Chinelo Obogo
The Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has installed a Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) at the Jos airport in line with its promise to eliminate blind spots in the nation’s airspace.
A VSAT is a two-way ground station that transmits and receives data from satellites and with the installation which was completed a week ago, the agency has successfully integrated the VHF radio into the network in that sector.
Speaking on this development, the Managing Director of NAMA, Capt. Fola Akinkuotu, said this new installation had improved the upper airways radio communication in the North East sector.
He expressed optimism that the challenge of radio blind spots in some parts of the nation’s upper airspace would soon be history as the ongoing deployment of VSAT network and VHF radio systems embarked upon by the agency was yielding positive results.
He noted that the Jos – Obudu corridor which had experienced radio blind spots over time had to be tackled because of the intense traffic on that axis, even as he commended NAMA engineers for addressing the problem with the installation of the new VSAT terminal.
Akinkuotu said under the ongoing AIS Automation project, the installation of VSAT stations had been completed in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, NAMA headquarters and Jos while that of Kano VSAT master station would commence by next week. He also stressed that the installation of the VSAT stations would be done in 26 airports while the VHF radios woukd be installed in 14 strategic remote sites to finally eliminate radio blind spots in the upper airways segment of the entire Nigerian airspace.