Assisting with Army Deployment

Last night, I assisted an American Red Cross team in seeing off a group of 1st BCT, 3rd ID soldiers from Fort Stewart off on their deployment to Iraq. Guy McDonald, K4GTM picked me up around 8 PM and we went over to the Truscott terminal at Hunter AAF. The team served coffee, hot chocolate, and tea for the soldiers as they ate a meal, manifested, and prepared for departure. As they boarded the aircraft, the Red Cross team and the USO saw them off with good words of thanks. It was cold and windy last night, but it was a good way to spend an evening.

I brought along my my BC396 and an earphone; it was helpful to be able to listen to Hunter Tower and Base Ops, Hunter Trans Alert, and the DOL folks. Keeping an ear on their radio traffic helped us keep up with what was going on and when things would be happening. I think we were better prepared as a result.

Two things struck me last night. First I was struck by how young many of the these soldiers are. No doubt many of these were on their first deployment (assumed from the lack of unit patches on many left shoulders). I'm not exactly old, but many of these men and women seemed to be just kids. Second, I was struck by just how many female soldiers there were. One of the units on last night's flight was an MP unit and I'll bet the ratio of female to male soliders was close to 50/50. I would be really interested in seeing figures on how the Iraq and Afghanistan wars compare to previous wars and confilicts in the overall ratio of females to males serving.

Godspeed and Best Wishes to all of the Service People that are deployed or are deploying to our many committments overseas.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT

B-52 Works Fort Stewart

http://www.wtoc.com/Global/story.asp?S=10596964

I put out a Twitter post earlier today about a B-52 working Fort Stewart. The link above is to WTOC's news story about the exercise it took part in today with the 1st BCT of the 3rd ID. The B-52 was CASINO 01, and worked with ADVANCE (JTAC) to drop its bombs.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

3-17 Cav OH-58s at Hunter AAF

Earlier this year, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 10th Mountain Division swapped helicopter units. The 3rd ID swapped 3-3 AVN, now 1-10 AVN (AH-64D) for 10th Mountain's 3-17 Cav (OH-58D).

Last week, I began hearing 3-17 Cav's OH-58Ds flying in the Hunter AAF and Fort Stewart area. They have been using LIGHTHORSE ### and ARMY ##### callsigns with Hunter AAF and Marne Radio at Fort Stewart. The callsigns used so far equate to the following tail numbers:

93-0955

93-0958

95-0005

95-0015

Thanks to a local spotter for help with 93-0955 and 93-0958.

The OH-58Ds have been arranging for fuel with 2-3 AVN Ops on 54.600. Air-to-air traffic has been heard on 51.375.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Savannah Morning News: 3rd Aviation Brigade to Deploy to Iraq Early

According to an article in the Savannah Morning News, the 3rd Aviation Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division will be deploying to Iraq early. See the article at:

http://savannahnow.com/node/244752

If the 3rd Aviation Brigade follows what they have done during the last two deployments, they will fly the aircraft from Hunter AAF to Georgia Ports where they will be "shrink wrapped" and loaded onto sealift ships. As I did during the previous two deployments, I will not post logs of real world deployments, but will post a recap of them after they are complete.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Fort Stewart Exercise Update 2

Additional Frequencies and Fort Stewart/Hunter AAF TRS Talkgroups for the Fort Stewart Exercise:

376.125 - JSTARS Discrete
381.000 - JSTARS Discrete
388.225 - JSTARS Discrete

TG 2128 - 3rd Aviation Brigade
TG 3600 - As Assigned Training (3rd Sustainment Brigade)
TG 4432 - unknown (4th BCT)
TG 7344 - 2nd BCT


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Fort Stewart Exercise Update 1

Additional frequencies for the exercise at Fort Stewart:

149.600 - Fort Stewart Range Control (AM)
245.275 - tactical

228.400 - Townsend Range Control

355.250 - JSTARS Discrete


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Fort Stewart Exercise

In a post yesterday, I mentioned the activity at Fort Stewart. Today I had an excellent opportunity to monitor the exercise and can now provide a better list of frequencies and talkgroups on which to find activity. In addition to the Army participants, A-10s from the 104th Fighter Wing (MA ANG) and JSTARS are taking part in the exercise.

119.100/257.800 - Savannah IAP Tower
120.400/380.025 - Savannah Approach/Departure
125.300/387.100 - Savannah Approach/Departure
138.625/237.000 - CRTC CP, 104 FW "HAWK OPS"
138.150 - 104 FW Air-to-Air
139.900 - 104 FW Air-to-Air
141.675 - 104 FW Air-to-Air

133.550/279.575 - Hunter AAF Tower
45.900 - 1-3 AVN
49.800 - 2-3 AVN
36.100 - A/2-3 AVN
229.200 - B/2-3 AVN
49.900 - 4-3 AVN

127.350/279.625 - Marne Radio
126.250/269.275 - Wright AAF Tower

280.800 - Fort Stewart Ranges
271.100 - Fort Stewart Ranges
141.800 - Tactical
300.700 - Tactical
259.425 - Tactical

225.725 - JSTARS Discrete
341.750 - JSTARS Discrete

Fort Stewart/Hunter AAF TRS Talkgroups
2288 - Range Admin
2448 - Range Control
1616 - Army Common
2704 - training activity
3632 - training activity
3728 - training activity
4176 - training activity (4th BCT)
6992 - training activity (4th BCT)
7024 - training activity (4th BCT)
7408 - training activity (2-3 BTB)
7472 - training activity (4th BCT)


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Fort Stewart Exercises

Based on recent news reports on the Savannah TV Stations and Newspaper, both the 2nd Brigade and the 4th Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart are in the Field Training. This could make for some interesting military monitoring while they are in the field. Check the frequencies in the weekly recaps posted on this blog for activity, the Hunter, Fort Stewart, and Savannah Approach/Departure frequencies should see some use. There could also be coordinating traffic on the Fort Stewart-Hunter AAF 400 mhz TRS.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

UAV Crash at Fort Stewart

I managed to monitor part of an interesting incident on 29 January 2007: the crash of a Shadow UAV during training by the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Divsion at Fort Stewart. The UAV belonged to A/2-3 BTB; search and recovery operations utilized assets of 2nd Brigade Headquarters, A/2-3 BTB, and 3-3 Aviation.

Due to my distance from Fort Stewart, I didn't hear any FM or VHF/UHF milair traffic on the operation, but I did catch activity on the Fort Stewart Trunked Repeater System. Most of the activity was on Talkgroup 2960, which has been identified as a 2nd Brigade talkgroup; SPARTAN elements (2nd Brigade), TITAN elements (2-3 BTB) and SHARK elements (3-3 Aviation) were coordinating requests for an AH-64 Apache to assist in the search. TITAN elements also passed last known altitude and heading to assist the AH-64 that SHARK 3 tasked to the search. Talkgroup 7312, which has been used extensively during recent 2nd Brigade training was used by SPARTAN X-RAY to advise training areas of the UAV crash.

The TRS was used to coordinate the activity of the units involved. Based on what I could hear, SHARK 3 had tasked DEATHSTALKER 6 (the AH-64 in the search) to communicate with 2-3 BTB on a SINGCARS net. All in all, it made for fascinating monitoring. Unfortunately I fell asleep before the UAV was located, so I missed the resolution of the search and how bad the UAV may have been damaged. TITAN mentioned that it's parachute had deployed, so hopefully damage was minimal.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net