11.1750 USB IS BUSY TONIGHT

[Jay Walker]

If you like to listen to your tax dollars at work a great 24 hour frequency to monitor is 11.1750 USB one of the major frequencies of the USAF HIGH FREQUENCY GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM. Primary HFGCS Frequencies 24 Hours: 8992 and 11175

Info link: http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/USAF_High_Frequency_Global_Communications_System

Seems to be more active than usual with a large number of high priority EAM messages being passed frequently. Usually when activity picks up on this frequency it's a good sign that "something" is going on Military wise.

Tonight I'm hearing multiple echos as various ground stations are keyed simultaneously all over CONUS. Some of the ground stations you will hear are Offutt Air Force Base, Andrews AFB, Puerto Rico, and various others in the network. Many in flight aircraft were also passing traffic earlier this evening. Remember to set your mode to Upper Sideband (USB)

Enjoy...

Jay Walker

 

[Uncle Kaimbridge]

If you like to listen to your tax dollars at work a great 24 hour frequency to monitor is 11.1750 USB one of the major frequencies of the USAF HIGH FREQUENCY GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM.
...
Usually when activity picks up on this frequency it's a good sign that "something" is going on Military wise.

Tonight I'm hearing multiple echos as various ground stations are keyed simultaneously all over CONUS. Some of the ground stations you will hear are Offutt Air Force Base, Andrews AFB, Puerto Rico, and various others in the network.

Is it “combative” operations or weather reconnaissance/search and rescue in nature——i.e, Hurricane Sandy related?

 

[Jay Walker]

If you like to listen to your tax dollars at work a great 24 hour frequency to monitor is 11.1750 USB one of the major frequencies of the USAF HIGH FREQUENCY GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM.
...
Usually when activity picks up on this frequency it's a good sign that "something" is going on Military wise.

Tonight I'm hearing multiple echos as various ground stations are keyed simultaneously all over CONUS. Some of the ground stations you will hear are Offutt Air Force Base, Andrews AFB, Puerto Rico, and various others in the network.

Is it “combative” operations or weather reconnaissance/search and rescue in nature——i.e, Hurricane Sandy related?

Usually increases in traffic "might" indicate heightened tensions regarding military operations. The traffic increase I've noted could be ANYTHING, training, or whatever. As far as storm related it is doubtful since this network encompasses global communication needs of a strategic/tactical nature. The primary users of HF for weather purposes are usually the Hurricane Hunters flights (53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron based in Biloxi, Mississippi) which use a completely different set of frequencies. Those sorties are flown usually while the storm is way off-shore.

I should dig around the files and post FEMA HF frequencies. Those might be interesting if this storm event proves to be major. However let me stress the higher traffic count could be anything from training profiles on up. I posted the freq since I've never seen anything posted in the DX forum about Mil/Util monitoring and thought I'd share another aspect of HF radio monitoring.

 

[Darth_vader]

"Usually increases in traffic 'might' indicate heightened tensions regarding military operations. The traffic increase I've noted could be anything; training, or whatever."

Well, you know we do have a Presidential election, starring two rather controversial candidates, coming up in just over a week.

Just saying......

 

[Jay Walker]

I'm betting that the uptick in traffic was due to the 7.1 earthquake in Canada overnight.
With the tsunami warning posted at the time for Alaska and the Pacific, that would make the most sense with the amount of military assets involved across the area.

Otherwise just a traffic spike....

 

[nocomradio]

Given all the above mentioned things, I bet that is the reason for the increase in radio traffic:

MAJOR East Coast storm

Earthquake on the West Coast

Presidential Election

All sound like reasons for more communications.

 

[kinphoenix2]

I've been listening to these for some time and have never found a correlation between the frequency of those EAMs and any world news events. Sometimes something "big" happens and there hasn't been many EAMs, sometimes many EAMs and nothing going on (or at least ones we HEAR of on the news!) I have plenty of those recorded for years https://www.facebook.com/shortwaveradio I do not admin that page anymore nor do "facebook" but I see my videos are still there, the Grundig Satellit 750. That page was very active and quite useful when I ran it, I have no idea how good it is now since I asked a nice radio guy to take it over. Some good captures there, of course youtube is full of EAMs as many who hear them for first time think something "big" is happening and get all excited. I still do, but nothing ever comes of them that I can see.

 

[Jay Walker]

I've been listening to these for some time and have never found a correlation between the frequency of those EAMs and any world news events.

I should have been more clear in my previous posts.

I agree with what you say regarding EAM broadcasts since these are on a pretty regular schedule. However, in my 40+ years of monitoring military HF coms I have observed a definite surge in traffic during times of conflict such as the flight 007 incident, G1 and G2 to name a few. Over the years I have enjoyed a "front row seat" or maybe a "right seat perspective minus the turbulence" as some of the traffic was transmitted in the clear in plain English without the one time alpha-numeric code groups.

I apologize for the confusion...

Jay Walker