SpaceX CAPMAX

[batdude]

well, here is the start of an interesting thread.

Looks like SpaceX is migrating to a multi-site, connected CAPMAX system for their various sites .... This is just a first look - but the Cape site appears to be coming online now with CC data noted on various channels.

ref this thread: 855.36875 - request help to ID

I've done some rudimentary queries on the RR FCC data, and - far from complete because I'm 100% certain there are going to be other sites - like Hawthorne, CA, etc.:

I am guessing that this CAPMAX system will replace the various CAP+ systems that are currently in place.

CAVEAT: I am BY FAR - >NOT< an expert on DMR/CAP+/CAPMAX.


Cape Canaveral, FL (and vicinity)

854.68750000 WRVW506
854.76250000 WRVW506
854.86250000 WRVW506
855.01250000 WRVW506
855.03750000 WRVW506
855.16250000 WRVW506
855.26250000 WRVW506
855.33750000 WRVW506
855.35000000 WRVW506
855.36250000 WRVW506
855.41250000 WRVW506
855.42500000 WRVW506
855.43750000 WRVW506
855.58750000 WRVW506
855.63750000 WRVW506
855.76250000 WRVW506
855.86250000 WRVW506
855.91250000 WRVW506
856.31250000 WRVW506
856.36250000 WRVW742
856.37500000 WRVW742
856.78750000 WRVW742
856.80000000 WRVW742
856.81250000 WRVW742
856.86250000 WRVW742
856.87500000 WRVW742
856.88750000 WRVW742
857.81250000 WRVW506
857.86250000 WRVW506
857.8750000 WRVW506
857.88750000 WRVW742
858.36250000 WRVW742
858.37500000 WRVW742
858.88750000 WRVW742




Boca Chica, Texas (Cameron County)

854.78750000 WROI507
854.98750000 WROI507
855.11250000 WROI507
855.26250000 WROI507
855.56250000 WROI507
855.73750000 WROI507
856.21250000 WROI507
856.26250000 WROI507
856.48750000 WROI507
856.83750000 WROI507
857.21250000 WROI507


Vandenberg, CA

854.83750000 WRVW505
854.88750000 WRVW505
855.33750000 WRVW505
855.38750000 WRVW505
855.51250000 WRVW505
855.58750000 WRVW505
855.78750000 WRVW505
856.38750000 WRVW505
856.73750000 WRVW505
856.78750000 WRVW505
856.80000000 WRVW505
856.81250000 WRVW505
857.78750000 WRVW505
857.80000000 WRVW505
857.81250000 WRVW505
858.28750000 WRVW505
858.82500000 WRVW505
859.83750000 WRVW505
860.63750000 WRVW505
860.82500000 WRVW505

 

[TampaTyron]

Their old system was of poor design and implementation. Glad to see them moving to something modern, well designed, and supported (the underneath of Pad 39A, inside the VAB, and other locations had poor comms previously). TT

 

[devicelab]

They have a small DMR site at a few buildings around this area too. I'll have to check them out and see if they've also converted.

 

[mwjones]

They also have a site East of Austin Texas in Bastrop County (presumably for Starlink manufacturing) that has an 800MHz Trunked license:

FCC Callsign WRXV549 (Space Exploration Technologies dba SpaceX)

FCC Callsign WRXV549 (Space Exploration Technologies dba SpaceX)

www.radioreference.com

854.8375
855.0375
855.1875
855.6125
855.6625
855.7625
857.8375
857.8875
858.8875
859.7875
860.7875
861.0375

No 800MHz licenses for McGregor (their Engine production and Testing facility West of Waco), but they do have a UHF license (it's not showing trunked but the emissions look like there's trunking, which is typical with Cap+ systems).

Both are several hours drive for me, so hopefully someone else a bit closer can check them out.

 

[batdude]

the initial entry into the RRdb is here:

SpaceX (CapMax) Trunking System, Various, Florida

SpaceX (CapMax) Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

 

[TampaTyron]

Keep in mind that all MOTOTRBO (including Cap Max), can be any band at any site. Yes the radios cannot roam between bands that the radio is not capable of. However, talkgroup 55 at site 1 (800) is the same talkgroup 55 at site 2 (VHF, UHF, 900, etc). TT

 

[Ensnared]

well, here is the start of an interesting thread.

Looks like SpaceX is migrating to a multi-site, connected CAPMAX system for their various sites .... This is just a first look - but the Cape site appears to be coming online now with CC data noted on various channels.

ref this thread: 855.36875 - request help to ID

I've done some rudimentary queries on the RR FCC data, and - far from complete because I'm 100% certain there are going to be other sites - like Hawthorne, CA, etc.:

I am guessing that this CAPMAX system will replace the various CAP+ systems that are currently in place.

CAVEAT: I am BY FAR - >NOT< an expert on DMR/CAP+/CAPMAX.


Cape Canaveral, FL (and vicinity)

854.68750000 WRVW506
854.76250000 WRVW506
854.86250000 WRVW506
855.01250000 WRVW506
855.03750000 WRVW506
855.16250000 WRVW506
855.26250000 WRVW506
855.33750000 WRVW506
855.35000000 WRVW506
855.36250000 WRVW506
855.41250000 WRVW506
855.42500000 WRVW506
855.43750000 WRVW506
855.58750000 WRVW506
855.63750000 WRVW506
855.76250000 WRVW506
855.86250000 WRVW506
855.91250000 WRVW506
856.31250000 WRVW506
856.36250000 WRVW742
856.37500000 WRVW742
856.78750000 WRVW742
856.80000000 WRVW742
856.81250000 WRVW742
856.86250000 WRVW742
856.87500000 WRVW742
856.88750000 WRVW742
857.81250000 WRVW506
857.86250000 WRVW506
857.8750000 WRVW506
857.88750000 WRVW742
858.36250000 WRVW742
858.37500000 WRVW742
858.88750000 WRVW742




Boca Chica, Texas (Cameron County)

854.78750000 WROI507
854.98750000 WROI507
855.11250000 WROI507
855.26250000 WROI507
855.56250000 WROI507
855.73750000 WROI507
856.21250000 WROI507
856.26250000 WROI507
856.48750000 WROI507
856.83750000 WROI507
857.21250000 WROI507


Vandenberg, CA

854.83750000 WRVW505
854.88750000 WRVW505
855.33750000 WRVW505
855.38750000 WRVW505
855.51250000 WRVW505
855.58750000 WRVW505
855.78750000 WRVW505
856.38750000 WRVW505
856.73750000 WRVW505
856.78750000 WRVW505
856.80000000 WRVW505
856.81250000 WRVW505
857.78750000 WRVW505
857.80000000 WRVW505
857.81250000 WRVW505
858.28750000 WRVW505
858.82500000 WRVW505
859.83750000 WRVW505
860.63750000 WRVW505
860.82500000 WRVW505

Have you found any mention of Space-X in McGregor, Texas?

 

[batdude]

Have you found any mention of Space-X in McGregor, Texas?

negative.

 

[mwjones]

Have you found any mention of Space-X in McGregor, Texas?

There's no 800MHz Trunked license for McGregor, only some UHF non-trunked licenses. In Bastrop County (East of Austin) on the other hand, there's a 800MHz trunked license for them. See my earlier post in this thread for details.

 

[TampaTyron]

I think I found some people from SpaceX's previous vendor (see my disliked post above). Their poor design, implementation, and support is very likely why they lost Disney World too. TT

 

[batdude]

I think I found some people from SpaceX's previous vendor (see my disliked post above). Their poor design, implementation, and support is very likely why they lost Disney World too. TT

I think you are being a bit harsh TBH and unless you know the vendor/techs personally, too much conjecture to continue down this path.

let's stay on target and see if we can figure out the system as it evolves during installation, deal?

 

[mwjones]

In Los Angeles for work, and drove to Long Beach and Hawthorne today, Site 11 is the drone-ship support unit at Port of Long Beach, Site 12 is Hawthorne HQ Campus. Both are currently showing isolated and not logging any traffic at the moment, but I will get what I've collected sorted into a submission in the coming days.

May try and make a trip up towards Vandenberg tomorrow, but that's quite a drive, so it is dependent on other things in my schedule.

 

[mwjones]

Submissions for 4 sites in California have been submitted (2 at Vandenberg, 1 at Hawthorne and 1 at Port of Long Beach (Home of "Of Course I Still Love You" Droneship when in port).

One thing I found interesting is the LCN's/LSN's that I received over the air are for a different bandplan than the Florida sites, which is unusual, as most Capacity Max systems will have a single bandplan for all sites in that frequency range (so one for all 800MHz sites). Might be worth someone in Florida rechecking the sites at Canaveral (although it may suffer the same access problem I had with Vandenburg).

As I reported in my Saturday post, two sites were reporting isolated (Hawthorne and Long Beach) and didn't have any OTA neighbor lists.

Did pick up some traffic at Vandenburg, but because of the location I couldn't get it set up to monitor so I can't say if they're encrypted or not, and reception of Launch Complex 6 is spotty at best from public areas (although a better antenna might boost it to get it than my vehicle mounted antenna - that had to fit in a suitcase - could do).

That leaves what looks to be multiple sites at Boca Chica Starbase and Brownsville, along with the one site in Bastrop County Texas (although there may be more sites in Florida based on the licenses). Bastrop is 4+ hours from my home base, and Starbase is 9.5 hours away, making neither of them viable for me to easily capture. I'll put a ping in the Texas forum for help from those regions and point them back here.

 

[mwjones]

Another month, and another update (or 2) ...

A "space nerd" friend of mine came to town for the eclipse this past weekend and convinced me to take a 1-day road trip to McGregor and Bastrop, I obliged but insisted we take the mobile rig with us. As I was staging the appropriate config files for DSDPlus, I found that McGregor had been issued a license on February 22nd for 800MHz Trunked frequencies (and I had said only days prior on the 18th that there was no 800MHz Trunked license for McGregor).

FCC Callsign WSAX448 (SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES DBA SPACEX)

FCC Callsign WSAX448 (SPACE EXPLORATION TECHNOLOGIES DBA SPACEX)

www.radioreference.com

854.8375
854.8625
855.1375
855.1625
855.6125
855.6625
855.9375
856.3625
856.8125
857.3625
857.7875
857.8875


Our drive by didn't pick up any activity at the site yet (and I did find the "rest" channel for the old UHF Capacity Plus system, so it is still active).

On to Bastrop, where SpaceX has a large Starlink manufacturing facility across the road from a facility for The Boring Company, and I picked up the control channel (although 6.25kHz off from the licensed frequency so the control channel is on 854.84375 instead of 854.8375) for Site 13 on the Trunked System. The site shows isolated, much like the Hawthorne and Long Beach sites when I was in California, so there's no neighbors listed, and in the hour we were there and the mobile rig was monitoring, I saw there was a few radio affiliations, but no traffic (hopefully somebody local can spend more time monitoring it).

Of course the update to RRDB was submitted just prior to me typing up this post.