasn't saying anything about ATIS using squakbox and online. I was only commenting that ATIS in FS appears to have some distance limitatioms that do not exist in the real world. I don't use either squakbox or online so I can't comment on that.

Assuming for a moment that is not the problem, another problem might be that you do not have the audio panel set correctly to hear the radio you have set the ATIS frequency in. It could also be some sort of a file corruption issue that may be solved by deinstalling and reinstalling Sim.

thanks 99jolegg,

i read through a few of those links you sent and it seems that i am not the only one having this problem. its seems that there is a bug in either squawk box or the servers. thanks again everyone for the help. at least i know now that its not just me that is having the problem