Narrative:

We were assigned the ILS 6 circle to runway 01. Weather was VFR and quite good. We broke into the circle at or very close to dandy; the FAF; at around 1;500 MSL. While on the dogleg base I was busy doing the before landing flow and checklist; setting up the visual to 01 in the FMS; and getting a frequency change to tower. I had an extra several seconds of distraction because approach did not give me a tower frequency and I had to look it up on the chart. At some point during this period we got a 'caution; obstacle' aural alert from the GPWS and I looked at the eadi; which denoted 'obstacle' in yellow. I looked outside and I did see some tall towers we were approaching in the circle; pointed them out; though they were below us. [The first officer] adjusted heading a bit and considerably shallowed out the descent or might have even climbed. The aural warning only sounded once; maybe twice. There were other tall towers in the area and we saw and avoided those easily even though they were definitely below us. We established final and the landing was uneventful. We felt we were within the circling radius and the altitude did not drop below 1;100 ft MSL until clear of the towers. The circling minimums were 820 ft. As it turns out; dandy is not the FAF and is well beyond the circling radius; which was a miss on our part. I'm not sure exactly how close we came to the tower; or towers; but; while they were somewhat close; I did not feel unduly concerned since we had them in sight and were able to easily avoid them. We saw no notes on the approach charts restricting a circle to runway 01 and we assumed there would be no issues. [The first officer] did brief the obstacles seen on the approach plate during the approach briefing; but as mentioned; it did not appear these would be an issue. I got caught with the frequency change. I try to preload the tower frequency on my approaches; but since this time it was a circle I think I focused outside more to make sure we were setting up well and this cost me the radio set up. Had I not spent those few seconds digging for the frequency I may have seen the obstacles and pointed them out sooner. I will do better at ensuring as much is set up as early as possible so I can be a better monitor of the aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CL-605 Captain flying a circling arrival at TEB got an obstacle warning from the GPWS. Reporter stated the towers were in sight and easily avoidable.

Narrative: We were assigned the ILS 6 circle to Runway 01. Weather was VFR and quite good. We broke into the circle at or very close to DANDY; the FAF; at around 1;500 MSL. While on the dogleg base I was busy doing the before landing flow and checklist; setting up the visual to 01 in the FMS; and getting a frequency change to Tower. I had an extra several seconds of distraction because Approach did not give me a Tower frequency and I had to look it up on the chart. At some point during this period we got a 'Caution; Obstacle' aural alert from the GPWS and I looked at the EADI; which denoted 'Obstacle' in yellow. I looked outside and I did see some tall towers we were approaching in the circle; pointed them out; though they were below us. [The First Officer] adjusted heading a bit and considerably shallowed out the descent or might have even climbed. The aural warning only sounded once; maybe twice. There were other tall towers in the area and we saw and avoided those easily even though they were definitely below us. We established final and the landing was uneventful. We felt we were within the circling radius and the altitude did not drop below 1;100 FT MSL until clear of the towers. The circling minimums were 820 FT. As it turns out; DANDY is not the FAF and is well beyond the circling radius; which was a miss on our part. I'm not sure exactly how close we came to the tower; or towers; but; while they were somewhat close; I did not feel unduly concerned since we had them in sight and were able to easily avoid them. We saw no notes on the approach charts restricting a circle to Runway 01 and we assumed there would be no issues. [The First Officer] did brief the obstacles seen on the approach plate during the approach briefing; but as mentioned; it did not appear these would be an issue. I got caught with the frequency change. I try to preload the Tower frequency on my approaches; but since this time it was a circle I think I focused outside more to make sure we were setting up well and this cost me the radio set up. Had I not spent those few seconds digging for the frequency I may have seen the obstacles and pointed them out sooner. I will do better at ensuring as much is set up as early as possible so I can be a better monitor of the aircraft.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.