Saturday, July 18, 2009

National Guard Air Defense Element Gets Name Change

Back on April 3, 2007, I reported that NEADS was now EADS, but the name/acronym had not changed officially. See http://mt-milcom.blogspot.com/2007/04/eads-its-official-now.html. Finally as of Wednesday it is official, the old NEADS is now called EADS. So now my story is complete.

If you want the absolute latest NORAD freqs and background, you need to get a copy of my June 2009 Monitoring Times Milcom column. This column has the first list of CONUS/WADS/EADS/CANR/ANR frequencies since all of the consolidations and frequency changes that have been made in the 225-400 MHz milair band. You can order a single electronic copy of this issue (MTExpress) by contacting Grove Enterprises. More information is available on the Grove website.

Sector Renamed to Reflect Expanded East Coast Mission

ROME, NY (07/15/2009)-- In an official order from the Department of the Air Force, the New York Air National Guard's Northeast Air Defense Sector was renamed the Eastern Air Defense Sector today.

In November 2006, the Sector assumed responsibility for providing air sovereignty over the entire east coast of the U.S., which includes more than one million square miles of air space.

"We are extremely grateful to be officially renamed the Eastern Air Defense Sector because it truly reflects our area of responsibility," said Col. John Bartholf, EADS commander. "Ensuring the air sovereignty of the eastern coast of the nation is something that everyone here works tremendously hard to accomplish."

There are now two air defense sectors in the Continental United States, or CONUS. The Western Air Defense Sector provides air sovereignty over air space west of the Mississippi.

For the federal air defense mission, both sectors report to First U.S. Air Force at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla.

EADS is a joint, bi-national organization currently manned by New York Air National Guardsmen, Active Duty U.S. Air Force, Navy, Army and Coast Guard; Canadian Forces, federal civil servants and civilian contractor personnel.

The unit employs approximately 400 personnel.The overall unit mission at EADS is to provide air sovereignty and execute counter-air operations over the eastern United States in support of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command Homeland Defense Missions.