2007 airshow documentation

[ka3jjz]

One of our users (cubn) has made the suggestion of using the Wiki to document freqs that were used in this year's airshows. It's a very good idea - after all how many times have you read, either here, or in the regional forums (or perhaps on one of the Yahoo groups) where someone is looking for freqs for their airshow event?

These need not be limited to just aircraft freqs - vendors, public safety, ect. are all welcome - with one proviso. Several air bases have requested that their trunk systems not be shown on the database. By extension, we should not show those freqs on the Wiki, either. The list of these bases can be found here If you wish to offer files or other websites where that information can be found, that's fine.
Other than that, use whatever format with which you are most comfortable. We can be contacted in the usual manners if you are having some problems setting up your article. We will categorize and link them as we go - I suspect they will go into the Milcom, Aircraft and US/Canadian (yes, you Canadians are welcome to document as well...) regional wiki categories. If there's enough interest, I will create a new Airshows category. But let's see if there's interest enough to support it first.

73s Mike

 

[b52hbuff]

But let's see if there's interest enough to support it first.
73s Mike

I'm interested, but it'd also have to have a place to store scanner configurations. Otherwise, Ithink there is very little value over the MT Airshow article.

 

[ka3jjz]

Why do you need scanner configurations (I assume for the DMA scanners)? You could just list the various settings in text form - and wouldn't they, at least in part, be something of a personal preference anyway - for example, Quick Key settings? And not every police dept is digital trunked yet, though I admit that seems to be coming faster and faster. I've been at airshows where the cops were using a simplex tac freq...I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they used one of the 8Tac freqs...

Besides, the MT article doesn't show things like Vendors, public safety and other non-aero type things that go on at an airshow (for example, how about parking and crowd control - sometimes that's farmed out to Civil Air Patrol or other public groups, such as hams...). And if we go back to Aero stuff, how about the airboss frequency?

Lots of possibilities here.

73s Mike

 

[b52hbuff]

Why do you need scanner configurations (I assume for the DMA scanners)? You could just list the various settings in text form - and wouldn't they, at least in part, be something of a personal preference anyway - for example, Quick Key settings?

Besides, the MT article doesn't show things like Vendors, public safety and other non-aero type things that go on at an airshow (for example, how about parking and crowd control - sometimes that's farmed out to Civil Air Patrol or other public groups, such as hams...). And if we go back to Aero stuff, how about the airboss frequency?

Lots of possibilities here.

73s Mike

It is an interestiog topic...

Anyway, monitoring for these events is always going to come from a common pool. Please show me an exception.

Let's pick one area, civ air... The MT article lists many common frequencies for the airboss. There is a large chunk of spectrum that cannot be used, so there is a common subset of frequencies that may be used. If you have a 'DMA' (or V-Folder) setup for these common frequencies you're going to find the Air Boss in 90% of the time. The other time, it's a tower (old or new).

Vendors are going to be 99% itinerant.

The longer I scan, the more I realize that 98% of the stuff is going to be from frequencies that I can 'scan'. 1.5% is stuff I need to search. And I'll say .5% is out of band surprises. And I say that just to be complete.

In all of my airshow scanning, the only out of band stuff I've heard was Robosaurus using 70cm ham band to transmit video...

 

[ka3jjz]

If you mean a common pool of scannists, I would tend to agree. Vendors, as you say, have a habit of being on intinerant freqs, but if the same vendors show up time and again - sometimes they do - that too can be locked down (unless they change freqs, of course).

A common pool of freqs? Apart from the various itinerants, it's rather difficult to predict where the other users will show up. For example, the Air Boss freq for the Joint open house at Andrews is NOT on a previous tower freq - they seem to have chosen one somewhat randomly, and have settled on it the last 2 years or so. It would, as you imply, be difficult to find it without having some sort of a scheme to go through a series of dedicated searches (I could see Close Call, and the spectrum scopes on some ham HTs to be a big help here, although you would probably need to add some filtering to reduce overload and other junk).

But if we back up a little - even an article on effective search techniques at an Airshow (or other public event, for that matter) would be a worthwhile article. It could be scanner specific - the same technique for a DMA Scanner might not be the best one to use for a GRE scanner, for example. Give that some thought, folks....73s Mike