Marshall Space Flight Center and Redstone

[LEH]

Spent the better part of this past week in Huntsville. I programmed the two Redstone systems into my Pro 96 and listented away. Of the two systems, one, the first system, I couldn't even hear a control channel. The other, was very active. I staying in the open bank mode, I picked up several talk groups that are not in the list in the data base. Most of these I could not determine what they were.

However, I did find the fire, the secondary fire and a possible secondary security/LE talk group. I'll post these to Lindsay when I get back home. They are in my bag somewhere.

One thing I did hear on the other security channel is a mixture of digital AND encrypted on the same talk group. Seems the mobil units were just digital and the base station could go either way.

Right now, I'm sitting at the Huntsville airport waiting for the plane home. For those interested, the airport has a free wirelelss LAN (11 Mps speed), but hey it's better than last time I was here without a wireless card.

As I sit here, I have my Pro 96 and 246 plugging along. The 246 close call keeps hitting on the airports EDACS system (which I seem to have programmed wrong on the 246). I haven't found any of the airline freqs, but if I do, I'll send them along later.

For those of you wondering how I am doing this without bothering everyone, I have two short (1 foot) cables male to male stero cables, each is hooked into a female to female adapter. The adapter is plugged into a Radio Shack Y cable (for airline music connectors) with two mono 1/8" plugs to a stereo 1/8" jack. This I plug my stereo earphones into and privacy.

By the way, except for the searching, Huntsville Airport doesn't need two scanners. I'll be in Atlanta in a couple of hours with an hour layover. Now there things are FUN and two scanners almost not enough.

 

[rdale]

Picked up a slew of new talkgroups on Redstone while in Hunstville for a weather conference...

EOC2 was incorrect, that's Fire Dispatch. They do a radio check every night at 8pm with all 4 fire stations on each of their TAC channels.

I've never heard encryption on the police talkgroup, so either they changed or he was just getting poor reception.

Also picked up a few maintenance type stuff and some security detection.

 

[Steve]

I can confirm that Redstone and the Space Flight Center does use encryption.
The problem is there is no rhyme or reason in the use. When I listened the "new" system
I would hear a unit in the clear (digital) and the next unit would be encrypted. I was using a BC296D with an antenna for UHF. This would be on the same talkgroup. Both times, I just "tuned out" the encrypted units and paid attention to the "clear" units. I didn't think much about it, figured at least some of the traffic was in the "clear". Just wished that I had not misplaced my notes from both times.


Steve
KD4LCY
KAF9087

 

[rdale]

I did hear one encrypted but it was on an unknown talkgroup - I was referring to the note in the DB that says police was 50% encrypted and that is clearly not the case...

 

[Steve]

rdale,

You're right about the police. The encryption I heard actually would be on several talkgroups, kinda like the user was "playing with the knobs, buttons and switches".


Steve
KD4LCY
KAF9087

 

[rdale]

Police are still not encrypted even though database hasn't changed the E. Picked up IDS on 9616, then some sort of maintenance on 3632.

 

[rdale]

Hate to dig up an old thread, but someone from Redstone Fire PMed me a ways back, and I'm going to be there tomorrow so wonder if he could message me again?