MUX
try this thread
Are there any fellow Milair monitors who listen in on the air to ground MUX frequencies used by Nightwatch, Looking Glass (yes its still a mission flown by the E6B Mercury) and the VC-25? I live in Iowa, and there is someone up and "burning" at least 3 days out of a 7 days a week. Recently, they...
forums.radioreference.com
It was interesting to read that thread, given all our consciousness about MUX back in the 90's. Some of the nomenclature is cloudy to me now. I do remember the term ORDERWIRE and there was another as well when we were modifying our PRO2004/5/6's and listening out forr AF1. I don't think it was Nightwatch, but it's been a while. I believe that I saw something aboard a P-3 during an airshow in the 90's that resembled this nomenclature...likely after the 747's had been delivered to Andrews.
I had a chance to tour an AF1 aircraft (29000, I think) during the fall of 2016, and noticed that system in the comm center behind the cockpit. I can't remember whether it was labelled 'Orderwire' or with the other name that I would've recognized at the time. I asked the Boeing guy who was with our group about it, and he said a couple of interesting things:
1 - That the system was about 50 years old (and I seem to recall reading that it was hacked during LBJ's presidency)
2 - That it was no longer being used for any sort of official comms--just some phone patches for members of the press
3 - That they planned to remove it from the aircraft around the end of 2016
4 - ...and to be glad that I asked a member of the Boeing team about it--the Air Force folks would not be happy to discuss it
Of course, I can't remember anything much from back in the 90's, except I think one of the MUX freqs was 305.55...maybe Waldorf, MD or Orange County, VA? Didn't see that one mentioned in the 2017 thread. I never caught any MUX back then. I used the equipment (HF SSB receiver w/longwave converter) to explore TV & FM subcarriers in my area, LOL.
Another interesting thing in going thru the 2017 thread was to enter those freqs into my database, and see where some still seem isolated (guard bands around them?) and some seem to have been reallocated. 366.6 is the ONLY thing I have on file at 366 MHz...so there's a potential project just in that.
So my main question would be whether what we're discussing here is that same system, or a similar more modern descendent of it.
73/Allen (N4JRI)
www.liveatc.net
