Advice needed for air show at Travis, AFB

[petbytes]

There is an air show coming in June at Travis AFB in Fairfield, CA. I went several years ago and it drew about 100,000 people.

I searched the net and found some frequencies that may give me some to monitor. Here is what I got:

US Navy Blue Angels
163.000 *New* Ground Operations/Pre-Taxi ground chatter
164.900 Ground Operations
165.225 *New* Ground Operations
170.900 Ground Operations/Air-to-ground
236.450 Unknown usage, air-to-air
237.800 *New* Solo aircraft (has also been observed in use during cross country flights,
238.150 Delta (six ship) formation
249.625 *New* Solo aircraft
251.600 Solo aircraft
254.500 *New*
265.000 *New* Diamond to Solo aircraft Air-to-Air <Comm 1>
273.300 *New* Fat Albert/Blues taxi out
275.350 Delta/Diamond formations
284.250 *New* Taxi/Four-Ship Diamond Air-to-Air <Comm 2>
299.650 *New* Diamond, used by Boss for coordination with solos
305.500 *New* Fat Albert Fat Albert Demo
345.900 Solo aircraft
381.00 Heard brief comms at end of performance

Could these be useable? Are there any more that I might want to add?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[ka3jjz]

Go get yourself the March issue of MT. Some of those freqs are almost certainly old (for example, many people last year reported the ground ops in the 139 and 142 mhz band, using new split freqs and NFM) and that many of the old VHF hi freqs are gone; Larry Van Horn's article is the 'Annual Airshow Spectacular' and is usually very good ; or perhaps wait a month - I understand an updated online version of the article will be posted then. We'll put the link in the Military Monitoring Wiki as soon as it's posted. 73s Mike

[edit] You can also use the search function (the one in the lower toolbar with the arrow next to it, not the one in the upper toolbar) to try to find all the refs to freqs folks heard the Blue Angels on that were reported on this board (all forums). You could probably find even more by going to the Milcom website on qth.net and searching the 2005 logs.

The link to the 2005 version of the freqs part of the article - which should be good enough to get you started, at least - is here. The 3 new NFM freqs that were reported - at least the first 2 were very widely reported, the third not quite that much (and you'll notice I won't give the designators, they probably will change for this year)

142.6125
139.8125
141.5625

As widely as the first 2 were reported, I think it's safe to say we're going to see more of this from the Blues. The new article reported that the only VHF hi freq that was still in question was 173.825, which was a Tower-Comm Cart freq - but that may well be one of those 3 new freqs now.

 

[RolnCode3]

Oh hell....I didn't know about this. We just went thru this here at Mather.

What's the chances the frequencies are about 95%+ the same?(meant to be a question, not a statement) If they're pretty good, I've got a Win96 and an ARC250 file that I can post.

The Blue Angels flew here in Sacto, and their frequencies were among those posted in the Mather Air Show frequencies (aka California Capital Airshow).

Come over to the California forum, and look around. At least 2 threads about the show.

Oh yeah, GET OVER TO THE CALIFORNIA FORUM AND POST UP SOME INFO! Web address, etc. We'd appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[ka3jjz]

I'll take a wild stab at this - I'd edit down your files to knock out all the old 160/170 Mhz freqs (except 173.825), and make sure you include the 3 new ones I mentioned. To be sure, tho, Larry's new article in the March MT is the best place to start. My guess would be that at least some of the UHF freqs will still be used - albeit maybe differently than last year....73s Mike

 

[b52hbuff]

There is an air show coming in June at Travis AFB in Fairfield, CA. I went several years ago and it drew about 100,000 people.
Thanks for any and all help!

I'd like to know where you're getting your information. According to:
http://www.airshows.pa.hq.af.mil/events_approval.html

Travis Air Expo
TO NOTIFY SAF/PA OF INTENT TO SUPPORT
CLICK HERE
Travis AFB Travis AFB, CA
Fly Over, Static, Single & Aerial Demo
14 Oct 06 - 15 Oct 06

The airshow is in October and there aren't any major teams.

I would start by going into the California Forum and enter 'Travis' as a search term. If you have a digital capable radio, then suggest you program Travis' TRS. Otherwise, just go to IFR supplement and program field frequencies...

...what radio were you thinking of bringing to the show?

 

[RolnCode3]

Here's a pretty good list of air shows/dates. It shows the Travis being in October...and nothing on Travis's website even mentions the show (that I saw).

http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/shows/showdate-world.htm

 

[petbytes]

Still learning

Thank you all for your responses. I'm kind of a born-again scanner user. I did go to the California Capital Airshow last Saturday. I used the frequencies posted on Mather Airport's own site (for pilots). The Travis AFB show date I got was un-comfirmed (sent to me by e-mail). I did read where the Blue Angles were slated for 63 shows (30+ locals) for 2006.

When I heard the Blue Angles' (ground boss?) call the tower and annouced that "they" were now in control of the airspace, I didn't hear any radio traffic so I turned my scanner off. I'm guessing they were using military frequncies? If so, are they known?

Cheers!

 

[b52hbuff]

When I heard the Blue Angles' (ground boss?) call the tower and annouced that "they" were now in control of the airspace, I didn't hear any radio traffic so I turned my scanner off. I'm guessing they were using military frequncies? If so, are they known?

Cheers!

Yeah, they are in the 200-380MHz MilAir band. 99% of the time the demo teams use frequencies from a 'well known pool'. The pool is typically documented by Monitoring Times in their annual airshow monitoring guide. They publish the article (for subscribers) in March and then distribute it electronically (e.g. free) sometime later.

I created my own 396T profile based on the MT article. It has quick keys for:
Blue Angels / Air
Blue Angels / Ground
Thunderbirds / Air
Thunderbirds / Ground
CivAviation VHF
MilAviation VHF
MilAviation UHF

...my scanner is fast enough that delay for scanning dead 'air' frequencies during a performance isn't so bad.