Advice on setup & MHAFB Freqs

[Contrailing]

Hey all. New to the forums but I've been scanning for about a year. I've got a BC125AT and mostly scan the UHF Airband and listen to Mountain Home AFB airspace. I live about 50 miles from the base but can hear a good amount of things happening when the jets are up in the air. I'm looking at upgrading to a BCT15X as its right in my budget area and putting up an antenna on my house to try and boost signals and such. I wanted to ask if this would be a worthy upgrade and also if anyone had any aircraft or range freqs they'd be willing to share. Thanks

 

[devicelab]

Get this Diamond discone antenna up on a mast on the roof. Use 10ft of EMT conduit from Lowes or HD. It's like $15 for a 1" OD. Use quality coax (LMR400) or RG8 to the scanner.

For monitoring UHF military there's no benefit to upgrading to the BCT15X. There might a slight improvement of signals but the antenna would be a huge upgrade and would be a better investment.

Save up for a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200 so you can monitor the MHAFB trunk system.

 

[MountainMoose]

Get this Diamond discone antenna up on a mast on the roof. Use 10ft of EMT conduit from Lowes or HD. It's like $15 for a 1" OD. Use quality coax (LMR400) or RG8 to the scanner.

For monitoring UHF military there's no benefit to upgrading to the BCT15X. There might a slight improvement of signals but the antenna would be a huge upgrade and would be a better investment.

Save up for a Uniden SDS100 or SDS200 so you can monitor the MHAFB trunk system.

Or you can save some money if you are on a budget and check out the Tram 1410 discone. or the 1411.

 

[aprswatcher]

Guessing you might already have this for MHAFB:

AirNav: KMUO - Mountain Home Air Force Base

Complete aeronautical information about Mountain Home Air Force Base (Mountain Home, ID, USA), including location, runways, taxiways, navaids, radio frequencies, FBO information, fuel prices, sunrise and sunset times, aerial photo, airport diagram.

www.airnav.com

Scroll down to the "Communications" section for frequencies.
Also Idaho is located under numerous Air Refueling (AR) routes:
Add these frequencies to your scanner and listen for other frequencies given out by the aircraft.
These are all UHF and AM mode.
AR-4A 344.7
AR-4B 235.1
AR-10 278.75
AR-307A,B,C 264.9
AR-452 361.7 **
AR-610A&B 295.4
AR-611A&B 255.75 **
AR-648A&B 238.9
** = Mountain Home is the Scheduling Unit, so these may be used primarily by MH.
Add these frequencies as backups:
238.9
256.65
292.6
320.9
384.6
Let us know what you here and report any new frequencies!
Also I have had very good luck with DPD antennas, currently using the "Air Omni UHF/VHF Base antenna".
73, Rex

 

[aprswatcher]

Add:
AR-337/338 282.0; 305.35
228.45 interplane freq for the tankers out of Fairchild
73, Rex

 

[MountainMoose]

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Contrailing]

Had to wait a bit to order the antenna and for it to show up, but managed to listen to a good amount of air traffic this past week as there was a large force exercise going on. Glad to report that the antenna works amazingly and I can hear probably 5x as much as before. Managed to find a few freqs:

Cowboy Control 236.05
Saylor Creek 262.75
“Sagebrush” 251.2
Unknown, but used by the 428FS: 266.35
Discrete: 229.1

Also, the freq for AR-307 worked at one point, I believe it was a C17 taking gas from a KC-135.

 

[jaymatt1978]

I would program all the Idaho Salt Lake City Center (ZLC) UHF frequ encies and listen if the military aviation checks in with the center

Salt Lake (ZLC) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Salt Lake (ZLC) Air Route Traffic Control Center

www.radioreference.com

 

[Contrailing]

I've done this and I end up hearing the controller that broadcasts on the UHF anyways, so I usually just lock it out.