167.5000 NAC Codes

[JASII]

This very well may be one for Chris P to weigh in on, but others are certainly welcome, too. A year or so back (maybe more) when some of the military near me started switching to APCO P25 I logged:

167.5000 NAC 293

And, or course, at the time I pretty much thought "ho, hum it sounds like Air Force." I Really didn't pay much attention to whether it was USAF Reserve or Air National Guard. Now, a couple of days ago I am searching and the History Log displays:

167.5000 NAC 133

The reasons I thought this is slightly interesting is two fold:

1) The NAC Code difference. Is it likely they simply switched or is it possible that there are multiple NAC Codes in use, sort of like a "community repeater" (albeit an Air National Guard Community Repeater!)

2) The NAC Code is the same number as the nearby 133rd Airlift Wing Air National Guard Base. While I suppose it could be purely coincidental, I suspect someone programming the radios thought why not use "133" since it matches the Airlift Wing number.

Has ans anybody ran across this before where the NAC Code matched the USAF base number?

133rd Airlift Wing, Minnesota Air National Guard - Home

 

[BlueCube1]

JASII

My monitoring here in Cali indicates that is an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Freq, or possibly CBP (Customs and Border Protection). It is DEFINITELY one of the two. You can bet that frequency assignment is national. It should have nothing to do with that Air Base. If you look around this sight you will find which agency usually comes up as 133. I am not home, so I don't have access to my notes.

Daniel

 

[ecps92]

As for the $133, all the time. It's a very good guess. Keep monitoring to narrow it down

$104 is used still at the former home of the 104th, now a CG Air Station and CT uses $103 for the 103rd

This very well may be one for Chris P to weigh in on, but others are certainly welcome, too. A year or so back (maybe more) when some of the military near me started switching to APCO P25 I logged:

167.5000 NAC 293

And, or course, at the time I pretty much thought "ho, hum it sounds like Air Force." I Really didn't pay much attention to whether it was USAF Reserve or Air National Guard. Now, a couple of days ago I am searching and the History Log displays:

167.5000 NAC 133

The reasons I thought this is slightly interesting is two fold:

1) The NAC Code difference. Is it likely they simply switched or is it possible that there are multiple NAC Codes in use, sort of like a "community repeater" (albeit an Air National Guard Community Repeater!)

2) The NAC Code is the same number as the nearby 133rd Airlift Wing Air National Guard Base. While I suppose it could be purely coincidental, I suspect someone programming the radios thought why not use "133" since it matches the Airlift Wing number.

Has ans anybody ran across this before where the NAC Code matched the USAF base number?

133rd Airlift Wing, Minnesota Air National Guard - Home

 

[ecps92]

$133 is not that common a NAC, so linking it back to a specific 3 letter agency is unlikely. It's probably the 133rd, as suggested

JASII

My monitoring here in Cali indicates that is an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) Freq, or possibly CBP (Customs and Border Protection). It is DEFINITELY one of the two. You can bet that frequency assignment is national. It should have nothing to do with that Air Base. If you look around this sight you will find which agency usually comes up as 133. I am not home, so I don't have access to my notes.

Daniel

 

[ChrisP]

This very well may be one for Chris P to weigh in on, but others are certainly welcome, too.

Sorry, but I was a couple of days late on reading this post.

To answer your question, no, I have not seen a habit of military units using the same NAC as their base or unit number (but I guess Bill has). But it certainly doesn't mean that it can't happen. I have suspected that military units in particular don't really follow too many standard conventions in deciding what NAC to use. Some use N001, some the default NAC of N293, and others pick stuff that they like. I saw recently that the Wyoming Air National Guard was using the NAC of $DEA on one of their P-25 channels. I suspected that someone in the radio shop had a sense of humor.

Bill brought up a good point, and that is, make sure this NAC shows up constantly. I have had experience with my PSR-500 & 600 radios logging a "ghost" or false NAC value on some transmissions. I have not seen the same issue with the Uniden XT radios.

As fas as NAC133 being ICE - that's up for debate. I'm certainly not saying that ICE is NOT using N133 somewhere, but I have only logged it being used as part of the Southern California CBP IWN system. The frequency of 167.5000 MHz is certainly not an exclusive DHS assignment. There are plenty of assignments to military, US Forest Service, Coast Guard, etc. on this frequency.

The key to figuring out this sort of thing is context. Just the frequency and a NAC is just part of the mystery. If the traffic is in the clear, listen and see what they are talking about. Get street names, building locations, reference to what they are working on, etc.. That's how these things get figured out.

- Chris

 

[JASII]

I have continued to monitor this and this definitely sounds like the United States Air Force.

 

[ChrisP]

I will also amend my comment regarding military units using NAC values that are related to the unit numbers. I have run a cross a couple that do seem to do that, including the 147th Reconnaissance Wing at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. They use a P25 NAC of N147. Seems very logical now...

- Chris

 

[10-95]

Interesting 167.500 seems to have various users here in Raleigh N.C., I have identified FBI using NAC 167, USMS in analog using it and DOD using it in P25 mode with 293 as a NAC. This seems to be a mixed mode machine here , from time to time it actually ID's with a recorded voice and I never seem to be in a position to catch it since it's so quick, it's a three letter ID like KEX, KAX followed by a number.