Recently I have received reports of uses of narrow-band FM for voice traffic on various frequencies in the 225-380 MHz military air band. Most recently a report showed up on the MILCOM mailing list detailing how a Coast Guard C-130J was heard using NFM on 345.0 MHz to talk with a USCG cutter, then when calling their station inbound they were AM.
This may be due to the proliferation of all-mode radios in some military aircraft. Several years ago I caught some Air National Guard aircraft repeatedly trying to contact their base ops in NFM, but the base station was having a hard time hearing them because the base was AM.
Possibly these issues are due to incorrect settings on the radio presets, or operators not knowing what mode they should be in.
Anyone else catching aircraft using NFM in the UHF military band?
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
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Saturday, August 17, 2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
NTIA Plans Spectrum Monitoring
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) plans a remote, real-time, spectrum monitoring project. You can read some interesting, preliminary information about it here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-20148.pdf
This project will monitor real world usage of radio frequency spectrum in 10 cities and evaluate possible plans to more efficiently utilize both federal and non-federal spectrum.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-20148.pdf
This project will monitor real world usage of radio frequency spectrum in 10 cities and evaluate possible plans to more efficiently utilize both federal and non-federal spectrum.