NSB Kings Bay Sites of the Southeast DOD TRS

Location: Kingsland, GA

This afternoon and evening have found me spending time in Kingsland, GA. In my down time, I've been monitoring the NSB Kings Bay site of the Southeast DOD TRS and a site that I believed is a second NSB Kings Bay site.

The site I thought to be the second Kings Bay site, using the control channel 386.1875 is definitely at or near NSB Kings Bay. The signals from the site are extremely strong on and around NSB Kings Bay and the talkgroup activity practically mirrors the already known NSB Kings Bay site. It is pretty safe identifying the site as NSB Kings Bay.

This being a Friday afternoon/evening, there has not been a great deal of talkgroup activity. Here is an overview of the talkgroup activity I've heard (it seems that the two have been simulcasting the same activity):

28053 - encrypted
28058 - encrypted/clear
28081 - encrypted
28087 - encrypted/clear
28563 - encrypted
28050 - Waterfront Security, encrypted
28562 - Police, encrypted/clear
28557 - Fire, encrypted/clear

Throughout the evening and afternoon I have heard nothing on the NSB Kings Bay 406 MHz TRS. I have heard some traffic on it during the daytime on weekdays before but it has almost always sounded civilian in nature.

Tomorrow I hope to have some more time to monitor the Kings Bay sites and some time to monitor the NS Mayport site. I doubt I'll be close enough to hear the NAS Jax site, but I'll definitely take some notes if I'm lucky enough.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT

SE DOD Trunked System

SE DOD TRS NSB Kings Bay Sites
Site 1-015: 386.050 CC, 388.0875, 388.3875, 386.425, 386.725, 386.9375, 388.5375
Site 1-023: 386.1875 CC, 385.0125, 385.2125, 385.8875, 386.0325

TG 28050 - NSBKB Waterfront Security; encrypted
TG 28053 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28056 - NSBKB Security
-mix encrypted/clear, mostly encrypted
-unid "roger, en route"
TG 28057 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28058 - unknown;
-mix encrypted/clear, mostly encrypted
-MIKE 89 clg 27 and 92 with no responses
TG 28059 - unknown
-mix encrypted/clear
-93 clg 89
-E3D wkg 93 for radio check
TG 28064 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28081 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28081 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28082 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28083 - unknown; encrypted
TG 28084 - Civilian Contractors?
-comms ref junction boxes, cables, bandwidth (working on a communications system?)
TG 28087 - unknown
-mix encrypted/clear
-24 wkg 21, need him to pick up E4A at TA Gate
TG 28557 - NSBKB Fire
-ENGINE 5 wkg HQ, HQ encrypted
TG 28562 - NSBKB Police?
-mix encrypted/clear, mostly encrypted
-LE type comms
-ALPHA BASE wkg ROMEO # and 2## (both encrypted)
TG 28586 - unknown
-QUARTERDECK wkg ROVER


SE DOD TRS NS Mayport Site
380.4375 CC

TG 28146 Fire/EMS (based on traffic from May 09)
-unid traffic, unknown if Mayport or NAS Jax
TG 28175 unknown
TG 28235 unknown
-weak/broken clear comms
TG 28264 NS Mayport Airfield?
-??? wkg TOWER ref movements on airfield
TG 28283 NS Mayport Police
-MAYPORT DISPATCH, MAYPORT 2#, MAYPORT 12#, MAYPORT 22# and SAM # ref to area checks, gates, vehicle checks, RAM checks, etc.
-MAYPORT 123 wkg DISPATCH for 10-28

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT

SE DOD Trunked System

As promised, here are the notes from my monitoring of the SE DOD TRS Kings Bay sites on 10 November. Talkgroup IDs are from RadioReference.

386.050 NSB Kings Bay Site
386.1875 Unknown Site

Note: 386.1875 slightly weaker than 386.050 but audible in Kingsland and south end of Brunswick

TG 28027 unknown
-KINGS BAY wkg KEY WEST for radio check (sounded civilian)
TG 28050 NSBKB Waterfront Security; encrypted
TG 28052 unknown; encrypted
TG 28053 unknown; encrypted
TG 28056 NSBKB Security
-E3W clg 19 for radio check
TG 28057 unknown; encrypted/clear
-E3H wkg ????? (encrypted) "send it for E3H"
-unid ref personnel pickup
TG 28059
TG 28064 unknown; encrypted
TG 28081 unknown; encrypted
TG 28082 unknown; encrypted
TG 28087 unknown; encrypted
TG 28562 unknown; encrypted/clear
-unid ref escort
TG 28567 unknown; encrypted


Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT

Chatham Emergency Management Agency Digital Talkgroups Revisited

This afternoon I'm revisiting a blog post from last month about CEMA talkgroups. Last month's post was about CEMA talkgroups being referred to as number/letter combinations such as 1A.

Today's monitoring has shed some more light on the designators for CEMA's talkgroups. As mentioned in the previous post, CEMA activity has been noted on TG 12496. It was in use today as CEMA and the Port Wentworth FD tested warning sirens. During that activity, the TG was referred to as "channel 1D." This would indicate that CEMA now has two groups of talkgroups for their use: a set of analog channels using A or ALPHA designators and a set of digital talkgroup using D or DELTA designators.

If TG 12496 is, as referred to, CEMA 1D and the D/DELTA talkgroups parallel the known analog talkgroups, we can extrapolate the following:

12496 - CEMA 1D

12512 - CEMA 2D

12528 - CEMA 3D

12544 - CEMA 4D

12560 - CEMA 5D

Future monitoring should indicate if those are the actual talkgroup assignments. I do have one note from December 2007 with radio testing on TG 12560. If anyone hears any activity on these talkgroups, please send me an email at kf4lmt @ comcast.net or post to the Scan Savannah Google Group.

Mac McCormick III, KF4LMT

CEMA Talkgroups

During a recent exericse that I monitored, both Port Wentworth and CEMA (Chatham County Emergency Managment Agency) referred to TG 6256 as CEMA 3 ALPHA. This was formerly referred to as just CEMA 3, so I've begun wondering if there is parallel set of CEMA channels using digital voice (with the analog channels in the portable radio's A bank and the digital channels perhaps in the B bank). I have heard CEMA activity on a digital talkgroup within the past year (TG 12496) but I have not been able to tie it to a channel designator, so there is one piece of evidence that could point in that direction.

Drop me an email or post to the Scan Savannah google group (there is a link at the bottom of this blog) if you've monitored anything similar or have additional info.

Mac McCormick III
KF4LMT

Navy H-60 Emergency Landing

This morning, a flight of three Navy H-60s landed at Hunter AAF, one of them landing with an emergency. Due to the callsign used, I'm not sure which unit they were from or what type of H-60. NAVY 613 and flight landed with one of the aircraft flying very low and slow (tower advised Crash/Fire units that it was only flying at 70 kts). As the emergency aircraft approached, the other aircraft in the flight stayed high and above to handle radio communications. The entire flight landed without incident and taxied to Base Ops with Crash/Fire units following the emergency aircraft in.

I monitored the incident on 124.975, Hunter AAF Tower and the Fort Stewart/Hunter AAF TRS talkgroup 3504, Hunter Crash/Fire.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Severe Storms Hammer the East Side of Savannah and Chatham County

Thursday afternoon I was enjoying some quality monitoring time on my day off. The return of the the VMFA-312 "Checks" to the air and some JSTARS activity nearby was making for an interesting monitoring day. Shortly after 1400 local I began hearing thunder to the north, so I checked the weather radar; a storm was brewing up around the Georgia/South Carolina border near the Port Wentworth area. Even though the storm didn't seem to have much motion on the radar, I went ahead and disconnected my gear to prevent lightning damage. No worries, I sat down with the latest issue of Road and Track magazine (there are two wonderful Sam Posey articles this month, check out my motorsports blog soon on those!) to wait for the delivery of the AT-897 tuner and MFJ 1764 antenna I ordered earlier this week.

When UPS delivered the package around 1500, I noticed that the skies here in east Savannah were darkening and a few minutes later it began sprinkling. It was almost time to go to Rincon to pick up my nephew from his father's house, so I began getting ready to go. As we left the house, the tornado warning sirens began going off so we checked 162.400, the local NOAA weather radio station, and heard the first Tornado Warning going off. As we drove out of town, I locked the 2-meter radio in my father's truck on the 146.970 repeater, reporting hail we encountered at I-516 and the Southwest Bypass over the repeater and via cell phone to the National Weather Service in Charleston. It was raining so hard while I was reporting the hail, that I couldn't understand much of what the NWS were saying on the other end!

As we drove west out of Savannah, the weather cleared and improved but it rapidly became apparent from traffic we were monitoring on our scanners and from what other amateurs were reporting on the repeater that the areas around Sandfly, Whitfield Avenue, and Ferguson Avenue had taken a hard hit from the storm, possibly even from a tornado (although I haven't seen this confirmed by the news or the NWS yet). Kurt, N4CVF, was reporting numerous trees down and road blockage on Ferguson as he tried to make his way home; Southside Fire's Montgomery Division radio traffic supported Kurt's observations. They were working a multitude of downed trees, power lines, and vehicle crashes. Guy, K4GTM, reported traffic backups, trees down, and serious damage as he approached his home in the Sandfly area. Luckily, Guy's home avoided serious damage but his neighbor was not so lucky. Their house was comprehensively damaged by falling trees. Traffic from Southside Fire and Isle of Hope Fire further indicated more damage along Whitfield and farther along Skidaway towards Isle of Hope. Likewise, Thunderbolt Fire was also busy handling calls of trees and power lines down in their city. I later began hearing radio traffic that the county water system on Isle of Hope was out.

We made it back home from Rincon to find the power out. After clearing out debris from the roads in front and alongside the house and from the yard I drove over to Guy's neighborhood to see if I could lend a hand. By the time I got there, the neighborhood had put out an all hands effort to clear the roads and were working to remove a tree from the neighbor's house with a John Deere tractor and chainsaws. The Red Cross was en route with food, water, and other assistance, so at that point there was not much I could do. I spoke with Guy and Bill, K4WP, for a few minutes, offering any assistance that they might need; I then returned home so that I and the car wouldn't be in the way of equipment that would be needed to remove all of the debris.

By this time, ARES and Red Cross volunteers had begun using the 146.970 repeater for assessment, relief, and recovery operations. K3SRC, the Red Cross ham station along with K4SDJ, Steve, W4SWJ, Susanne, and others were on the air coordinating the response. On my way home, I reported some traffic bottlenecks on Skidaway to K3SRC and let them know that one of their units was almost to their staging area at the Piggly Wiggly on Skidaway. After checking in with work to make sure I wasn't needed, I monitored the 146.970 and began to hear about some of the damage. In addition to what I had witnessed in Guy's neighborhood, there were also heavily damaged mobile homes in some of the mobile home parks in the Whitfield area. Luckily, I heard no reports of injuries from any of the damaged homes. Hopefully that will be the case across the affected area.

Throughout the entire time I was monitoring, I was proud to hear how hams were reacting to the aftermath of the storm. I can't remember all of those I heard offering assistance but N4RVM and WD8LUL were two that immediately jump to mind. There were offers to help clear the trees, offers to help the neighbors, and offers of batteries and other equipment to help keep Guy on the air.

It is impossible to include a comprehensive list of what I all I was listening to during the afternoon, because often I wasn't looking at the radio display. I was paying more attention to the weather and to the amateur radio traffic. That said, here is a certainly incomplete listing of active talkgroups. You'll quickly note that I was mostly monitoring the fire departments to keep up with tree/power situations.

Fort Stewart/Hunter AAF TRS
TG 3504 - Hunter AAF Crash/Fire

Chatham/Effingham TRS
TG 3568 - Metro Fire Dispatch (and associated Tac TGs)
TG 3824 - Southside Fire Dispatch (and associated Division TGs)
TG 4880 - Thunderbolt FD
TG 5040 - Garden City FD
TG 5424 - Pooler FD
TG 5456 - Pooler FD
TG 6224 - CEMA 1
TG 6640 - ANG/Savannah IAP Crash/Fire
TG 7760 - Isle of Hope FD
TG 36880 - Savannah Fire Dispatch (and associated Fireground TGs)
TG 36912 - Savannah Fire Admin


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Hurricane Monitoring 2008

This article initially appeared in the June 2008 of "Key Klix," the newsletter of the Amateur Radio Club of Savannah. It is designed to provide basic local huricane monitoring information for the Savannah area.

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
54032 – Police Common Digital
37072 - Fire Common
3632 – Fire Tac 1
3664 – Fire Tac 2
3696 – Fire Tac 3
3728 – Fire Tac 4
3760 – Fire Tac 5
3792 – Fire Tac 6
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
156.650 – Marine VHF Ch. 13
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

MedStar Ambluance Service on the Chatham-Effingham TRS

MedStar's talkgroups on the Chatham-Effingham County TRS have become more clear since I first started hearing them a few weeks ago. They are utilizing two Dispatch channels, a Non-Emergency Transport channel, and an Admin channel. Additionally, there is a fifth talkgroup that may be assigned to MedStar although I haven't heard anything other than some "ker-chunks" on it yet. All ID's below are based on monitoring usage of the channels and when heard how the channel was referred to by users.

TG 7920 - MedStar Dispatch 1
TG 7952 - MedStar?
TG 7984 - MedStar Non Emergency Transport (NET)
TG 8016 - MedStar Dispatch 2
TG 12944 - MedStar Admin (Digital)

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

4th Cavalry Brigade Talkgroup Assignments

I have been using the ID Tracker and BC796D combination to track the 4th Cavalry Brigade activity on the Fort Stewart/Hunter AAF TRS much as I have been using it to figure out the new MedStar activity on the Chatham-Effingham TRS. It has been an invaluable tool because it allows me to run it unattended while it matches audio to talkgroup IDs. I have been able to sit down the last few mornings and afternoons and match ID Tracker's data and audio to my own scribbled notes from mobile monitoring.

As a result, I have been able to identify a few more 4th Cavalry Brigade talkgroup assignments. My listing of identified 4th Cav Bde assignments are:

TG 6992 = 4th Cav Bde "SABER NET"
TG 7184 = 4th Cav Bde Net (possibly Fires Net)
TG 8240 = 1-409 CAV, RENEGADE Net
TG 8272 = 1-410 MLRS, RAIDER Net
TG 8432 = 3-410 EN, THUNDER Net
TG 8464 = 3-337 CS/CSS, WOLVERINE Net
TG 8528 = 1-411 LSB, BLACKJACK Net
TG 4432 = unknown unit designator, BUSHMASTER Net

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

MedStar Admin Talkgroup

ID Tracker, running on the BC796, turned up another new MedStar talkgroup yesterday.

TG 12944 is another talkgroup that showed up at the same time as 7920 and 7984. After not running ID Tracker for a few days, I set it up to track and record audio from unidentified talkgroups. It recorded almost 10 minutes of audio from 12944, revealing it to be MedStar's Admin channel. Unlike the other new MedStar talkgroups, 12944 is a digital talkgroup. Based on yesterday's recording, the users are mostly MedStar supervisors rather than MedStar EMS units.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

4th Cavalry Brigade at Fort Stewart

On 08 January 2008, Larry Van Horn, on his Monitoring Times MilCom blog, posted the following report about the 76th Brigade Combat Team, IN ARNG deploying to Fort Stewart for training:

http://mt-milcom.blogspot.com/2008/01/guards-76th-brigade-mobilizes-for-iraq.html

The 76th BCT is indeed at Fort Stewart training. Another unit, the 4th Cavalry Brigade, has deployed to Fort Stewart to train the 76th BCT. The 4th Cavalry Brigade is a unit dedicated to training other units to deploy to combat areas. They are normally based at Fort Knox, but have deployed to Fort Stewart to conduct the 76th BCT's training.

I have not been able to monitor any of the 76th BCT's traffic. I have been able to monitor some of the 4th Cavalry's training coordination communications on the Fort Stewart Trunked Repeater System. There has been no tactical communication to monitor, but there has been interesting coordination traffic.

I have been able to determine callsigns for most of the 4th Cavalry Brigade units:

SABER = 4th Cav Bde
BLACKJACK = 1-411 LSB
BUSHMASTER = unknown, apparently recently joined Bde
RAIDER = 1-410 MLRS
REDLEG = 2-410 FA
STALKER = 2-340 CS/CSS
THUNDER = 3-410 EN
WOLVERINE = 3-337 CS/CSS

Listed below are some of the Fort Stewart TRS talkgroups being used by the 4th Cavalry Brigade to coordinate training operations. Keep in mind that these talkgroups may not be used for the same purpose at Fort Stewart in the future; they are in temporary use by the 4th Cavalry Brigade and are not permanent assignments.

TG 6992 = 4th Cavalry Brigade "SABER NET"
TG 8240 = 1-409 CAV Net
TG 8272 = 1-410 MLRS Net


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Update: MedStar on Chatham-Effingham TRS

TG 7920 is indeed MedStar dispatch based on today's monitoring. I've heard no other traffic except for MedStar dispatch and MedStar units. TG 7984 has been active with MedStar dispatch and NET 1; NET 1 seems to be a Non-Emergency Transport unit, for instance it has been transporting patients to dialysis, etc.

TG 7952 has not been heard, but based upon what has been heard on 7920 and 7984 I think it would be safe to assume that it would be a MedStar talkgroup as well. I have programmed it into my scan banks in order to find out.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

MedStar on the Chahtam-Effingham TRS

It seems that MedStar Ambulance Service is now using the Chatham-Effingham TRS for communications between MedStar dispatch and their ambulances. Throughout yesterday, I heard TG 7920 active with communications between MEDSTAR and MEDSTAR ## units.
If TG 7920 is indeed MedStar dispatch, it is about time that they moved onto the system with everyone else.

I first heard TG 7920 active back on 7 January; ID Tracker caught several "kerchunks" but never any voice traffic. I plan on running ID Tracker some more in order to confirm and ID on this talkgroup.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

New Fire Department Talkgroups to Monitor

There are a couple of new Fire Department talkgroups to listen to on the Chatham-Effingham TRS now. Isle of Hope Fire Department appears to have a department channel and Pooler Fire Department has a new fireground channel.

Isle of Hope FD has been heard on Analog TG 7760. A good time to catch activity on this talkgroup is on Monday nights, which is their drill night (although I haven't heard many callsigns being used). That said, I think I've been hearing Isle of Hope FD using either 7## or 17## numbers for personnel and 7# numbers for their apparatus. If this is the case, it could be a move to fit into the numbering scheme that the westside Fire Departments are using (17## would be a good pick because there is no county Fire Department and Isle of Hope has no police department to base the FD numbers off of). I would love to hear from anyone that catches the callsigns or designators that Isle of Hope FD is using for their personnel and apparatus.

Pooler FD has been using TG 7888 for a fireground channel. I've heard their units switch there for tactical traffic as well as unit-to-unit traffic off of the Dispatch talkgroup 5424.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

USS Hawes, FFG 53 Trunked Repeater System

As reported by the Savannah Morning News and several TG stations last week, the USS Hawes, FFG 53 has been visiting Savannah during the Octoberfest weekend. After working the weekend, I took advantage of the holiday today to visit River Street and get a look at the ship (which unfornately is all you can do now, they no longer offer public tours when ships visit Savannah). As always, I had the BC396 with me and did a bit of searching while I was there.

As luck would have it, I came across the 400 MHz shipboard trunked repeater system on the USS Hawes. I doubt that I discovered all of the frequencies for the system because it wasn't very active, but here are the results of my search:

USS Hawes (FFG 53)
Sys ID: 6C35h
Base: 406.0000
Step: 12.5
Offest: 380

408.700 (CC), 407.075, 407.675, 408.650

TG 16
TG 144
TG 1296


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Gulfstream TRS

I've been trying for awhile to figure out what type of trunking system the frequencies licensed to Gulfstream Aerospace for a business trunking system were part of, but I never heard anything on them even scanning them conventionally. I'll chalk that up to just not being in the area at the right time, but I finally heard something today. It seems that it is an LTR system, just not a very busy one. I only heard two talkgroups active, one of them only once. As such it was hard to determine an LCN for the frequencies (right now I'm trying them in numerical order).

Gulfstream Aerospace - WPSL256
LTR

Frequencies
451.4250 (LCN1?)
451.8625 (LCN2?)
452.1250 (LCN3?)
452.3750 (LCN4?)
452.6750 (LCN5?)

Talkgroups
0-01-001 (only one hit)
0-01-100


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Union Camp TRS

Union Camp has been licensed for a 900 MHz trunking system since 2001. I've tried monitoring the system from home on occasion and never have been successful. With all the extra memory available on the BC396, I programmed in the frequencies and discovered that it is not a very powerful system; it covers just the area around the Union Camp plant. Even though it doesn't cover a large area, it seems to be moderately active.

Union Camp - KNNQ442
Motorola Type II

Frequencies
937.3875
937.4000
937.4125
937.4250
937.4375

Talkgroups
1744
1776
1840
1872
1932
2192
2416
2480


Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

New Chatham-Effingham TRS Talkgroups

Here are some new talkgroups to add to the Chatham-Effingham TRS talkgroup list:

25520 - Unknown

• I have no idea who or what is using 25520. If anyone can ID this one, please let me know. I heard some brief traffic on it last week, but nothing more since.

26608 - Effingham County INCIDENT 4
26640 - Effingham County INCIDENT 5

• Effingham has at least 5 "INCIDENT" talkgroups, which have been used mostly by Effingham Fire/Rescue personnel at accident scenes, missing person searches, etc. I suspect these are for use in multi-agency responses for use as common channels.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net

Effingham County Forest Fires

The map at left is the Georgia Forestry Fire Danger Rating Map for April 16, 2007. To put it simply, green is good and purple is bad. It is obvious that the Savannah area is in a bad way. You can check the fire danger rating throughout the state with this map; it is updated daily here.

Firefighters and Forestry Workers in Effingham County fought three different fires today; one in the area of the County Landfill, one north of Springfield, and one in the Hodgeville Road area. Based on monitoring, they were problematic due to the very high winds in the area today. Similar to the fires of last week, a Georgia Forestry aircraft was fire spotting for the ground crews and personnel from other departments were called to assist. As near as I could tell, the Pooler and Bloomingdale Fire Departments sent apparatus and personnel for the Landfill area fire and Newington may have sent some for the fire north of Springfield.

I didn't have the chance to monitor these fires as in depth as I did the one in Chatham County last week, but this fire was an opportunity to discover and identify some new talkgroups on the Chatham-Effingham Trunked Repeater System.

Conventional Frequencies

155.355 - Effingham Fire/EMS Dispatch

155.115 - Effingham North Fire Repeater

159.390 - Georgia Forestry Mobile-to-Mobile

Chatham-Effingham TRS

17200 - Effingham Fire/Rescue Admin 2

26456 - Effingham Fire Dispatch

26488 - Effingham EMS Dispatch

25104 - Effingham Fire/Rescue Fireground 1

25136 - Effingham Fire/Rescue Fireground 2

25168 - Effingham Fire/Rescue Fireground 3

25200 - Effingham Fire/Rescue Admin 1

25904 - Rincon FD

26064 - Guyton FD

26512 - Effingham County Incident 1

26544 - Effingham County Incident 2

26576 - Effingham County Incident 3

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT

kf4lmt@comcast.net