[FedCom] CAP mission

[Ken]

Hello Bob & the group:

Well it looks like KS wing CAP only has four aircraft and really doesn't 
have a large membership
See: 
http://www.kansas.gov/ksadjutantgeneral/News%20Releases/2007/07-021.htm for 
additional information.

Regarding where to listen for the action (or inaction) check out "Monitoring 
Times" magazine's annual airshow edition which lists monitored & potentially 
new CAP frequencies.
http://www.monitoringtimes.com/MT_Air_Show_Guide_mar08.pdf
Remember also that CAP could be using simplex for air to ground operations 
right in the specific geographic area, so if the aircraft is at a low 
altitude, your scanner/receiver setup (e.g. outside antenna versus indoor 
stock antennas) will affect the receiver range.  You might only hear the 
aircraft and not the ground units.

Since you don't generally monitor aero band activity (such as various air 
traffic control tower, approach/departure control, and uncontrolled airports 
unicom freqs) (which might have heavy civilian aero traffic and you would 
have to ID a CAPFLIGHT callsign) you might not even know that a mission is 
going on because, there's rumors in some CAP states (wings) utilize 
cellphones & cellphone text messages, even from airborne aircraft in a 
tactical communications role.

Even when SARSAT stops monitoring the VHF/UHF freqs in Feb 2009 (and only 
monitors the 406.XXXX data signal) there still is going to be a homing 
signal on 121.5 & 243.0.  what it will sound like is at: 
http://ipg-protect.com/sar/doc083.htm  .
The ELT practice beacon can be found on 121.775.

Many government and other search agencies that have aero assets will also 
use 122.9 Multicom & 123.10 Search & Rescue Multicom.

There's no single best way to monitor CAP operations.  As with anything in 
the radio monitoring hobby, there's challenges!!!

Ken






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rankin, Robert L" <rankin at ku.edu>
To: "Discussion of Federal Government Communications" 
<fedcom at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 12:08 PM
Subject: RE: [FedCom] CAP mission


If I hear on the news that a plane is missing, where *exactly* should I tune 
to hear CAP SAR ops?  The repeaters?  121.5?  121.1?  122.1?  What?  And if 
I program their SAR channel into my radio, is it going to be breaking 
squelch constantly with "other" comms, or will it be more or less silent 
unless there is an exercise or actual emergency?  I'm not normally an 
airband monitor, but I'm willing to be educated.