Upcoming Events - NLE09

FEMA's National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE09) is scheduled for July 27th through July 31st, 2009;

http://www.fema.gov/media/fact_sheets/nle09.shtm

NLE is the new FEMA designation for what were the TOPOFF exercises. This exercise is scheduled to involve FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Additional detail will be coming as the exercies planning continues.

More on FPS

And speaking of the Federal Protective Service;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2009/07/gao_finds_major_security_flaws.html?hpid=topnews

According to the above linked article, the FPS is under fire for not providing the level of protection that Congress is expecting. Testimony indicates that investigators have been able to walk around freely in federal building and even smuggled simulated explosives past security checkpoints.

Further down in the article there is mention that the FPS will be transferred out of the juristiction of ICE and become part of the National Protection and Programs Directorate, a collection of agencies tasked with assessing security risks;
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0794.shtm

FPS Adding VHF?

I have received reports from some areas that Federal Protective Service vehicles are beginning to sprout VHF hi-band antennas in addition to the normal UHF antennas used for the FPS radio system. So what are these antennas for? The FPS car pictured here seems to have a four-antenna array for LoJack tracking or something similar. The reports I've received are usually referring to single VHF quarter-wave or 5/8 wave gain antennas now showing up on vehicles.

Some suggest that they are getting VHF radios for multi-agency interop capability. Others have suggested that the FPS has been and is using the CBP Customs nationwide VHF radio network. I have not personally confirmed this and have not heard any traffic that could be FPS, so I'm not sure about this one.

The FPS, under Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in DHS, currently operates on a national UHF radio system that is dispatched from regional Mega-Centers. Most cities have switched to (or will soon) P-25 digital. Here are the known UHF frequencies utilized by the Federal Protective Service.

406.2000 MHz
406.4125 MHz
406.7000 MHz
407.0000 MHz
407.1750 MHz
407.2125 MHz
407.3625 MHz
408.2000 MHz
408.5375 MHz
410.8000 MHz
411.0375 MHz
413.4750 MHz
413.8750 MHz
413.9500 MHz
414.4750 MHz
415.1750 MHz
415.2000 MHz
416.0250 MHz
417.2000 MHz
417.2500 MHz
417.4250 MHz
417.6500 MHz
419.1500 MHz
419.1750 MHz
419.6500 MHz
419.8750 MHz.

New FAA Radio Update

Back in November of 2006, I received frequency information from the new FAA land-mobile P-25 radio network, known as the FAA "C2" system. Here are the frequencies from the 11/06 Fed Files column:
Receive / Transmit
Channel 1 172.9250 169.3250
Channel 2 172.9500 169.3500
Channel 3 172.9750 169.3750
Channel 4 172.8500 169.2500
Channel 5 172.8750 169.2750
Channel 6 166.1000 162.3000
Channel 7 172.8250 169.2250
Channel 8 172.9125 169.3125
Channel 9 162.1375 166.0375
Channel 10 167.9375 171.4875
Channel 11 166.3875 162.3375
Channel 12 171.7125 167.8875
Channel 13 172.1750 172.1750
Channel 14 166.1750 166.1750

Now that the C2 radios are being deployed, the channel lineup seems to have changed somewhat. The radios are setup with two zones, one is P-25 digital and the other analog. The channel lineups are slightly different between the two zones. Here is the P-25 digital zone:
Channel 1 172.9250 169.3250 - N293
Channel 2 172.9500 169.3500 - N293
Channel 3 172.9750 169.3750 - N293
Channel 4 172.8500 169.2500 - N293
Channel 5 172.8750 169.2750 - N293
Channel 6 166.1000 162.3000 - N293
Channel 7 172.8250 169.2250 - N293
Channel 8 172.9125 169.3125 - N293
Channel 9 172.1250 172.1250 - N293
Channel 10 172.7375 172.7375 - N293
Channel 11 172.1750 172.1750 - N293
Channel 12 166.1750 166.1750 - N293

And this is the analog zone, all channels programmed with a 136.5 CTCSS squelch tone:
Channel 1 172.9250 169.3250 - 136.5
Channel 2 172.9500 169.3500 - 136.5
Channel 3 172.9750 169.3750 - 136.5
Channel 4 172.8500 169.2500 - 136.5
Channel 5 172.8750 169.2750 - 136.5
Channel 6 172.9000 169.3000 - 136.5
Channel 7 172.8250 169.2250 - 136.5
Channel 8 172.1250 172.1250 - 136.5
Channel 9 172.1500 172.1500 - 136.5
Channel 10 172.1750 172.1750 - 136.5
Channel 11 166.1750 166.1750 - 136.5

Interesting that the frequencies used by the TSA (shown in channels 6 and 9) are back in the FAA radios, but in the analog mode. Since the TSA radios are all P-25 digital, I think this is not meant to provide interoperability between the FAA and TSA.

USCG Sector Portand Update

Since posting about the US Coast Guard utilizing more federal interoperability frequencies, I have run into some changes in my own listening area in Portland, Oregon.

Until recently, the CG tended to operate on either the standard VHF marine channels allocated for Coast Guard use. They also had access to, and used often, a talk-group on the Portland metro area 800 MHz public safety trunked system. However, around the time of the Portland Rose Festival, most of the activity on these channels seemed to disappear.

While searching around, I discovered that they had moved to one of the new CG "NET" channels in the APCO P-25 mode. So far SECTOR PORTLAND is using NET 21 (165.3125 MHz) in P25. It does not seem to be a repeater, but the base transmitters are probably located at one of the new Rescue 21 antenna sites in the area. Also, while the US and Canada had some navy vessels docked at Portland's Waterfront Park for the Rose Festival, CG security PACCOMM was heard using 163.1375 MHz, NET 113.

http://www.uscg.mil/d13/sectPortland/default.asp

Minneapolis FRB

As some may recall, we have noted that the Federal Reserve branch banks across the US have been using a common set of UHF frequencies for their communications, but in all different modes. Some are analog, others are analog with DCS squelch tones and some are P-25 digital. But now
I received a report from a listener in the Twin Cites that indicates the Federal Reserve Branch Bank in Minneapolis is using a UHF LTR trunked system.

According to the supplied information, the trunked system is as follows:
406.6625 - LCN 10
410.4875 - LCN 01

I've learned long ago not to underestimate the possibilities of what can show up in the federal bands, but this is indeed unusual! Until I make it back up to Minneapolis, can anyone supply any further information on this system?

DHS Demos Thales Liberty Radio

The Department of Homeland Security will be testing a new multi-band portable radio from Thales. The pilot program will involve field testing of the Thales Liberty muli-band portable radio that will cover both VHF and UHF public safety bands as well as 700 and 800 MHz channels. The test program will involve multiple agencies, both in the US and Canada and will involve first-responders as well as federal agencies.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/43196

The 14 pilot organizations that will be involved in the test program are:

-2010 Olympic Security Committee (Blaine, Wash., and Vancouver, B.C. Canada)

-Amtrak (Northeast Corridor)

-Boise Fire Department (Boise, Idaho)

-Canadian Interoperability Technology Interest Group (Ottawa, ON Canada)

-Customs and Border Patrol (Detroit)

-Federal Emergency Management Agency (Multiple Locations)

-Hawaii State Civil Defense (Honolulu)

-Interagency Communication Interoperability System (Los Angeles County, Calif.)

-Michigan Emergency Medical Services (Lower Peninsula Areas)

-Murray State University (Southwest Kentucky)

-Phoenix Police Department and Arizona Department of Emergency --Management Greater Phoenix and Yuma County)

-Texas National Guard (Austin, Texas)

-U.S. Marshals Service (Northeast Region)

-Washington Metro Area Transit Authority Transit Police (District of Columbia)

According to information on the Thales Communications web site, the radio can be configured to operate in multiple mdes, including analog, APCO-25 digital, conventional and trunked.

http://www.thalesliberty.com/about_liberty.asp

CBP Operating Predator Drones

Reports are that the DHS Customs & Border Protection directorate are now using Predator B unmanned drones to keep the northern New York state border under surveillance. The full story can be seen here:
http://www.newswatch50.com/news/local/story/Homeland-Security-drone-patrolling-NNY/8ujqf9M2YkCXVlOmBVxFOg.cspx

Reports had been that the CBP had several of the drones available for their use, but never where they were being used. The story indicates that these drones are not permanently based in New York state, but are being used for training and evaluation.

Local scanner listeners should keep an ear out on normal VHF air traffic control frequencies, as the drone should announce it's location to surrounding air traffic, or it's presence should be announced in warnings by local ATC.

DTV Transition - Boon for Scanners?

Has anyone else noticed a marked improvement in scanning the federal bands since the turn-off of analog full power TV stations? In the last couple of weeks, I have traveled to New York City, Los Angeles and Tucson, AZ and noticed that both my Uniden radios and GRE/Radio Shack scanners are not getting clobbered by interference and images in the 162-174 MHz band like they used to.

Normally all of my newer P-25 capable scanner would exhibit lots of signal level on their S-meters while scanning through the VHF bands, even when no signal was being received. I've always believed that this was a result of the front end of the radio being overloaded from high levels of RF. But I also believe that the problem was a result of the scanners receiver design and not the TV stations. Problems from this overload included low sensitivity and images of the wide-band FM audio sub carrier on some VHF frequencies. These have all seemed to vanished since the analog transmitters have shut down. Even at my home listening post, where I have a direct, line-of-site view to all the TV stations in the Portland, OR area, things are very quiet across the VHF federal and UHF military air bands.

Upcoming Events - G20 in Pittsburgh

It was recently announced that they next meeting of the G20 Summit will be in Pittsburgh, PA on September 24th and 25th.

These summit meetings are usually great monitoring opportunities for not only federal agencies, but local and state agencies as well. These events also seem to attract the anarchists and professional protesters as well. Security will be tight for the meeting dates and the days leading up to them as well.

There are some very good folks monitoring things in the Pittsburgh area, so we'll see what comes up during this event.

NASA Glenn TRS On Line

The new UHF P-25 trunked system apparently is on the air at the John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This system is apparently going to replace the UHF EDACS trunked system that has been in use.



Reports I have received show this for current system information:
System ID - 258
WACN - BEE00
406.1500 MHz
406.7750 MHz
408.4250 MHz

USCG Using Federal I/O Channels

Recent reports are that the US Coast Guard has started using some of the new Federal Interoperability channels for their operations in the field.

Back in early 2008, the Coast Guard began using new narrow-band radios, capable of APCO P-25 digital mode as well as analog. When the new radios went on line, so did some new frequencies.

For many years, Coast Guard listeners were familiar with the "LANT" VHF FM land-mobile channels that some Coast Guard operations used. With the move to narrow-band radios some of these frequencies changed, and they are now referred to by "NET" numbers. Here is the most recent list of these new USCG NET channels, as published in the May 2008 Monitoring Times:
NET 01 139.9750
NET 02 140.4750
NET 03 140.7250
NET 04 141.6125
NET 05 150.7250
NET 06 141.5500
NET 07 150.3000
NET 08 162.0500
NET 09 162.1250
NET 10 162.2500
NET 11 162.3250
NET 12 163.0500
NET 13 163.1375
NET 14 164.3000
NET 15 164.3125
NET 16 164.5500
NET 17 164.5625
NET 18 164.9000
NET 19 164.9125
NET 20 165.2625
NET 21 165.3125
NET 22 165.3250
NET 23 165.3375
NET 24 166.1875
NET 25 167.9000
NET 26 168.8625
NET 27 171.2375
NET 28 172.3125
NET 50 172.0375 (Not Confirmed)
NET 51 165.4625 (Not Confirmed)
Note that in some areas, the NET numbers seem to have 100 added to them for APCO P-25 digital, so NET 1 would become NET 101 if they are digital. Unknown if this is standard through out the entire CG.

In addition to the new P-25 NETs, the new radios also contain the new VHF federal interoperability frequencies that have been made available to all federal agencies. There are two groups of VHF federal interop channels available in the CG radios and here they are:
VHF Law Enforcement (LE)
LE-A 167.0875 (simplex)
LE-1 167.0875
LE-2 167.2500
LE-3 167.7500
LE-4 168.1125
LE-5 168.4625
LE-6 167.2500 (simplex)
LE-7 167.7500 (simplex)
LE-8 168.1125 (simplex)
LE-9 168.4625 (simplex)

VHF Incident Response (IR)
IR-C 169.5375
IR-1 170.0125
IR-2 170.4125
IR-3 170.6875
IR-4 173.0375
IR-5 169.5375 (simplex)
IR-6 170.0125 (simplex)
IR-7 170.4125 (simplex)
IR-8 170.6875 (simplex)
IR-9 173.0375 (simplex)

So far, the Coast Guard has been heard using LE-A and LE-2 in some areas. The channel names for these interop frequencies have been changing often, so CG radios also have the 167.0875 MHz channel as LE-C for "LE Calling".

More can be found on these and other federal and non-federal interoperability frequencies in the National Interoperability Field Operations Guide that was mentioned in a previous blog posting. You can find the latest NIFOG download here:
http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/dhsr/EMS/pdf/NIFOG.pdf

LEWC Information

After searching for new information about the Justice Department's Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) trunked system, I discovered that the new acronym in federal communication is LEWC, or Law Enforcement Wireless Communications. I've also seen some references to LEWN or Law Enforcement Wireless Network in some documents.

LEWC is a broad concept for federal LE communications, which still includes the IWN as part of the big picture. But they have apparently come to realize that the IWN is not going to happen soon enough to replace some of the conventional legacy communications systems in use by various federal aagencies.

Here is a link to the Justice Department's FY 2010 Performance Budget of LEWC. Inside the report are some interesting timetables and maps showing a proposed schedule for some of the new installations and possible IWN expansion:

http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/2010justification/pdf/fy10-lewc.pdf

Declassify Federal Frequencies?

As part of their move towards "transparent" and open government, the White House has started asking for suggestions. One member of the FEDCOM list has submitted a proposal that asks for declassifying federal frequency assignments.

You can see his suggestion here:
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2902-4049

You are able to vote on weather you agree or disagree with this suggestion on this page.

No idea if this will lead to anything, but it's an interesting idea.

Secret Service Requests Funding For Upgrades

Two news sources discuss budget requests by the Secret Service for upgrades to their IT systems:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7644369&page=1

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/secretservice/

Although both articles refer to problems with the USSS "communications" systems, a deeper read seems to indicate the problems exist with computer networks and information security.

In addition, there is congressional testimony that you can read here:
http://appropriations.house.gov/Witness_testimony/HS/Mark_Sullivan_03_25_09.pdf

There is some reference to incompatible "telecommunications" between the US Secret Service and the White House Communications Agency (WHCA), but again, I think it refers more towards computer network and phone communications.

FPS UPdates

I've recently received information that both Houston and Dallas Federal Protective Service radios have switched to new frequencies and are now P-25 digital. The Dallas FPS is reported to be using 410.8000 MHz, NAC 201. Houston is also on 410.8000 MHz, but no confirmation on the NAC yet (but I'll bet it's also 201). Input to these repeaters should be 419.8000 MHz, now following a standard 9 MHz repeater offset in the federal 406-420 MHz band.

NIFOG Update

The latest version of the National Interoperability Field Operations Guide (NIFOG) is available for download here:

http://www.dhhs.state.nc.us/dhsr/EMS/pdf/NIFOG.pdf

This guide is filled with useful information about interoperable communications, including frequencies and other good stuff. This version corrects some errors that were in the last version.

Shuttle EVA Communications

I have been asked about possible shuttle EVA communications frequencies that could be monitored while the shuttle Atlantis is overhead. Although you would need to be in just the right place, it is possible to catch some traffic from the space shuttle on their UHF frequencies.

296.8 MHz, 259.7 MHz and 279.0 MHz are the three UHF simplex frequencies that are used by the EVA astronauts while outside the shuttle. The shuttle communications system relays these frequencies down to earth via S-band, Ku-band or TDRSS links.

To the best of my knowledge, these are not encrypted and are AM. There was some reserch being done a few years ago about replacing the EVA radios with something new and possibly digital in the 400 MHz band, but I don't know where that project is currently (my NASA sources have moved on to other careers).

Here are some good links to the NASA web site that deal with shuttle EVA and flight communications:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts-ovcomm.html

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/orbiter/comm/orbcomm/uhf.html

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/shutref/orbiter/eclss/emu.html

Swine Flu Frequencies?

Due to the recent news reports of possible Swine Flu threats in this country as well as Mexico and Canada, I have seen some requests on line for frequencies that might be in use by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) or the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Although I doubt at this point there is going to be any radio traffic from these agencies related to the Swine flu, I will post the HHS frequencies that were featured in the March 2008 edition of the Fed Files.

Department of Health & Human Services (All frequencies are in MHz)

30.420
30.430
34.050
36.180
36.220
36.250
36.270
36.350
36.750
38.830
40.370
41.350
41.390
41.430 (Nationwide)
41.470 (Nationwide)
41.530 (Nationwide)
41.650 (Nationwide)
41.690 (Nationwide)
41.790 (Nationwide)
41.830

163.0000
163.0750
163.1750
163.2500 (Nationwide Medical Paging Allocation)
163.3000
163.3750
163.7000
164.3000 (Nationwide)
164.5250
164.7000
164.8000
164.9625
164.9875 (Nationwide)
165.0625
165.2625
165.3125
165.3375
166.1000
166.8250
168.0000
168.3250
168.5250
169.6250
170.1250
171.2375 (Nationwide – shared)
171.7250
172.3000
172.7750

407.7000 / 416.7000
408.0500 / 417.0500
409.0000 / 418.0000
410.0250 / 419.0250
410.2000 / 419.2000
410.2250 / 419.2250
410.4000 / 419.4000
410.4250 / 419.4250
411.2250 – Simplex
411.4500 – Simplex
411.8250 – Simplex
413.4500 – Simplex
413.8750 – Simplex
415.4000 / 406.4000
415.8250 / 406.8250
415.9250 / 406.9250
416.9750 / 407.9750
417.6500 / 408.6500
417.7000 / 408.7000
419.1500 / 410.1500
419.6000 / 410.6000
419.6250 / 410.6250
419.8000 / 410.8000

As for CDC frequencies, the only ones I have seen are used for security at their facility outside of Atlanta.

Also from the Fed Files column, here is an HHS mobile unit that was seen in the Chicago area. Note the mobile satellite system as well as the land-mobile radios.

Super Bowl Helicopters

In the May 2009 issue of Monitoring Times, the Fed Files column contains a wrap-up of active frequencies that were monitored at Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa. I mentioned in the column about spotting two mysterious helicopters that were stationed near the stadium in our designated "Emergency Evacuation" rally point next to the football stadium.

Unfortunately the space in the magazine did not allow for any photos of the mystery helos, so I decided to post them here. You should be able to click on the photos for a larger view.

And I did not get any closer photos and was unable to catch the N numbers off of the helicopters on the one trip they made around the stadium. They arrived in the dark and departed the Monday after the Super Bowl.