The Complete HF / VHF / UHF Aviation Frequency Directory Published by Photavia Press
Peter who used to work for Air Traffic Control was the author of Airwaves and his wife was involved in paying the bills and posting out the orders. I recently made contact with his wife who informed me that Photavia Press ceased trading in 2015 when Peter became ill and could not continue. Sadly Peter died in 2016.
The first edition was published in April 1994 and this was included in the introduction : The author of this publication has worked in civil and military aviation for well over 20 years. He first became interested in airband monitoring in 1967, and produced his first typed VHF frequency listing in 1970. This document was expanded to include UHF and HF frequencies by 1973. In 1982, he produced what is believed to be the first computer generated frequency list in the UK, and has continued to produce these lists annually since then. In September 1993 a decision was made to turn these databases into a book, and “AIRWAVES 94” is the result.
In 1998 there was a section called ‘AIRWAVES – A Brief History’ – 1998, represents a significant milestone in the history of AIRWAVES as it will be its Silver Anniversary. Originally compiled during the latter part of 1973, the first edition of AIRWAVES was published 24 years ago in 1974. Although this is only the fifth edition as a published book, the first AIRWAVES appeared in April 1974 as an annual private circulation magazine. The first edition was very basic, typed initially onto stencils and then hand printed on a roller. It ran to only ten A4 pages and listed around 350 VHF frequencies. (How ever did we manage without computers ?). Just 28 people subscribed to the first edition and amazingly 5 of them still buy AIRWAVES from us 25 years later. HF frequencies were added to the text in 1976 and UHF frequencies in 1977. Although included in our records, the UHF frequencies did not appear in the printed version until 1983 when the first UHF capable radio was launched. AIRWAVES continued to expand and by the late eighties it was over 60 pages with the frequencies presented in the two formats used today. The addition of UHF frequencies expanded our number of private subscribers to over 120 and by the early nineties was well over 400. The records were first computerised in 1978 using a borrowed Tandy TRS-80 computer, built in the USA. Around 1982, they were then transferred onto a Commodore 64, using a Superbase database. We then moved onto an Apricot and then a variety of IBM compatible PC’s, the current AIRWAVES was produced on a Pentium using Word 97, Pageplus 5 and the databases Paradox 7 and Access 95.
In Airwaves 2000 it was noted that a Web Page was created – www.photav.demon.co.uk
Taken from the 2015 edition – ‘Airwaves and Callsign 2014 was published as the first combined volume of the two books. As this was an experiment, it was much smaller, ‘limited edition’ print run, which was about 60% of normal. We are pleased to say that the first combined volume was received very well and sold out in 5 months. So after 20 years of producing our two books Airwaves and Callsign, this is the second edition, produced as a combined volume’
Please contact me if you have any further information. I would be especially interested to acquire the Airwaves listings that were produced prior to 1994. Do you have copies?