Southern Border Radio Traffic

A recent story on Fox News here linked to a web site that claimed to be posting recordings of clear Border Patrol radio traffic from along the southern United States.

The site, called "Secure Border Intelligence", http://secureborderintel.org/arizona_audio.html, shows links to daily compilations of clear radio traffic along the Arizona border area. My personal experience has shown that the Border Patrol traffic on the newer P-25 digital repeaters in the area is mostly encrypted. But some field units, particularly aviation units, are sometimes not using encryption while working the border.

The group apparently is aiming to show that illegel border crossing activity continues at a hefty pace, despite claims by some in the government that the border is more secure. The archived audio is presented much later than it occurred, so not much real time intelligence can be gleaned from it. But I'm sure this will fan the flames in the controversy over encrypting law enforcement radio traffic and the mobile computer apps that allow users to monitor police radio traffic.

ACY Coast Guard Activity

I had a couple of days to hang out at Atlantic City International (ACY) and caught some Coast Guard helicopter training activity.

On two consecutive days there were 2 HH-65C Dolphin helicopters running air intercept training. Both departed each day from the Coast Guard ramp at ACY. They did not identify themselves by their CG number, which is how I am used to hearing normal Coast Guard air units ID themselves. In this case, they used BOUNCER 1 & BOUNCER 2 as their flight call signs, and used 237.9 MHz and 345.0 MHz as an air-to-air tac channel. On the way back to base, I caught 164.3000 MHz, CSQ as the base aircraft maintenance channel. 412.9750 MHz, N293 (NET 409) was used for radio guard while the birds were in flight.