jetfuel4blood

I have a Collins HF-220 in my airplane (Lear 35) and not a clue how to use it. All of my flying experience has been in VHF coverage and everyday I go to work I have a staring contest with this mysterious box. I heard you have to click the mic so many times and then wait for a tone or something like that. Can anybody shed some light?? The 35 only goes about 4 hours on one tank of gas, so I'll probably never need it, (Bermuda maybe?) but it would still be nice to know. (And I'm too lazy to look in the book)

Thedude

Turn the HF on and go to USB if it has that kind of switch. Tune in 5.000 or 10.000 or 15.000 and click the mike and listen for the tone. The tone tells you the antena is tuning and should only run for just a few secs. If the tone continues for more than a few secs, turn the HF off and try again. Try tuning again and if it still tries to tune for more than a few secs, call MX. On the above freqs you can listen and set your GMT watch or clock by listening to the time hack.
Does your aircraft have Secal for the HF? If it does you can always call San Francisco Radio or New York Radio and request a secal check. You can find those freqs in the front of you Jepp books under communication.

Hope that made sense...tying with a nasty hangover

jetfuel4blood

No selcal but thats a big help. If you're heading out of VHF range to the controllers give you a HF freq. in the standard hand off format? After you get the tone and the HF is tuned do you just transmit as normal?

blastoff

Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't (sometimes you only get, "Contact San Francisco Radio,"...uh, thanks)...but then you can ask them for the Freq (which is sometimes wrong) and then ask that guy on the next freq for a better freq...that's been my experience, its easy once you get talking to the right dude.

ficone

In C-21's we used it when crossing the pond: CYYT <> BIKF so it _is_ possible you may use it someday

HercDriver130

Damn that makes me think of the old coffee grinder ADF's we had. HF is a wonderful thing when it works.

Rama

When you initially turn on the hf, leave the last frequency tuned and channelize it (hit the ptt sw and listen for the tone) first, then you switch to what frequency you want. Higher freq's in the day and lower at night-they are listed on the charts. You can also call Arinc on vhf for the proper freq's. The vhf in LAX is 131.95 can't remember others off the top of my head.