Friday, July 22, 2011

Nellis AFB P-25 System Updates

Back in May, I posted some initial reports of an update to the UHF trunked system used by Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. You can find that post here.

I'm now in Las Vegas and have started monitoring and mapping this new system. The first item of note is that this is a separate, true P-25 trunked system and not part of the NNSA Motorola trunked system that Nellis was a subscriber to in the past. Some of the early information had listed this new System ID as "000F", but it is "00F", which indicates that it is a P-25 system (P-25 systems use a 3-digit system ID as opposed to a 4 digit ID used by Motorola Type II systems).

Here are the frequencies in use at Nellis now:

406.5000
406.7875
407.1875
407.3000
407.5000
407.8625
408.1500
408.9625
409.1125
409.5625
409.7125
410.6500

With the exception of 407.1875 and 407.5000, these frequencies were at one time all part of the NNSA Motorola trunked system that serves the entire southern Nevada area. This P-25 system appears to be standalone and is not networked to any other sites.

The original NNSA Site 10 that covered Nellis is now on the air on 408.3875 MHz, and appears to still be in use by a few users.

FEMA Mobile Units

Saw this web page on a recent list posting and thought it was interesting;

http://www.core77.com/blog/transportation/a_tour_of_femas_fleet_19969.asp

It's a nice look at FEMA's Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) command units and the various versions and sizes that they come in.

UPDATE: Fixed the messed up link I had earlier.

Monday, July 18, 2011

CBP Announce New MEA

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced today its new King Air 350, twin engine Multi-role Enforcement Aircraft (MEA), providing the Department of Homeland Security unmatched capabilities to patrol the skies along the nation’s land and maritime borders.

Full story here:

http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/national/06102011.xml

Another 414.5625 Report

I have monitored some encrypted P-25 transmissions in the Houston area on 414.5625 MHz with a NAC of N168. Others have also heard it in use in the Charlotte, NC area. I've recently received a report of encrypted traffic on this same frequency in the Boston area, however reports are that the NAC was showing N169. It's possible that whatever agency this is has multiple NACs for different repeaters in the area.

Still no indication as to what agency this is...