118-137 MHz
Airband
Air traffic control voice on the lower half, and the ACARS and VDL Mode 2 datalinks on the upper half.
The voice half is AM, which is why airband sounds the way it does, and it is transcribed here like any other voice channel. Past zoom nine the map draws airports with their air traffic frequencies, so the tower you can hear is one click from the aircraft you can see.
The data half is the more interesting half: ACARS and VDL Mode 2 carry the messages crews and airlines exchange, and WaveShark reads them across the allocation rather than on a channel you have to pick.
$ waveshark --tune 131.55 --span 2400 --messagesWhat lives here
- ACARSThe text messages crews and airlines send each other over VHF: position reports, fuel figures, technical faults and free text.
- VDL Mode 2The datalink most European traffic now uses, carrying the same airline messages as ACARS at eight times the rate.
Every band, one receiver.
The decoders do not follow the dial: everything inside the span runs all the time.
All the bands