THE FED FILES - Welcome to The Fed Files blog! This blog was originally built to support the "Fed Files" column in Monitoring Times magazine. Although the Fed Files, as well as Monitoring Times, ended with the December 2013 issue, this blog continues and is associated with the new federal monitoring column, Federal Wavelengths, in The Spectrum Monitor magazine. If you would like to make a comment, pass along a tip or frequency you can send it to my email address, chrisparris @ thefedfiles.com
Pages
▼
Friday, May 28, 2010
Border Patrol Birthday
Today, May 28th, marks the 86th anniversary of the United States Border Patrol. It was originally started in 1924 to combat the illegal entry of aliens, contraband, and the flow of illicit liquor from Mexico and Canada into the United States. The El Paso Border Patrol Sector began operations on July 1, 1924 as the first uniformed division of the Immigration Bureau.
For frequencies that the CBP Border Patrol are using these days, check out this previous Fed Files Blog post:
http://mt-fedfiles.blogspot.com/2007/03/cbp-border-patrol-update.html
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Arizona Border Activity
Down in Arizona on a short vacation and have been observing some new and previously unknown frequencies active. The usual CBP Border Patrol and Customs channels are busy as always. But the unknown ones, mostly encrypted, keeping the users unknown for now, but I've got some guesses:
163.6250 MHz, 151.4 pl - Still hearing an analog Border Patrol repeater somewhere.
167.8250 MHz, N293 - Western Area Power Administration (WAPA - http://www.wapa.gov/)
167.9250 MHz, N293 - WAPA
167.9750 MHz, N293 - WAPA
168.8250 MHz - Heard with multiple NAC's of N167, N340 & N710
169.9375 MHz, N330
170.3500 MHz, N340
170.4375 MHz, N230 - Reported as a repeater in Nogales, AZ
173.0500 MHz, N001
173.1875 MHz - Heard with both N001 and N230
409.4000 MHZ, N910
414.9750 MHZ, N115
I suspect the 169.9375, 170.3500, 170.4375 and 173.1875 might be DHS ICE repeaters.
163.6250 MHz, 151.4 pl - Still hearing an analog Border Patrol repeater somewhere.
167.8250 MHz, N293 - Western Area Power Administration (WAPA - http://www.wapa.gov/)
167.9250 MHz, N293 - WAPA
167.9750 MHz, N293 - WAPA
168.8250 MHz - Heard with multiple NAC's of N167, N340 & N710
169.9375 MHz, N330
170.3500 MHz, N340
170.4375 MHz, N230 - Reported as a repeater in Nogales, AZ
173.0500 MHz, N001
173.1875 MHz - Heard with both N001 and N230
409.4000 MHZ, N910
414.9750 MHZ, N115
I suspect the 169.9375, 170.3500, 170.4375 and 173.1875 might be DHS ICE repeaters.
US Fish & Wildlife Activity
Reports from the Georgia Coast are that US Fish & Wildlife Service is active with Loggerhead Turtle tracking and support activities. I have not had much luck catching FWS traffic on the radios, so this information interested me.
Here are some of the active frequencies:
169.8250 MHz
171.6500 MHz
172.4500 MHz - USFWS Skidaway repeater
172.6500 MHz
These repeaters are apparently linked and all activity was reported as P-25 digital (sorry, no NAC data).