MaxTracker said:
I have a few questions reguarding the Civil Air Patrol.
First, What is the Primary Purpose of the CAP? Auxillary Air force is what?
Second, On CAP Channels 1 thru 8. in the 143 - 149 Mhz. band, of these how much is "In the Clear Non-Encrypted non-digital?"
Third, Does CAP utilize a Standard CTCSS tone for FM-VHF Frequencies?
Lastly, How is RR-DB Logging their frequencies, on a State By State basis? or Do we even have a Federal/Military section as of yet?
Thanks.
Maxtracker, the Primary Purpose of CAP is tri-fold.. Emergency Services, Aerospace Education, and the Cadet Program.
CAP is the official Aux. of the United States Air Force. Originally formed back in 1941, CAP was a group of civilan pilots why provided shore patrol to spot for german U-BOATS. CAP has 2 confirmed sinkings of U-BOATS when CAP flyers would drop bombs from their private aircraft onto U-Boats threatening the US. After WWII The military disbanded CAP. But later on in 1947 The president re-instated CAP again. The Airforce seperated from the Army, and this is when CAP became the official aux. of the USAF. The missions have been the same since then. Aerospace Education, to teach the general public about aviation from it's past, present and future. Many CAP members go into schools and educate teachers on aviation and spaceflight which in turn take their new knowledge to their students. CAP maintains a large cadre of proficent private pilots, certified flight instructors and the like. They perform important AIR SEARCH & RESCUE, and other humanitarian missions with CAP provided aircraft.
Another Mission of CAP is Emergency Services. Did you know that CAP performs 80% of all downed/missing aircraft search and rescue in the US? When an aircraft crashes it's ELT (emergency Locating Transmitter) sends out a signal that is monitored by the Air Force Rescue Cordination Center via satellites. These satellite triangulate a general location of the signal, and create a MISSION NUMBER for CAP, they then call the WING (or state) that the signal is found in, and from the WING level, the Wing Commander contacts the closest UNIT who then puts together an aircrew and ground crew to go search. Then they work together with their communications gear to track and direction find from both air and ground until they locate the source. In almost all air crashes or ELT activations CAP is involved with the search.
They also perform humanitarian missions in Emergency Services like providing vital communications into and out of stricken distaster areas, provide a backup communications resource for the USAF, by maintaining nightly nets with their equipment, they peform missing person searches, assisting state and local agencies, they are usually trained to do mountain search & rescue, and disaster relief.
And the third mission being the cadet program. This is where the youth of america between 13 years old and 18 years old get a taste of what military life is like. Think JROTC from highschool. It's very much like that. The Cadet program gives these kids the ability to experience first hand how the military operates. They learn military customs and courtesies(sp), they learn drill, they wear the USAF uniforms with special CAP insigna, they have a rank structure that goes from Cadat Basic all the way up to Cadet Colonel. Each rank is issued when the cadet achieves specific tasks, lenght in service, and tests in both leadership and aerospace education. Each rank becoming increasingly difficult. Once a Cadet achieves the Billy Mitchell award or Cadet Warrant Officer, they can go into the USAF and come out of basic training with the rank of Airman First Class. So for a lot of kids who are already interested in joining the military, they use this as a jumping point to get ahead. They learn a lot of stuff in just a few short years in the program.
Each cadet gets the chance to fly in CAP aircraft. Each time that a cadet goes up, he'll learn different things about flight, and usually they will each get a turn at the yoke (controls) of the aircraft. (I did several times *grin*) There are a lot of special events for cadets to get involved with. One thing is the International Air Cadet Exchange program, this is where CAP cadets from the US are chosen from their peers and superiors as being exceptional and they get to go to another country on an exchange program and for several weeks they'll live in that country and learn of their customs and stuff. This is all paid for by CAP. Other country's cadets do the same thing by coming here. Another thing is TYPE-A encampments. A Type-A is a 9 day camp where hundreds of cadets from an entire wing, or sometimes multiple wings will get together on a host USAF BASE and will live the life of the military for that 9 days. They'll be exposed to all of the missions on that base. For example here in Mississippi, MS cadets go to Columbus AFB in Columbus MS which is one of the major student pilot program bases. This is where new airforce officers go to learn to be pilots, they fly the T-37 and then Graduate to the T-38 and then from there they get assigned to an aircraft they'll fly in the AF, like a transport or fighter etc. Anyhow for 9 days these cadets will go to that base, live on the base, eat in the same chow halls as the student pilots on the base, they'll go to the same courses that student pilots go through, egress, flight principle, etc. they'll get to go to security forces and learn the job of security forces, they'll go to the air traffic control tower and learn about ATC, they'll go to RAPCON and learn about radar aproach and control, they'll go to the crash/fire dept. and learn all about that, and so on. You get the idea. It's quite an experience. Oh and they get to fiy the T-37/T-38 Flight Simulators (you know the 5million dollar ones on hydrolics) (I did this several times too *grin again*)
So those are the primary purpose of the Civil Air Patrol.
When I was in it, there was no such thing as encrypted or digital two-way. I seriously doubt they do have it. Until recently CAP used HAM RADIO GEAR. But changes in the spectrum management in the USAF has forced CAP to drop all HAM RADIOS and they're being required to get commercial gear. I know no one in the Mississippi wing is using encrypted. I don't think its going on. So everything should be IN THE CLEAR.
Yes, CAP does use CTCSS simply because there are only a few repeater pairs that are used throughout the entire US. The primary being 148.150/143.900 mhz NFM. So when you have 1500 repeaters on 148.150/143.900 you tend to want to have it PL toned. For the majority of the US they'll be using those freqs. Just program 148.150 and you'll hear stuff if you're close enough. 148.125 is the other repeater output. Joseph provided you with the majority of what will be used.
