Still heavy actvity at 2350. I don't know jack about this stuff (where's Hooligan?)
NEVER FEAR, HOOLIGAN IS HERE!!
It's a major US Strategic Command nuclear command & control exercise called GLOBAL THUNDER, dealing mostly with strategic nuclear forces like bombers & tankers ICBMs, SSBNs, etc, but also command posts, security forces, etc. It should last about a week.
Some of the EAM/FDMs coming from the airborne, ground-mobile & 'secret' bunkers are giving alert & airborne force generation orders to individual bases & wings, so it's a test of how long it takes for the 'scramble' order generated by battlestaff to be converted into a coded Force Direction Message (sounds like an EAM, but slightly different formatting), broadcast out, received/decoded/authenticated by the individual Wing it's meant for, and then for them to set off the klaxon & get the required aircraft airborne. There should be at least one Simulated Electronic Launch Minuteman, or a real ICBM launch from Vandenberg AFB (known as a 'Glory Trip' for the missile combat crew that gets to do it). The planners deliberately try to overload comm circuits & crews to stress them out & see how things actually work.
Back in the early 1980s, these exercises, then run by SAC, were called GLOBAL SHIELD & were really fun to monitor. A 'red force' team would even try to disrupt some communications by jamming (playing 10 second bursts of music -- I remember one time it was CSNY's 'Woodstock').
Anyway, short of an actual nuclear war, this is a great time to stay up late, play hooky from school or work, etc. & play on HF as well as UHF.