Would anyone know what frequencies they are using for air operations?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks in advance.
Apple Fire
- Thread starter Starman918
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I've asked several photographers on their social medias and haven't received any replies. Ugh, It's not secret.
I have found that the best approach is to set up banks with all the frequencies listed in the RR database for USFS and CalFire as well as NIFC etc. I then scan these banks and note activity. Once I find channels in use I transfer them to a new bank just for the incident. Locally (Santa Barbara County) I have access to the comm plans. Be aware that for various reasons the channels in use may vary daily. Also you can search the 118-136 air band to find air to air traffic.
Last night, CDF Tac’s 24, 25, 27 and 28 were also pretty active. Obviously they require fairly close range.
Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate it.
Ok...they are using 165.9875 for tanker ops. Unable to look it up. Thanks for the suggestion to search.
UPDATE: I checked my notes and earlier in the day, they referred to that channel as Air Tac 18. Although at the time I didn't know what frequency it was. They also are doing fire operations on CDF Tac 18.
Paysonscanner
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For those that don't know, TOLC stands for "Take Off and Landing Coordination." As I understand it TOLC is used at incident heliports, not at airports with a control tower. So it is a rotary wing (helo) frequency and not for fixed wings. I think ramp parking for fixed wings at an airport is handled on the deck frequency, 163.1000. I'm unclear on this. Does anyone know this better?
At our local airport (Santa Ynez) we frequently have a lot of helicopter activity during major fires. The airport is normally uncontrolled. They have set up a temporary tower on the 122.800 unicom frequency. However, the firefighting aircraft coordinate on a deck frequency for loading retardant etc. Thus civilian aircraft will talk to the tower on the unicom frequency, but the rotor wing aircraft will talk to the tower and then switch off to the deck frequency. After take off they will talk to air attack for assignments. The deck frequency may also pass traffic from air attack. Civilian aircraft are sometimes startled when they announce their intentions on the unicom and then get a response from "Santa Ynez Tower"
In the simplest of terms, Deck can handle basic helibases, especially off airport in a field somewhere. As things progress and air traffic gets heavier, they bring on a TOLC to act sort of as the approach/departure "Hey base copter 123 is 10 minutes out for fuel and return", and Deck acts more as ground control and a tactical helibase logistics/ops freq. And then when it gets real, the portable tower arrives at uncontrolled airports, such as Santa Ynez Tower, haha. Red Bluff had similar last year with a "tower" at the airport on unicom. That scared away the student pilots for a few days...
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