Many of our Minnesota airport managers are experienced and able to correct problems in-house.Īirport managers who run into tricky outage scenarios are welcome to reach out to MnDOT's NavAids group for additional troubleshooting assistance. For that reason, it's best if pilots report any potential problems directly to the airport's manager. But, the best testing procedure is done from the air at a longer range. When MnDOT's NavAids team performs maintenance checks of the PCL radio receiver, we can use our handheld equipment to test the functionality of the system. We are asking pilots to take notice of any abnormalities and pass them along to the airport manager. Have you flown into one of Minnesota's airports and had very inconsistent results when keying up the airport lighting systems? Or, have you tried to switch the intensity of the lights, and it seems to take more clicks of the radio than it should? This is a problem that should be addressed as soon as possible, to restore the system to its intended parameters. Do not click too fast though! The radio controller needs a slight window between clicks to interpret the input as a pulse. If you are flying at night and need to decrease the intensity, simply click the appropriate number of times for the desired intensity and the lighting system will adjust. Five clicks activates medium airfield light intensity, and seven clicks brings up high intensity. If you tap three times within a five second duration, the lights should turn on at low intensity. A click is made by simply tapping the microphone's transmit button on an air-band radio transmitter, and then releasing it right away. The radio receiver that controls the PCL system at each airport is constantly monitoring the radio traffic on the local airport radio frequency and is watching for clicks. The Pilot Controlled Lighting system puts the power into the pilot's hands – to control the airport lighting system on the ground, from the aircraft. The average citizen may think that the pilot "calls" down with their radio to somebody at the tower or A/D building and instructs them to "turn on the lights." Of course, in the aero world we know this is not the case because most airports don't have staff present around the clock. Most folks who are not involved with aviation wouldn't know that a radio pulse sequence is used to "key-up" the runway lighting system, as the pilot is on approach.
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