A center controller reported losing radio contact with numerous aircraft during a busy period in an ...

Narrative:

Our frequency has been well documented that we have a hard time communicating with aircraft at lower altitudes in the sector. This affects approximately 3 or 4 airports in this sector. Normally this sector is combined with another sector and we have fewer problems since we can change aircraft over to the other sector frequency. This event is from [a recent time of high] activity in the area. An airport in the sector was split because of the volume of traffic; we had to split off the sector by itself. This left me with few options in talking to aircraft during a tremendous amount of inbound traffic that were either on IFR flight plans or on VFR flight following to this airport. It is my understanding that a new antenna is supposed to be installed that would fix this issue but still has not been done. This issue on the frequency caused a very unsafe operation in this airspace. I think at one point I had 6 or 7 inbounds that all of the aircraft could not hear my transmissions. Just get the frequency fixed as soon as possible; we have been waiting on this and it could have helped us a lot if the frequency was in working order prior to the amount of traffic coming into the terminal area.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Center Controller reported losing radio contact with numerous aircraft during a busy period in an area with known poor radio coverage that has not been fixed.

Narrative: Our frequency has been well documented that we have a hard time communicating with aircraft at lower altitudes in the sector. This affects approximately 3 or 4 airports in this sector. Normally this sector is combined with another sector and we have fewer problems since we can change aircraft over to the other sector frequency. This event is from [a recent time of high] activity in the area. An airport in the Sector was split because of the volume of traffic; we had to split off the sector by itself. This left me with few options in talking to aircraft during a tremendous amount of inbound traffic that were either on IFR flight plans or on VFR Flight Following to this airport. It is my understanding that a new antenna is supposed to be installed that would fix this issue but still has not been done. This issue on the frequency caused a very unsafe operation in this airspace. I think at one point I had 6 or 7 inbounds that all of the aircraft could not hear my transmissions. Just get the frequency fixed as soon as possible; we have been waiting on this and it could have helped us a lot if the frequency was in working order prior to the amount of traffic coming into the terminal Area.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.

Attributes
ACN	1475489
Time
Date	201708
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZME.ARTCC
State Reference	TN
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Any Unknown or Unlisted Aircraft Manufacturer
Flight Phase	Other all
Person 1
Function	Enroute
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Experience	Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 6.0
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown

A center controller reported losing radio contact with numerous aircraft during a busy period in an area with known poor radio coverage that has not been fixed.