Norad Huntress

[Saint]

Loud and clear 5 bars on my 396 Uniden scanner
Norad Huntress on 260.900 is active as of 10:30 AM talking to cobra 1 and cobra 2 doing some kind of exercise.
Update: chassing a F16 and calling it hostile, they are trying to lock onto the F16
Steve
FORT Erie Ont Canada

 

[Saint]

Huntress

Huntress is using 379.500 for their Primary frequency in this exercise.
Steve
Fort Erie Ontario Canada

Update: Exercise has ended
Steve

 

[Hooligan]

Nice catch! Sounds like you have a GATR/RCAG not too far away from you.


When you hear such activity on UHF, be sure to use a second receiver to search 138-144/148-150.6MHz AM, 25Khz steps) for the 'interplane' traffic between fighter aircraft.

The way it usually works is the aircraft are on the UHF channel with their controller -- AWACS, ground AC&W site (like HUNTRESS -- a Sector Operations Control Center controller at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, Rome NY) & tanker, but meanwhile, the aircraft in their tactical flight (group of 2 or more aircraft flying/working together) are going to be talking back & forth for safety, spotting targets, & often just politically-incorrect BS'ing on their 'interplane' channel. Most often, interplanes are in the spectrums mentioned above, but could also be in segments of the 30-88MHz 'Fox Mike' band or even secreted in the regular 108-138MHz aviation band, though being there usually isn't a good idea for spectrum-management purposes.

 

[Saint]

Huntress

Nice catch! Sounds like you have a GATR/RCAG not too far away from you.


When you hear such activity on UHF, be sure to use a second receiver to search 138-144/148-150.6MHz AM, 25Khz steps) for the 'interplane' traffic between fighter aircraft.

The way it usually works is the aircraft are on the UHF channel with their controller -- AWACS, ground AC&W site (like HUNTRESS -- a Sector Operations Control Center controller at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, Rome NY) & tanker, but meanwhile, the aircraft in their tactical flight (group of 2 or more aircraft flying/working together) are going to be talking back & forth for safety, spotting targets, & often just politically-incorrect BS'ing on their 'interplane' channel. Most often, interplanes are in the spectrums mentioned above, but could also be in segments of the 30-88MHz 'Fox Mike' band or even secreted in the regular 108-138MHz aviation band, though being there usually isn't a good idea for spectrum-management purposes.

Thanks Hooligan for all the great information, this is the first time I have listen to these exercises and it was very interesting, I am now putting a list of frequencies together to scan and log with my Uniden 396 scanner and my Arc396pro software so I can set it to log the audio for a week or two to my harddrive and see were all the traffic is in my area, I have some good frequencies I have found so far that are active but will try to find more, thanks again for the info.
Steve
Fort Erie Ontario Canada
Across the river from Buffalo NY

 

[DaveNF2G]

(like HUNTRESS -- a Sector Operations Control Center controller at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, Rome NY) .

Good info, if a bit dated.

HUNTRESS is no longer a sector center. HUNTRESS is the ID for the entire eastern U.S. since the reorganization of NORAD. There is no separate NEADS any more.

 

[Saint]

North east Sector NORAD

Would any one have an up to date list of NORAD frequencies for the north east sector or know were to find one.
Steve

 

[RMPDCOP]

Would any one have an up to date list of NORAD frequencies for the north east sector or know were to find one.
Steve

Have tried looking in the WIKI under the Milcomm section. There is a lot of useful and up to date information for monitoring MilAir.

 

[IdleMonitor]

Steve, try Dave's http://www.scannerdesk.com he's got a pile of stuff listed there.

http://scannerdesk.com/military/communications.html

 

[Saint]

Norad Frequencies

Thanks to everyone for all the information, I think the best way for me to find the Norad frequencies that I can pick up in my area is to set up the 396 and arc396pro software and do a search in the 225.0000 mhz to 400.0000 mhz band and let the software log all the audio files for a week or two. That way I will find frequencies that are indeed active in my area.
Steve

 

[Hooligan]

Good info, if a bit dated.

HUNTRESS is no longer a sector center. HUNTRESS is the ID for the entire eastern U.S. since the reorganization of NORAD. There is no separate NEADS any more.

It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

There are controllers at the Rome, NY facility (which I'm not sure has formally dropped the NEADS moniker for EADS), and there are also controllers at Tyndall AFB. On a normal basis, the unit at Tyndall AFB has control of all the USA. Unit re-names & re-designations often take time, due to politics and history/legacy reasons.

I'm awaiting further info & clarification direct from the recently transferred NEADS/1st AF Historian, with my main question being "On a normal basis, is the controller ID'ing as "HUNTRESS" physically located in Rome, NY or at Tyndall AFB?"

 

[SCPD]

It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

There are controllers at the Rome, NY facility (which I'm not sure has formally dropped the NEADS moniker for EADS), and there are also controllers at Tyndall AFB. On a normal basis, the unit at Tyndall AFB has control of all the USA. Unit re-names & re-designations often take time, due to politics and history/legacy reasons.

I'm awaiting further info & clarification direct from the recently transferred NEADS/1st AF Historian, with my main question being "On a normal basis, is the controller ID'ing as "HUNTRESS" physically located in Rome, NY or at Tyndall AFB?"

HUNTRESS also controls some of eastern Canada, including some portions of Ontario and Quebec. The physical location of HUNTRESS controller is at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida.

 

[kmacka]

So if not located at the Rome, NY facility, what is the function of the Rome, NY facility.

 

[Hooligan]

So if not located at the Rome, NY facility, what is the function of the Rome, NY facility.

As you can see from the prior responses, it's all somewhat of a confusing situation. Technically, Canadian airspace should still be monitored/controlled by the Canadian NORAD Region:

http://www.norad.mil/about/CANR.html

Which I've heard in the past using SIDECAR & BREWMASTER static callwords.

Tyndall AFB is home to the Continental US NORAD Region which technically speaking, monitors & controls CONUS airspace as part of the Battle Control System-Fixed, but in a real-world emergency, operational control would be handed from the 1st AF/Tyndall to it's subordinate, direct reporting units of the Western Air Defense Sector (BIGFOOT, DEERHUNTER, etc.) or the Eastern Air Defense Sector (which again, officially, I think is still known as NEADS, but with all the other confusing stuff, this point is rather academic) located at the former Griffiss AFB in Rome, NY, depending on the contingency's location.

My interim official answer about the location of the HUNTRESS controller is that he/she would be at the Rome facility, NOT the Combined Air Operations Center at Tyndall (which has it's own set of static & tactical callwords), but by Monday I should hear back from someone else with slightly better info.

Adding to the confusion, each of these facilities has a couple different static callwords in use to represent specific missions. You might hear HUNTRESS one moment on UHF, but then you might hear NORTHERN LIGHTS the next moment. Both callwords are used by the facility in Rome.

It's funny -- they drastically shut down a lot of Air Control & Warning-tasked Air Force Stations (which all had tactical callwords), dropped most of the SAGE centers, combat direction centers & numbered NORAD regions, over the past couple decades, but it seems like their ops are a lot more complicated than they used to be.

In the old days, there was a lot of good stuff on NORAD HF channels. F-15s & F-16s assigned to the interceptor mission even had HF/SSB radios & could be heard working one of the Sector Operations Control Centers if they weren't within range of an Air Force Station, an Air Control Squadron's transportable setup, or an AWACS aircraft.

These days, a lot of the NORAD stuff is on DAMA'd UHF SATCOM nets & the comms with the fighters is on UHF via an AWACS or as you heard, a NORAD Remote Communications Air/Ground (RCAG) or Remote Communications Outlet (RCO), and they also use Tactical Data Link systems like Link-11 & Link-16/JTIDS.

In my area of Northern California, BIGFOOT/DEER HUNTER (the WADS at McChord AFB) comes booming in -- I RDF'ed their RCAG to a well-hidden site along a ridgeline about 8 miles away from me. Other than their "HAVE QUICK" freq-hopping ECCM system, the voice radios they have at the RCAGs aren't really frequency-agile, so I've ID'ed 4 out of perhaps a total of 5 or 6 different channels they can use from that site.

 

[BMT]

Norad/huntress

SAINT you are going to search over 6,000 freqs with your set up.
I tried this an wasn't too happy with the result's.

I set up my 996 w/ 996 PRO.

First make you an EXCEL dB list 225-380.Figure out how many System's and Groups you'll need.
Your list should look like this when you start:
225.0000
225.0250
225.0500
225.0750
226.0000

Once you have your dB set up,donot program 328.6-335.4. These are ILS freqs and there shouldn't be any voice comms.

Any questions shoot me a PM.

BMT

 

[BMT]

Norad/huntress

I'll explain why I set up my 996 this way.

For example you set up the first System with 4 groups of 250 freqs each, that's your first 1,000 freqs.
You continue doing this till you have all the freqs programmed.

I think I ended up with 6 System's. I ran all the System's for a week, then I ran 2 System's a day for the next 3 day's.

Time consuming any way you try!!

BMT

 

[Saint]

Setup

I'll explain why I set up my 996 this way.

For example you set up the first System with 4 groups of 250 freqs each, that's your first 1,000 freqs.
You continue doing this till you have all the freqs programmed.

I think I ended up with 6 System's. I ran all the System's for a week, then I ran 2 System's a day for the next 3 day's.

Time consuming any way you try!!

BMT

Thanks BMT for the setup information, I'll try different setups to get better results.
Steve

 

[Mick]

Huntress is the callsign for, what is now the, Eastern Defense Sector (EDS) but they don't control aircraft in Canada, and yes they are in Rome NY.

I made this related post at RR:
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?p=694747#post694747

So if not located at the Rome, NY facility, what is the function of the Rome, NY facility.

 

[studgeman]

It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that.

There are controllers at the Rome, NY facility (which I'm not sure has formally dropped the NEADS moniker for EADS), and there are also controllers at Tyndall AFB. On a normal basis, the unit at Tyndall AFB has control of all the USA. Unit re-names & re-designations often take time, due to politics and history/legacy reasons.

I'm awaiting further info & clarification direct from the recently transferred NEADS/1st AF Historian, with my main question being "On a normal basis, is the controller ID'ing as "HUNTRESS" physically located in Rome, NY or at Tyndall AFB?"

There are no more controllers at Tyndall, and haven't been for some time. While the 1st AF command may still be down there, all the daily operations are in Rome. There are three operation centers, EADS in Rome, NY and WADS at McCord AFB in Washington State and AADS in Alaska. EADS handles everything East of the Mississippi, WADS everythign to the West, and I think Alaska is self-explanatory.

Yes they are officially EADS now, and have been since early this year.

 

[Hooligan]

There are no more controllers at Tyndall, and haven't been for some time. While the 1st AF command may still be down there, all the daily operations are in Rome. There are three operation centers, EADS in Rome, NY and WADS at McCord AFB in Washington State and AADS in Alaska. EADS handles everything East of the Mississippi, WADS everythign to the West, and I think Alaska is self-explanatory.

Yes they are officially EADS now, and have been since early this year.

Not to quibble on the definition of "controllers," but yes, there are still controllers at the Tyndall facility, which is now known as the 601st Air & Space Operations Center. Most daily missions are controlled by WADS & NEADS, but a contingency affecting most of CONUS would be controlled by Tyndall doing cross-tells, forward-tells, etc. or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

Here's the current 1st Air Force web page: http://www.1af.acc.af.mil/main/welcome.asp

This page in particular gives a lengthy mission of the 601st AOC: http://www.1af.acc.af.mil/units/601staoc/index.asp

Notice that the pages, one updated as recently as August 2008, continue to refer to the Rome, NY facility as NEADS.

Even better, here's the Rome, NY facility's own web page: http://www.neads.ang.af.mil/ Their Mission page was last updated a month ago, and as you'll see, they continue to refer to themselves as NEADS in every reference to the place, even though they do state their primary area of responsibility is the Eastern half of CONUS.


There's no argument that sooner or later they should officially become known as EADS. There's no argument that they might unofficially refer to themselves as EADS on occasion, but I think it's pretty clear based on their own web page that anyone claiming they're officially known as EADS & have been for a while is passing some misinformation.

 

[Skypilot007]

I heard a lot of activity on this channel this morning...260.900am Huntress working several planes (I forgot their names already) doing fly by's at the Army Navy game in Philadelphia today. I tuned in when I heard the planes. They have a very different sound than the usual USair plane going by....much louder!