Land Forces Central Training Area Meaford...aka the Meaford Tank Range

[jellotor]

Just finishing up something I mentioned a couple of weeks ago...spent a few hours this afternoon up in the wilds of north Sydenham with a search running on my 250D hoping to hear some comms coming out of the ole tank range. Alas, I didn't catch anything from the base but up in the Silcote area I had a great number of American PDs coming in and out in the 42-43 MHz area. Amazing what a little bit of height can do.

So it's a bust with the base stuff so far...the UHF frequencies that were posted earlier I heard squat on and I searched from 30 MHz on up (less air band) through VHF and so forth and came up with nothing.

I suppose it could have been a slow day on the base or I was searching the wrong bands...

 

[wyldman]

I have a trailer up there,just south of the tank range.I haven't heard anything up there for years,even though there is still stuff going on.Not sure what they are using for comms.

 

[VA3DBJ]

The 25 MP I believe might be in the 140-149 MHz range. But I think it might have been quiet as there was training at Petawawa the past three weeks and I believe there was a stand down order issued on Friday due to the weather for Central Region.

 

[VE9MP]

Out here in NB, Land Forces Atlantic, at CFB Gagetown, all vehicles were equipped with Harris satellite radios, on mocrowave frequencies....

Each vehicle had this funny type of antenna thing that would move around 360 degrees depending on the location of the vehicle...

Apparently these did not work out too well, even a simple rain storm would ruin communication.....so they later switched back to low-band

49.9 Mhz is the "main" channel that everyone listens to, it is the base's range control channel...I love listening to that, you can hear Hornets from CFB Bagotville come in and do live fire training or hear the tank traning or Griffon helicopters do their thing...

 

[mikewazowski]

CFB Borden still uses 49.900Mhz for communications between Range Control and units on the range. The actual communications for the Range Control vehicles is now done on the base trunk system.

I think most units training at Base Borden are now using portables on the trunk system. Haven't tried scanning low band recently but next time I hear training I'll check.

 

[jellotor]

I'd assume that if anything was in use at Meaford it would be VHF or low band just due to the terrain involved. Maybe that's making a bit of an generalization but, as my grandpappy would say, "It's pretty rough up there on the Hog's Back."

It's been 5+ years since I've been inside the base there but I don't believe that there's much of anything (ie. infrastructure) north of the firing range. If anyone knows better, feel free to correct me.

 

[shores]

I know of all the other buildings that have gone up recently, but there's not much north of the firing range, so it's clear all the way into the part of the lake they have buoyed off so they can splash shells into the water safely too.

check GMRS/FRS as its used a lot as well.
are the 400mhz frequencies in the TAFL standard analog or are they trunked at meaford?

 

[jellotor]

I found no evidence of a 3 frequency (as there are only 3 UHF frequencies licensed to Canadian Base Operators) trunked system in use there, though it should be noted that I wasn't near the 'main gate' (off county road 112) but was further up to the northwest closer to where the hamlet of Morley once was. (That would be east of Silcote if you know the area.) From what I remember, that's a hell of a way from the barracks and main buildings...2 to 3 concessions to the east.

I know some of the infantry exercises occur in that area...which would be west of where Sucker Creek runs, roughly. There's probably still some ruins out there and to the north up to Vail's Point where the soldiers do training. I also think they do exercises to the east, north of Sunnyside Beach. Either way, I have a few different potential locations to park near...and it looks like the consensus is that I should stick to searching low band and VHF for any training missions (assuming we've eliminated the 49.90 MHz frequency used on the firing range).

Thanks for the help, everybody.