Civil Air Patrol repeaters

[natedawg1604]

So just out of curiosity, has anyone been hearing any of the Civil Air Patrol repeaters anywhere in Colorado lately? In my area (a certain part of Southern Colorado) they seem to have been dead for quite a while.

Is this because a lot of Civil Air Patrol units are basically inactive and no longer conducting training missions due to Covid, or is something else going on?

 

[Mick]

From El Paso County here is recent activity I've logged:

148.1250 118.8 Civil Air Patrol (input is 143.55 118.8) “Blue Mesa” “Peterson ICP”
(Some simulcast w/TG 2744) (Nets Wednesday 1830) (29Oct2021)

148.1250 P25 NAC 4A4 Civil Air Patrol “Blue Mesa” (Net Tuesdays 1830)
(input is 143.55 P25 NAC 4A4) (7Dec2021)

148.1500 118.8 Civil Air Patrol (input is 143.700 118.8) “Peterson Base”
(29Oct2021)

148.1500 P25 NAC 4A4 Civil Air Patrol "R58 Papa" (input is 143.70 P25 NAC 4A4)
(29Oct2021)

 

[natedawg1604]

So I actually have a somewhat unrelated question about CAP (Civil, not Combat, Air Patrol) in general. How often does CAP deploy to actual land-based SAR missions not involving a downed aircraft, either in Colorado or around the country?

My impression is it's quite rare at least in many parts of Colorado; I find this kinda odd because Colorado has a massive amount of land SAR missions all across the state, but virtually every time I hear CAP units they are doing training. It seems like 98% of what they do are training flights.

Is part of this because most CAP aircraft are not equipped to fly over and around fourteeners, which constitute a lot of the SAR missions in Colorado? Or is it because they are narrowly focused on searching for ELTs and don't really care about land based SAR (i.e overflights to get eyes on stranded parties or evidence of camp sights etc)?

It seems like helping with live SAR missions would be better training than just searching for ELT signals, but I know almost nothing about CAPs inner workings or when the AFRCC or whoever else chooses to deploy them.

 

[enosjones]

When someone had the utah and colorado stream up that covered Abajo area and dove creek , it was a stream from I tunes that I could see what was being scanned and at that time it was coming across on 148.125 and it was analog, that was a few years ago... more recently here in utah, they have been toggling between vhf analog and vhf digital on the frequency I can hear in my area (148.150) both with ctcss and NAC tones, as well as the 800mhz statewide system here and do tests every so often, I've not heard anything lately, but these could be why they have been quieter in the vhf analog channels, maybe they've expanded to digital on the same frequency or to the Colorado statewide system... just a thought

 

[natedawg1604]

When someone had the utah and colorado stream up that covered Abajo area and dove creek , it was a stream from I tunes that I could see what was being scanned and at that time it was coming across on 148.125 and it was analog, that was a few years ago... more recently here in utah, they have been toggling between vhf analog and vhf digital on the frequency I can hear in my area (148.150) both with ctcss and NAC tones, as well as the 800mhz statewide system here and do tests every so often, I've not heard anything lately, but these could be why they have been quieter in the vhf analog channels, maybe they've expanded to digital on the same frequency or to the Colorado statewide system... just a thought

Yeah that is a good point, I run the CAP freqs in CSQ mode on my radios so it would be very obvious if they were using P25, the freqs seem to be totally dead lately. I get the feeling in my area CAP units basically stopped doing any training missions due to COVID.

 

[ecps92]

Trainings spiked here in the Northeast this past Summer/Fall and some of the Radio Nets have come back to life

Yeah that is a good point, I run the CAP freqs in CSQ mode on my radios so it would be very obvious if they were using P25, the freqs seem to be totally dead lately. I get the feeling in my area CAP units basically stopped doing any training missions due to COVID.