PA-46 Malibu Meridian
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Communication Breakdown; Distraction; Other / Unknown; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings
While working the R-Side at Sector 38 during a busy and complex session; I placed a CRJ westbound on J209 on a vector H220 initially to avoid multiple FL270 traffic (including a Meridian; eastbound on J209); so I could climb the aircraft. While making several other moves to get the traffic flow in order; I slant zeroed an aircraft on top of the Meridian and could no longer see the data block; and missed him as I went back to re-evaluate the CRJ. As I adjusted the heading to H235 and issued the climb to the CRJ to FL280 the conflict alert went off and I had realized my mistake; however; I measured and seen that I had 5.1 miles between these two and increasing. This was a busy session; with multiple aircraft on vectors; and also a lot of readbacks due to the documented fact that TYI's Main frequency in and around TYI VORTAC has been unreadable to pilots; which causes a lot of confusion and causes more workload for controllers; which was a problem during this session as I finally had to switch to BUEC's to obtain a manageable frequency. Fix Tar River's 132.22 frequency to help reduce controller workload and missed readbacks.
ZDC Controller described a conflict event noting problematic radio coverage as a contributing factor.