so where are they????

[ridgescan]

I've been all around this site and beyond to other sites trying to get a line on some military action. I've patiently scoured the 200-400 mhz bands to no avail. Anybody out there who can educate on this? Thanks-

 

[freqhopping]

Program the UHF freqs here http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=2236
They will usually read back the frequency they will switch to. Follow them as they hand off to other sectors and eventually to approach if they are landing in the area.

Tankers and transport will use the VHF freqs though and with all the other traffic it can be hard to pick them out.

Program the Travis AFB freqs too.
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=230

 

[ka3jjz]

Although searching in segments is usually the best way to go, often it's even better if you have local help, and there certainly is that for the Southern Ca. area...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/socalmilcom/

Of course this is assuming you have a milcom able scanner and an antenna (like a Discone or Scantenna, there are others, of course) mounted nice and high somewhere....

73 Mike

 

[ridgescan]

Thank you both for your trouble..gotta go get the wifee-will excercise those links asap 73s

 

[ridgescan]

P.S ka3jjz- do you happen to know if the Uniden BC785 D is milcom delete? If so, anything we can do to bring it on? F

 

[ka3jjz]

Huh?? the 785d will do milcom right out of the box - no funny tricks needed. In fact I know of at least one on this system that has a whole bank of 'em. Nice milcom radio, for sure

73 Mike

 

[BMT]

Mike you are alway's saying nice and High!!

I have been a MILAIR monitor for over 20 years, at no time has any of my antenna's been higher than 20'.

My best catch was J-STARS over Ft Campbell KY, the only problem was the A/C was at 40,000'. ;-)

The location of your antenna also play a very important part. Do not be afarid to move your antenna. I know it's a PITA to move antenna's after everything is bolted up.

BMT

 

[ka3jjz]

Ah but keep something in mind - 20 foot high might be more than enough, given your terrain and any other obstructions, to be in the clear. There is a limit to this, of course, but generally speaking, higher is better 73 Mike

 

[ridgescan]

Morning guys-well if so, Mike, then I guess I have no military action around here in San Francisco (figures, knowing this town) But it puzzles me because there's Alameda Naval just across the bay, the Coast Guard, and I suspect a few small active Army spots here on the coast. Heck I'm constantly seeing Chinooks and C-130's overhead. Anyway' I'll just keep sweeping the 200-400's. Plus I've got those links to check on! 73s

 

[ka3jjz]

I will wager that the SoCal Yahoo folks will disagree about having no mil action in your area. With all that stuff flying about, you should be hearing something. They will no doubt point you in the right direction.

Also set up a search in the 138-144 mhz mode in AM. This is where numerous National Guard and ANG have their ops freqs

73 Mike

 

[ridgescan]

Willdo Mike Thanks-something occured to me; should I have been searching in 5khz steps? I've been letting the radio pick the steps and mode on auto when I search. Wadda ya think?

 

[ka3jjz]

If you're searching 138-144 mhz, 5 khz will do. For 225-400 mhz, 25 khz is far better.

But just to test out your setup, get a few known active freqs from the SoCal folks and see how you hear them. You won't hear much searching if you can't get the easy stuff first....

73 Mike

 

[ridgescan]

Thanks Mike-learned a lot from ya here. Gonna go work with what you gave me 73s

 

[SkipSanders]

Actually, 225-380 (and some older stuff that still hasn't moved out of 380-400) is at 25 KHz channel spacing now, and there are quite a lot of stations on that split.

What are you expecting to hear? Most military air coms are just like commercial coms, air traffic control handing off control of aircraft from one to another. At actual exercise sites, you can hear (quiet) air to air combat practice.

In reality, this mostly consists of an aircraft announcing 'Fight's On', then various aircraft announcing 'Fox 1', 'Fox 2', or 'Fox 3, then someone saying 'Knock it off'. Nothing dramatic. No one gives air to air commentary on the 'moves'.

If I have it correctly, 'Fox 1' is a sidewinder launch, 'Fox 2' is a Phoenix launch, and 'Fox 3' is guns fire. Essentially 'short range missle, long range missle, or cannonfire.'

A couple of local Federal Air Stations to you (Alameda is closed, no longer in service):

LEMOORE NAS, (REEVES FLD) CA KNLC NAS N36°19.98' W119°57.12' 234 UTC-8(-7DT)
COMMUNICATIONS –
ATIS - 267.6
AWOS-3 - REMARKS: C559-998-2336. APP - (R) (E)118.15 124.1 286.0 (124.1 N) (118.15 S)
TWR - (E) 128.3 340.2 360.2 (340.2 Rwy 14L/32L) (360.2 Rwy 14R/32R)
GND - 121.65 305.2
DEP - (R) (E) 118.15 124.1 318.8 (118.15 Rwy14L/R) (124.1 Rwy 32L/R)
CLNC DEL - 124.1 380.8
PMSV METRO - Opr H24. 317.0
BASE OPS - 299.3
FSS-PRESCOTT PSC-NOTAM NLC

MOFFETT FEDERAL AFLD, CA KNUQ NASA (ANG) N37°24.97' W122°02.95' 32 UTC-8(-7DT)
COMMUNICATIONS –
SFA CTAF - 119.55
ATIS/ASOS - Opr H24. 124.175 283.0 REMARKS: C650-604-1529.
NORCAL APP - (R) (E) 120.1 133.95 134.5 135.2 290.25 317.6
338.2
TWR - Opr 1500-0700Z++. (E) 119.55 346.25 340.2 REMARKS: Twr opr by ANG.
GND - 121.85 336.4
NORCAL DEP - (R) (E) 121.3 270.35 135.65 310.8
CLNC DEL - 380.8
BASE OPS - 251.7
ANG - Opr 1400-2330Z++. 390.9 5711 REMARKS: SQ OPS, call MOFFETT RESCUE. (5711 USB).
FSS-OAKLAND OAK-NOTAM KNUQ

 

[eorange]

In reality, this mostly consists of an aircraft announcing 'Fight's On', then various aircraft announcing 'Fox 1', 'Fox 2', or 'Fox 3, then someone saying 'Knock it off'. Nothing dramatic. No one gives air to air commentary on the 'moves'.

It's not as boring as you make it sound. I routinely listen to F-16s out of Toldeo and Selfridge ANG bases, and more than once I've heard them talk about calibrating their laser sights, targeting objects on the ground "by that barn", and generally navigating around the MOA. You won't hear that kind of talk on civilian air!

Also, find out the freqs and tune in on any aerial refueling routes in your area. Once you know WHEN and WHERE to listen, then that's a pretty easy and regular catch. There's lots of interesting chatter from the tanker and boom operators.

 

[azraphale]

I'm up in Humboldt county and I regularly get CAP flights up the coast, tankers refueling more than halfway down to the Bay area, and of course lots of Coast Guard ops. Do some searching on the web, and don't be afraid to enter frequencies you find for other locations -- many times, they are in use all over the place,d pretty much all the hits I've gotten have been from frequencies I programmed in, and not from doing band searches.

Get a decent antenna and get it as high up as you can. If you wanna do mostly milair, get yourself a quality milair discone and mount it high, with the best quality coax you can get (and the shortest run!), would be my recommendation (for a single omni antenna that can cover the full milair band with fairly even gain throughout). And be prepared to wait, too... Granted, you have Moffett plus the trunked system at NASA/Ames, plus a ton of CG stuff, and that's not counting the HF multi-agency and DoD stuff, or satellites, but like others have said, they don't often just chat about the weather like your typical hams on 2m FM. I get probably four or five good comms a day up here in the desolate north, not counting Coast Guard helos on regular patrol for pleasure craft in trouble, so it's not exactly non-stop. but I did get a great bit of chatter lasting almost half an hour on and off today from an E-3 AWAC plane out of Tinker AFB in Oklahoma refueling over the Pacific halfway between here and SF, and the chatter between the tankers (there were two doing boom operator training and one regular refueling tanker) and the E-3 all conversing and enjoying the break in the boredom from the time orbiting over the featureless water, which was pretty cool... I have to wonder if anyone else for at least 50+ miles besides me and guys in uniform got to listen in!

If all else fails, pm me. I don't have a lot of spare time, but I can provide bctool files or CSV files for Excel with some of the freqs you might find some Norcal traffic on, altohugh it might take me some time to get to it.

 

[BMT]

Yesterday there were over 17 military A/C in the San Francisco area. ;-)

BMT

 

[ridgescan]

Hey Skip- many thanks for all those freqs-going to move them into the scanner today and see what's up. Asraphale-thank you for the advice! I don't anticipate a lot of traffic here- I know military MO...succinct and seldom. However-after months of putting the 250-400 in search and literally all I ever got was Oakland tower on 353-I'm thinking with the scouring of that range I've done and to not even get an occasional tidbit of action? I'm on the correct modmode, and I've tried different steps too. Like Mike said, I'm gonna plug in freqs to a band instead of search and see what comes up. Thank you all for the help! 73s

 

[jimvm]

UHF milair

I hear activity almost every week day on 296.7 MHz. This is ATC for high altitude, over
60,000 feet. U2 planes out of Beale AFB. Can hear ground also if they are using
Mt. Tam.

jim

 

[Qwerty7]

Bay Area Milcom

Program in NORAD Freqs as well. The WADS (Western Air Defense System) covers this part of the USA keepin' the bad guys away from our Civil A/C etc.
271.0000 is used pretty frequently over the Bay Area--especially when the President is in the Bay Area and CAP flights are up. Their call sign is BIGFOOT. There are a bunch of other NORAD freqs WADS uses--VHF as well.
Check out Baymilcom on Yahoo Groups--join the group and you can access their freq list and get to know a lot more about just whats out there--a lot of the prople on the site are very knowlegable and experienced at not only finding where to listen but how to intrepret
what you are hearing.

Cheers--