Military air intercept exercises on Thursday the 9th

[cmcgrail]

Any suggestions on what frequencies to monitor for this?

PHOENIX (AP) -
The military will conduct air interceptions of mock hostile aircraft over Phoenix this week.

The Western Air Defense Sector exercises are set for Thursday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. They'll involve F-16 fighters, military versions of the Lear Jet 35A business jet and Civil Air Patrol planes. People in the Phoenix area may see the aircraft.

The air defense exercise code-named "Felix Hawk" is designed to test the military's intercept and identification procedures for dealing with a variety of potentially hostile aircraft.

Military air intercept exercises set near Phoenix - CBS 5 - KPHO

 

[fleef]

Exciting news-Military drills in the sky for Thursday AM 10:00 AM til 1 PM local time

For PHOENIX ARIZONA (edit)"

The U.S. military will be conducting drills in the skies over the Valley Thursday morning. Military aircraft will perform air interceptions of mock hostile aircraft over Phoenix tomorrow.The Western Air Defense Sector exercises are set for between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. They will involve F-16 fighters, military versions of the Lear Jet 35A business jet and Civil Air Patrol planes. People in the Phoenix area may see the aircraft.

The air defense exercise code-named "Felix Hawk" is designed to test the military's intercept and identification procedures for dealing with a variety of potentially hostile aircraft.

Similar exercises have been conducted since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The exercise will be rescheduled if there is bad weather."

copy pasted from source: Military exercises to be conducted over Phoenix skies Thursday | KJZZ.org

Hope weather does permit. Skies look fine today, a tiny bit grey but no storm clouds or threats of rain. I haven't researched at all to see what frequencies or bands they may be on, so please post here if you have any idea or good guesses.

 

[fleef]

re: drill

Ah I didn't see your post. I posted a duplicate on Arizona breaking news.

 

[fleef]

This is what I found so far, a link to NORAD/NORTHCOM frequencies that were active, but in 2009
(copy paste from site, these are FEW YEARS OLD so may not be the same now)
Update: At 11:45 am, STALK 91/92 (F-16CM, 157 FS/169 FW) are orbiting the area at 8500'-9500' providing video feed of the Ravenel bridge. Comms with VENOM on 338.500 MHz.

Update 2: DEMON 71 (F-16CM, 157 FS/169 FW) was back on Thursday with video feeds from 5500' of the bridges, I-526, and Highway 17. This time UHF Approach freq 379.925 was used and comms with VENOM were on VHF 143.250 MHz. "
The Lowcountry Listening Post: Northcom

I hope they also may use the "usual" USAF HF frequencies as well .

If anyone finds any updates as to what they may be on pass it on. I'd be interested to hear the exercises. I am in Phoenix and hope I am able to view the activity. If I can I will definitely record it, sounds really exciting to me.

 

[cmcgrail]

Thanks fleef!

I'll have my radio on the Mil-Air band in my office tomorrow.

 

[fleef]

"Felix Hawk" Exercises Phoenix Freqs?

Unfortunately I am HF (some SW receivers, 2m xceivers & a big ole CB) only. I read that it's possible Ku-band sat will be used too. I have a Ku-band sat receiver. I wonder if these can be used to receive also? on a "wild feed"/backhaul channel? I wish I was more technically geekified to know how to tinker with all this radio stuff.

OK I am still web searching & not YET found other possible freqs. Anyone have inklings as to what they may be on- it would be on channels that would be used for milair exercises? NORAD/NORTHCOM?
8992khz has been an active milair freq recently but no telling if that will be used for this exercise. I hope since it's an exercise it won't be limited to LOS xmissions only- no OTHR as what NORTHCOM uses officially. I'm checking the HFmonitors and milair comms yahoo groups for any ideas.
Very excited to possibly see some maneuvers in the air here.

 

[freqhopping]

It sounds like the Falcon Virgo exercises in the Washington DC area.

There will likely be an air to air freq for the CAP aircraft. Air2 is used in DC.
They may also have a simulated VHF guard freq. In DC 122.95 is used.

The military aircraft would be talking to local ATC and likely using whatever the common NORAD freq is for the area. Could be VHF or UHF.

I would program all of these without the tones. Civil Air Patrol - The RadioReference Wiki

 

[KB7MIB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

I know this is a little late, but:
118-136 MHz
138-144 MHz - (Luke AFB squadrons have AM mode air-air channels here)
148-150.8 MHz - (Luke AFB AM air-air), (CAP FM repeaters and simplex)
225-380 MHz

 

[KB7MIB]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; U; en-US) Gecko/20081217 Vision-Browser/8.1 301x200 LG VN530)

Look up Luke AFB and Davis Monthan AFB in the database for specific frequencies. (The Arizona Air National Guard has fighter squadrons down in Tucson. Either at DM or at Tucson International Airport, I don't recall which.)

 

[fleef]

thanks for posting I didn't see a thing that day however. too bad it sounded like fun

 

[ks4ui]

F16 training

The primary air to air frequency for the F16s is 316.7 Mhz AM, you best have an external antenna and a pre amp to monitor these transmissions that occur far from the Phoenix area. Yes, this frequency was used for the exercise last week.

 

[N467RX]

thanks for posting I didn't see a thing that day however. too bad it sounded like fun

Apparently it was more fuss than it really happened. They intercepted a Lear and a CAP C182 (and I hear it was more like make visual contact, identify, and leave).

 

[KR7CQ]

The primary air to air frequency for the F16s is 316.7 Mhz AM, you best have an external antenna and a pre amp to monitor these transmissions that occur far from the Phoenix area.

Or at least a good airband scanner and the right antenna. I used to live in Buckeye and could pick up their comms over the Barry Goldwater Range with just my BC780XLT and a simple dipole antenna tuned for like 280 MHz (I believe), that was about 12' above ground. I constructed the dipole out of an old set of TV "rabbit ears" and some RG6 that I had lying around. Now that I am in North Phoenix, forget about it. And I have tried different antennas at 40' to 50' off the ground, with different scanners. No dice. The Estrella mountains block any reception for most of the valley.