M03 controller described a radio failure event involving both the primary and battery back-up equipm...

Narrative:

I was not on duty at the time and I don't recall the weather conditions; but I felt this was too important to not report on; so I have pieced this together after talking to controllers on duty at the time. The evening arrival push was underway when all TRACON positions except east arrival lost their main and standby transmitters and receivers. Controllers immediately plugged into emergency jacks to battery powered transceivers; but these also failed to operate. Finally; controllers turned to several portable radios; called pet 2000s. They were able to communicate with aircraft; but a problem developed when the pet 2000s were found to bleed over each other. To operate without bleed-over; one controller would make a transmission; get a read-back; and then the next controller would do the same. The bleed-over was later attributed to 'too much electricity in the air' by FAA technicians (not sure what that means). FAA technicians also said that the batteries for the battery powered; emergency radios were dead. It seems that the batteries also played a part in keeping the mains and standbys operating when transferring from commercial power to generator and back again; and the batteries hadn't been checked recently. The FAA calls this type of back-up; 'single redundancy.' the facility; technicians and air traffic; had a meeting the next day to discuss the situation; but nothing; to my knowledge; has come of it.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: M03 controller described a radio failure event involving both the primary and battery back-up equipment requiring the use of the PET 2000 transceivers that created a bleed-over problem; reporter indicating maintenance failed to insure all back-up equipment was ready for use.

Narrative: I was not on duty at the time and I don't recall the weather conditions; but I felt this was too important to not report on; so I have pieced this together after talking to controllers on duty at the time. The evening arrival push was underway when all TRACON positions except East Arrival lost their main and standby transmitters and receivers. Controllers immediately plugged into emergency jacks to battery powered transceivers; but these also failed to operate. Finally; controllers turned to several portable radios; called PET 2000s. They were able to communicate with aircraft; but a problem developed when the PET 2000s were found to bleed over each other. To operate without bleed-over; one controller would make a transmission; get a read-back; and then the next controller would do the same. The bleed-over was later attributed to 'too much electricity in the air' by FAA technicians (not sure what that means). FAA technicians also said that the batteries for the battery powered; emergency radios were dead. It seems that the batteries also played a part in keeping the mains and standbys operating when transferring from commercial power to generator and back again; and the batteries hadn't been checked recently. The FAA calls this type of back-up; 'single redundancy.' The facility; technicians and air traffic; had a meeting the next day to discuss the situation; but nothing; to my knowledge; has come of it.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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	872975
Time
Date	201002
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	MEM.TRACON
State Reference	TN
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	No Aircraft
Person 1
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Experience	Air Traffic Control Non Radar 6.5 Air Traffic Control Radar 14.3 Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (mon) 9 Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 6
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types

M03 controller described a radio failure event involving both the primary and battery back-up equipment requiring the use of the pet 2000 transceivers that created a bleed-over problem; reporter indicating maintenance failed to insure all back-up equipment was ready for use.