Hurricane Monitoring - 2007

This article originally appeared in the May 2007 edition of Key Klix, the Amateur Radio Club of Savannah's newsletter.

With Hurricane Season upon us, it is a good time to gather monitoring information on monitoring communications related to the response to a storm. The purpose of this month’s article is to provide some basic hurricane monitoring information for both Savannah area amateur radio and government response to a hurricane. Many thanks to David Delamater, K4DJD, Steve Jonas, K4SDJ, and Doug Rowland, KF4EFP for providing amateur radio frequency information for this article.

Amateur Radio Monitoring

In the event of a hurricane, Amateur Radio would of course play a large part in the response to the storm. Georgia Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) would activate to support state and local emergency management. Other organizations would activate to respond to the hurricane in other capacities.

ARES, when activated will use several 2-meter repeaters for local area, point-to-point traffic. HF frequencies would be used for more long distant communications including communications with statewide ARES and emergency management stations.

146.970 - Chatham County ARES Ops Primary
146.880 - Chatham ARES Ops Secondary
147.105 - Georgia ARES Southeast District Ops
146.745 - Effingham County Repeater (97.4 PL)
146.520 - National Calling Frequency

3.975 LSB - Georgia ARES Primary HF
7.277 LSB - Georgia ARES Secondary HF
5.3305 LSB - Georgia ARES Section Emergency Net

The American Red Cross will also make use of local repeaters during their hurricane response operations. Secondary Red Cross Repeaters will be assigned usage depending upon the nature and size of the response.

146.850 - American Red Cross Primary
146.700 - American Red Cross Secondary
147.210 - American Red Cross Secondary
147.330 - American Red Cross Secondary

Other organizations that might activate to assist in response and relief efforts are the Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network and Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief teams.

7.265 LSB - SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network)
14.265 USB - SATERN (Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network)

151.625 - Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief (VHF Itinerant)
147.550 - Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief
147.555 - Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief
3.865 LSB - Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief
7.238 LSB - Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief
7.251 LSB - South CARS Net
7.262 LSB - Southern Baptist Convention Net

A good way to keep track of and to gather information on a hurricane is the venerable Hurricane Watch Net, which has been around since 1965. This net will activate whenever there is a hurricane within 300 miles of a populated land mass or when activation is requested by the National Hurricane Center. The purpose of the net is to gather information from the storm for the National Hurricane Center and to pass on National Weather Service advisories on the storm. Information on hurricanes can also be heard on the Maritime Mobile Network. They also collect information for the National Weather Service and pass weather service advisories.

14.325 USB - Hurricane Watch Net
14.300 USB - Maritime Mobile Network


Government Monitoring

Local public safety agencies would be in the front lines of hurricane response. A listing of agency frequencies and Chatham-Effingham Trunked Repeater System (TRS) talkgroups would be too long to list here, but there are emergency management, mutual aid, and common frequencies and talkgroups that would be good to include in scanner programming. These would be used by a wide variety of agencies during any multi-agency response. A full listing of agency talkgroups for the Chatham-Effingham TRS can be found on the Radio Reference website (see list of links below).

Conventional Frequencies
123.025 - Airborne Operations, Air-to-Ground
123.100 - Airborne Operations, Air-to-Air
154.280 - Fire Mutual Aid
155.340 - HEAR (Hospitals, EMS)
155.475 - Law Enforcement National Emergency
853.6375 - Chatham County 800 Conventional
866.0125 - I-Call
866.5125 - I-Tac 1
867.0125 - I-Tac 2
867.5125 - I-Tac 3
868.0125 - I-Tac 4

Chatham-Effingham TRS Talkgroups
6224 - Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) 1
6256 - Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) 2
6288 - Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) 3
6320 - Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) 4
6352 - Chatham County Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) 5

33456 - Police Common
37072 - Fire Common
2416 - Medical Common
50320 - Savannah City Common
50352 - Chatham County Countywide Common
1648 - Chatham County Common
4240 - Chatham County Westside Common
4272 - Chatham County Eastside Common

Both Hunter Army Airfield and Savannah International Airport and the military units based there would be involved in relief operations in the event of a hurricane striking the coastal Georgia area. B-169 Aviation of the Georgia Army National Guard at Hunter AAF would likely support local operations while the 165th Airlift Wing at Savannah IAP would be able to help provide an air bridge for the Savannah area. The United States Coast Guard would also assist in the response to a hurricane with both aircraft from Air Station Savannah and surface assets from Sector Charleston and it’s subordinate unit Station Tybee (and beyond).

133.550 AM - Hunter AAF Control Tower
279.575 AM - Hunter AAF Control Tower
126.200 AM - Hunter AAF Base Ops
38.150 FM - B-169 AVN “Hurricane Ops”
139.400 AM - B-169 AVN “Guard Operations”
242.400 AM - B-169 AVN Air-to-Air

119.100 AM - Savannah IAP Control Tower
257.800 AM - Savannah IAP Control Tower
225.750 AM - 165 Airlift Wing, Georgia Air National Guard Command Post
237.000 AM - Air National Guard CRTC Command Post

156.800 - Marine VHF Ch. 16, Calling/Distress
157.050 - Marine VHF Ch. 21, Sector Charleston Primary Operating
345.000 AM - USCG Air Station Savannah Ops

Charleston Air Force Base is involved in relief operations not only nationwide but worldwide. Aircraft inbound to Charleston AFB from the south can easily be heard from the Savannah area.

134.100 AM - Charleston AFB Command Post
349.400 AM - Charleston AFB Command Post

Another agency that would support hurricane response efforts would the United States Air Force auxiliary, the Civil Air Patrol. The Civil Air Patrol is in the midst of frequency changes, so it would be prudent to keep both their old and new frequencies in mind. The CAP also uses repeater output frequencies as simplex frequencies.

148.150 - Civil Air Patrol Primary Repeater Output
148.125 - Civil Air Patrol Repeater, Coastal Georgia Area

148.175 - New Civil Air Patrol Repeaters
148.775 - New Civil Air Patrol Repeaters


There are many lists on the Internet that list HF frequencies for the “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft. For the most part, these lists are obsolete; the “Hurricane Hunters” now use satellite communications, including military SATCOM, instead of HF for their primary means of communications with ground stations.



Reference Links
Georgia ARES:
http://www.gaares.org/

SATERN (Salvation Army):
http://www.satern.org/

Hurricane Watch Net:
http://www.hwn.org/

Maritime Mobile Service Network:
http://www.mmsn.org/

Radio Reference:
http://www.radioreference.com/



Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net