More on Coast Guard UHF Usage & SRCUS

Following up on the reports of Coast Guard operations on 413.0000 MHz, I have received some information regarding acquisition of UHF tactical radios by the Coast Guard:

http://www.uscg.mil/acquisition/rescue21/srcus.asp

This web page describes the installation of new radios in CG vessels under 87 feet in length. It specifically mentions new tactical VHF and UHF radios, and requires APCO P-25 operation with AES encryption capabilities. It also specifies that the UHF radios be capable of operations on the DoD 380 MHz trunking systems, known as the Enterprise Land Mobile Radio systems (ELMR).

It appears that this is all part of the Coast Guard's Short Range Communications Upgrade System or SRCUS;

http://www.uscg.mil/acquisition/rescue21/srcusfaq.asp

Coast Guard P-25 UHF Nets

I received a report from the Southeast US that the Coast Guard has started utilizing some frequencies in the 406-420 MHz band for its operations.

413.0000 MHz, P-25 (NAC not reported but I suspect N293) was heard in use by Coast Guard Sector Charleston along with 2 MH-65C helicopters.

They referred to this as "CG-410", which makes some sense in the new NTIA naming schemes. The other CG P25 net channels all start with 1, such as NET 101, since they are all in the VHF band and the frequencies start with 1. The 400 MHz channel frequencies all start with 4, so the NET numbers will apparently start with 4 as well.

I have not heard of any routine use of the federal UHF band by the Coast Guard, but there have been some vague references to new UHF radios for CG cutters and law enforcement use. Keep watching this band for more Coast Guard operations. Here are some known UHF allocations for the US Coast Guard:

406.5000
406.5625
406.5750
406.6000
406.8000
406.8125
406.9750
407.6250
407.9250
407.9750
408.4000
409.0000
409.1875
409.2000
409.3500
409.8250
410.0250
410.3750
411.3750
411.7875
412.9750
413.0250
413.0375
414.7625
415.6250
415.7750
415.8250
415.9250
416.2250
416.3875
416.4750
416.5500
416.5750
416.5875
416.6000
416.6375
416.7000
416.7125
416.8500
416.9250
416.9375
417.0000
418.3500
418.4375
418.4500
419.1250
419.6000
419.6500
419.8000
419.8250
419.8500
419.9750

New Federal Prison

As had been rumored for a while, the federal government will acquire a state-built prison facility in Thomson, Illinois to house terrorist prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/14/illinois-prison-house-gitmo-detainees/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121500095.html?hpid=topnews

This will most likely mean a new federal trunked radio system will be built at this facility as part of the takeover by the US Bureau of Prisons. I have no firm information on what frequencies will be used here, but most likely will be similar to the other BoP trunked systems and use 406-420 MHz. Because of the high profile terror suspects to be held at this facility, there will be encryption in use for sure.

Keep watching for further developments on this.