Military chopper frequencies?

[poltergeisty]

From time to time I see black hawk helicopters in northern CO and I think they may be from WY. What frequencies should I be listening to regarding these choppers? Don't know if they communicate often or not. I have scanned the crap out of the 300 MHz band and found nothing. I even set my Pro-2042 to auto store any hits and I have some hits, but they are mostly static hits.

 

[com501]

You might look at DEA, FBI or DHS frequencies perhaps also Customs and Border Patrol.

 

[dw2872]

This might even be one of the Blackhawks you saw:
Black Hawk helicopter airlifts marijuana out of illegal Boulder County grow - Boulder Daily Camera

Also, remember this story?
Colorado cop jokingly tickets Blackhawk helicopter - Autoblog

A lot of these UH-60s operate out of the Army Aviation Support Facility on Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.

I know they operate roughly in the range of the following frequencies:
- in FM mode in the range of about 32 to 50 MHz (Army National Guard freqs)
- in AM mode on VHF in the range of about 118 to 140 MHz (for civilian and military base ATC towers)
- in AM mode on UHF in the range of about 230 to 360 MHz (ARNG freqs)

 

[GrayJeep]

If they are out of Wyoming you might want to program Cheyenne airport's published frequencies - see Airnav.com- both UHF and VHF to learn when a chopper is up. (they have to talk to Tower and Approach to get in and out of the airport).

Then start checking for other freqs.

You can easily tell a chopper's transmissions if they are a Huey by the vibration modulation of the voice.
Not sure if the BH gives the same voice wobbles.

 

[dw2872]

I have not ever heard of Wyoming National Guard operating in Colorado. That is what Colorado National Guard is for... On orders from the governor.

The ones you see in Colorado are from the 2-135th Aviation Regiment, part of the General Support Aviation Battalion (GSAB) out of the Army Aviation Support Facility on Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.

 

[GrayJeep]

I have not ever heard of Wyoming National Guard operating in Colorado. That is what Colorado National Guard is for... On orders from the governor.

The ones you see in Colorado are from the 2-135th Aviation Regiment, part of the General Support Aviation Battalion (GSAB) out of the Army Aviation Support Facility on Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.

The Wyoming choppers used to go to FNL to shoot approaches. That's how I heard them.
No borders apply when they are just flying around.

Lifting stuff off the ground - perhaps.

 

[dw2872]

Now that I think about it, you are right. Even the MAFFS go across borders.

 

[soundchaser]

Boulder buzzed by Black Hawk helicopters giving Jordanians a tour of flood area - Boulder Daily Camera

Why Jordanians needed a tour of the flood areas is beyond me.

 

[Mojaveflyer]

CO Military Helo Freqs

I've collected some over the years, no guarantee they are still in use:

36.2 MHz; 32.75 MHz; 38.35 MHz; 41.5 MHz; I believe these are WFM

142.8 MHz; 138.15 MHz; 141.15 MHz; 125.5; I believe these may be AM.

229.4 MHz; 239.3 MHz; 230.8 MHz; i believe these are AM as well.

Flying over downtown Denver I frequently hear media and military helos using 123.025 MHz.

Hope that helps!

 

[n0nhj]

Colorado Guard Helos

Also add 41.75 & 46.6
also dated info - has been quite a few years since I've looked for them, but these were in use at one time by the HAATS out of Eagle.


Chuck

 

[poltergeisty]

I'll give those a try and see what I get. Thanks!

 

[Halfpint]

I have not ever heard of Wyoming National Guard operating in Colorado. That is what Colorado National Guard is for... On orders from the governor.

The ones you see in Colorado are from the 2-135th Aviation Regiment, part of the General Support Aviation Battalion (GSAB) out of the Army Aviation Support Facility on Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora.

Many many *MANY* `moons ago', back in the late '60s / early '70s, I *occasionally* used to take up offers, from some members the Wyoming National Guard I knew, to take the *occasional* `excursion' up and down the front range in the second seat of some very interesting `hardware'. The people who provided me the chances never said anything about there being any real `hard & fast' `borders' limiting exactly where they could or couldn't fly as long as they didn't break any of their other `orders'. In fact I remember going all the way down to Los Alamos, NM, spending the night at my aunt and uncle's house and `zipping' back home to Wyoming the next afternoon. (We went down empty and came back w/ *several* `interesting black boxes' that the crew told me that *if* they *did* tell me they'd have to shoot both me and themselves no matter what my `clearance' might be. I didn't bother them about those `back boxes' then *or* later as it was quite easy to tell that they *really serious*! About a year later I broached the subject to my uncle and he chuckled and said that *if* I'd asked himthe same question his response would have been, and still was the same. To this day I *still* don't know or have any idea of just what they contained. I suspect that I will *never* know and have only the memory of actually hearing that type of `comment'. I used to think that it was more of a `joke' rather than a`cold hard statement of fact'. {GRIMACE!} [I *do* hope that those guys *didn't* catch `holy$&&$#' for what they did! Though, I did still get quite a few other `invitations' and accepted the majority of them if I didn't have something more `pressing' already on `dance card' so to speak. Those kind of chances are to far and few between to ignore! Except that I am basically now pretty much physically such that I'd probably be regretting doing so for days or even weeks afterwards. {GROAN!}]) I suspect that there probably some people in both the Wyo & Co National Guard that would be likely to occasionally still make those offers to the occasional few people they figured they could get away with asking. Even *with* how things have changed between then and now. In fact, the only reason I've decided to mention these `rememberances' is that I figure that those people are long since `far enough away' that none of us have any worries about anything untoward happening. You know the old `saw' about men/boys and their toys'? {VB GRIN!}

`Course... *now* I am going to *have* go and load up some of those `mil freqs' into some of my radios and give them a bit of a `listening to' just for `the hallibut'... Thanks, guys, now SWMBO is going to have even, possibly, more than the `usual chatter' to deal with. Oh, well... She'll basically `deal with it' like she does with the rest of scanner chatter. (She occasionally surprises me by actually taking the time to tell me about some things I've missed and might want to know about. Maybe she *might?* eventually ask me to finally get and mount her own scanner in *her* vehicle instead of me bringing one of my HHs when we are using her vehicle instead of mine?!)

 

[Mojaveflyer]

WYOming NG Visiting Colorado

If you have any doubts of these visits, monitor the tower freqs at Buckley AFB and you'll hear Wyoming C-130 call signs when they do make a visit down here. I've stood off the end of the runway on Jewell south of the field and shot photos of many visiting planes to KBKF...

 

[poltergeisty]

In fact I remember going all the way down to Los Alamos, NM, spending the night at my aunt and uncle's house and `zipping' back home to Wyoming the next afternoon. (We went down empty and came back w/ *several* `interesting black boxes' that the crew told me that *if* they *did* tell me they'd have to shoot both me and themselves no matter what my `clearance' might be.

Clearly aliens! :lol: Or nuke stuff.

 

[Halfpint]

Clearly aliens! :lol: Or nuke stuff.

While there may be people who would have just `loved?' for whatever was in those boxes to have been somehow `ALIEN' related I'd, personally place my bet on nuke stuff or any other `high energy?' related stuff given how things were back then. (I heard about some pretty `hair raising' stuff back then from both my uncle and aunt. Actually... `Little Green Men' type stuff would have been pretty much a `walk in the park' type of a subject.)

 

[nathancarlson]

ARMY National Guard

Yesterday, I got to watch the National Guard land a Blackhawk at my daughters Elementary school in Longmont at about 9:30 a.m. They were there as part of the Red Ribbon anti-drug campaign. It was really cool, because they actually had some soldiers on the ground talking to the kids, and let four kids come up and talk on the radio with the chopper as it circled the school and came in to land. Luckily, they played the radio traffic over the P.A, system so that everybody could hear it. On board was a DEA Agent, who was one of the people who spoke to the kids about drugs, along with the pilot and other crew members.

I had all of the frequencies in my scanner that are in this thread, along with the Buckley AFB channels, but did not pick it up at all. I am sure they were on a simplex channel. I tried using my Pro-106 signal stalker/close call feature to scan the bands and could not pick it up on my scanner that way, either. That was frustrating.

I did not ask any of them about it, because I figured I would let the kids who were there to walk around the chopper and look at it after the presentation ask questions instead. I am interested about how they did that talk in, and on what frequencies, though! I don't know if they would be forthcoming with the information if I ask them at a future event. I know they are typically at the Boulder Airport Days (which already happened this year).

It was a very cool presentation, and exposed the kids and everybody else watching to some really cool radio traffic, though!

 

[dw2872]

I bet they were the high-speed, spread-spectrum frequency-hopping radios they started using when I retired from the Air Force a few years ago (and probably before that). And encryption on top of that would make it sound like noise anyway.

They need that kind of technology to safely call in air support from the ground these days.

I can try to dig up some unclassified documentation about those radios but just be glad our public safety comms are not anywhere near this stealthy.

 

[dw2872]

By the way, was there any feedback from the mic the kid was using on the ground and the PA system? If not, that was because of the delay cause by the processing of the encryption. We used to laugh because we would stand next to each other on the "long interleaver" encryption type radios and once we were done talking, then the other guy would start hearing us come through on his radio. But that all depends on the robustness of the encryption. The military goes way beyond what most people would consider sufficient encryption.

 

[nathancarlson]

Thanks, Dan! I was hoping I would hear them, because I know that at air shows, people with scanners are often able to hear the military aircraft coordinating for the different maneuvers they do. I have never done so myself, though.

There was no feedback at all. It sounded really good, almost like it was something pre-recorded, but it obviously wasn't, because they asked the kids their names, and repeated them. It was easier to hear what the people on the helicopter were saying (louder volume), than what the kids were saying. It was an awesome experience, though!

 

[PJH]

The Wyoming ANG BH's were using lowband for quite awhile. Their operations in general have been cut back quite a bit but recently active in the air (deployed and now back?).

I can't say that I have heard them on LB lately, but haven't been listening either.

Most military air is publically unpublished. You will hear them for airport operations/controlled air space the but the "meat and potatoes" will be on whatever is assigned to them by .mil.

Its very common in the monitoring community that they think of aircraft as having just one radio like a patrol car or fire truck. Aircraft, especially military aircraft are equipped with multiple radios across multiple bands and capabilities.

In a former life, we operated a ANG helicopter that was "shared" by the ANG and the state and we had no less than seven radios in them... from Wulfsburgs (Cobham), Motorola, Thales, and other A/A - A/G stuff installed.