National Guard and COVID-19 Operations

I have seen and heard some frequencies and radio systems that appear to be specially reserved for operations supporting response to the COVID-19 pandemic in various areas of the country. Unfortunately, many people seem to want to be given these frequencies instead of looking for them. Many of these channels, especially National Guard channels, are not well known and will have to be found by searching.

These frequencies will not necessarily involve medical calls or ambulances, but instead will be government agencies providing supplies or personnel to assist with food and equipment as needed.

Many National Guard units have access to statewide radio systems, either trunked or conventional.

For those who are interested, I thought I would post what I have found and add to it as new information comes in.

If you have any frequencies or information on COVID-19 response frequencies, feel free to send them to me on Twitter (@TheFedFiles) or email cparris2+fedfiles@gmail.com

CONNECTICUT
Statewide
Connecticut Statewide CLMRN trunked radio system
National Guard heard on talk groups 40152 & 40154

INDIANA
Statewide
Statewide Mutual Aid (SWMA) talk groups on the SAFE-T trunked radio system

KANSAS
Statewide
KCICS trunked system, Army National Guard talk groups
TG1924 heard active
Possible conventional frequencies:
32.1
41.7
851.0875

NEW JERSEY
Statewide
New Jersey State Police trunked system (Motorola)
NJ Army National Guard talk groups
TG57936 - 2B EOC NET

TEXAS
Houston
TXWARN Trunked Radio System talk groups:

CoH Special Event 10 - HPD

CoH Special Event 12 - HPD

CoH HHS Div A - virus testing

CoH HHS Div B - virus testing

OREGON
Salem?
138.5500 MHz, CSQ - Possible National Guard

WASHINGTON
Seattle - Century Link Events Center National Guard
395.4875 MHz, N014
396.3000 MHz, N197

Navy Hospital Ships and COVID-19

The U.S. Navy has dispatched two hospital ships to New York City and Los Angeles to support medical efforts during the Coronavirus pandemic.


The USNS Mercy arrived in Los Angeles harbor on Friday, March 27th and the USNS Comfort departed Norfolk, VA on Saturday, march 28th for New York.


Originally no reports on what the USNS Comfort is using for radios after her arrival in NYC. However later posts indicate there is possibly activity on 385.1875 MHz, N401 that is related to the Comfort.

Here is a link to the thread on Radio Reference about the Comfort:

https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/usns-comfort.404034/


The USNS Mercy has been reported to be using an on-board UHF DMR radio system for their operations. The system is NOT using frequencies in the normal federal/military radio bands, but instead is using what are public safety allocations here in the United States in the UHF band. Here is a quick rundown of what is known so far:


DMR Motorola Capacity+

LCN 1 458.225, CC 1

LCN 2 458.325, CC 2

LCN 3 458.425, CC 3

LCN 4 458.525, CC 4

LCN 5 458.625, CC 5


Note the unusual use of the 453 MHz channels as inputs and 458 MHz channels as repeater outputs. This is often done in maritime applications of floating repeater systems.


You can find a thread on the Mercy radio system on Radio Reference here: https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/las-floating-hospital.403924/

Federal Agencies & COVID-19

Here is a graphic that shows which federal agency is doing what during the COVID-19 pandemic response:

https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/airport-aviation-security/coronavirus-responsibilities-which-agency-is-tasked-with-doing-what/

Here is a link to the poster that can be downloaded directly:

https://www.hstoday.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Pandemic-1.pdf

New vendor awarded $8.5M to service Coast Guard’s failing VHF sites

This is in reference to VHF Marine Remote sites in Alaska:

https://www.ktoo.org/2020/01/06/new-vendor-awarded-8-5-million-to-service-coast-guards-failing-vhf-sites/

The Passing of Uniden's Paul Opitz

Word began spreading last night about the death of Paul Opitz, otherwise known as "UPMan" on the scanner forums on Radio Reference.

Paul was the product manager for radio scanners at the Uniden Corporation in the U.S. He was instrumental in the design and development of all the recent models of radio scanners made and sold by Uniden.

https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/sad-news-about-paul-opitz-upman.399210/

Paul discovered he had cancer very suddenly in 2017 and decided to blog about it. It shows how determined he was to fight and provided some interesting insight to the man that many radio hobbyists knew, but had never met;

http://massivelyuninformed.me/category/throat-blog/?order=asc

Memorial information for Mr. Rodney Paul Opitz, R.I.P. -

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/fort-worth-tx/rodney-opitz-8977535

January 2020 TSM Corrections

Well, I somehow managed to fat-finger some frequencies in the January 2020 edition of Federal Wavelengths and wanted to post some corrections.

In my January column I spoke about where to look for federal radio traffic. Here are the ranges as I intended to list them:

Most of the active federal radio systems near you are going to be in two distinct bands of radio frequencies. The federal VHF Hi-band runs from 162.0 MHz to 174.0 MHz, with the channels being assigned in 12.5 kHz steps. The federal UHF band runs from 406.0 MHz to 420.0 MHz, also in 12.5 kHz steps. There are some additional ranges of frequencies that are sometimes used by federal and military operations that might be active in your area. The VHF lo-band from 30 MHz to 50 MHz is often used by military aircraft and ground units in the FM analog mode. The ranges of 138.0 MHz through 144.0 MHz and 148.0 MHz through 150.875 MHz are often used by military land mobile and aircraft operations. They can be AM (for aircraft) or FM (for land mobile) mode and may be digital as well. There is a small piece of radio spectrum above the federal UHF band that runs from 400.0 MHz to 406.0 MHz, that is normally assigned to radio astronomy use, but there are exceptions for military and federal use. There have been several examples of federal operations being heard in this range of frequencies, but it’s rare."

Army Flights Over DC

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-13/army-s-secret-flights-over-washington-now-an-enduring-mission