What's this?

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VernM

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Anyone have a good guess at the reason for an AM 1K tone on 372.200 that's been going on for extended periods of time here in northern Arkansas this morning (0-6/18)? It's airborne because I can detect the phase fades. It sort of sounds like a bomb scoring tone, but we don't have the site on Boat Mountain any more.
 
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That's a standard pilot-to-dispatch freq. perhaps it was a stuck mike? Stranger things have happened. I heard stuck mikes that have went on for quite some time as the aircraft was loitering in my area. Even if they are just transiting you can hear them for quite a while at altitude.
 

VernM

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Stuck mike wouldn't produce a steady single tone, however. It lasted for several minutes then appeared to just fly out of range. Curious.
 
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Certain aircraft types produce very distinct audio. A B-2 for instance has a very distinct radio that you can pick out no matter what callsign they happen to be using. A B-2 just sounds like a B-2. Nothing else really sounds like it for some reason. A combination of the aircraft, the transmitters and the oxygen masks give the audio an extremely unique sound that really stands out once you learn to recognize it. Other aircraft do too. Some produce distinct hum in their audio. A stuck mike not actually being "used" could very well produce a pretty distinct tone.

You also could have been catching the edge of a WBFM transmission. There are a few WBFM RF channels somewhat close to 372.200 so you might have caught the edge of one of those. You might have had a NAOC or TACAMO in the area.
 

VernM

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TACAMO is what I suspected. No WBFM as I listened to either sideband to look for that. I guess it goes in the log as another curious unidentified catch.
 
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