The August 2006 issue of the Civil Air Patrol North Central Region newsletter (http://ncr.cap.gov/images/ncr/pao/pdf/NCR_News_2006_08.pdf) had the following article on future CAP developments and a timeline regarding their new self proclaimed "sensitive" VHF frequencies:
From page nine of this newsletter:
"2007 may be the most demanding year in the history of CAP for the organization's Communications program. During the summer of 2007, every VHF-FM radio frequency used by CAP will be changed by order of the federal government, requiring changing out of every VHF “repeater” used by CAP and reprogramming of every corporate and member-owned radio used on the “CAP frequencies.”
"CAP's radio communications are regulated by the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA), as opposed to civilian frequencies which are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. During 2007, CAP will be implementing new technical standards required by the NTIA and the Air Force. Among the changes mandated by the new standards will be operation on new “narrow band” frequencies, meaning physically changing the hardware of every VHF radio repeater used by CAP, nationwide, including 75 in North Central Region. Between 1995 and 2006, CAP has received over $23 million dollars [This is our taxpayer money that funded this CAP frequency changeover-LVH] in Air Force funding to acquire new equipment meeting the more stringent technical standards, which will be fully implemented in 2007.
"The project was discussed during the Comm Manager's meeting on the wednesday of National Board, which included NCR Director of Communications LtCol. Mercer Richardson. According to that discussion, the typical wing will need to plan for the following steps:
• By April 1, 2006, each wing will receive their new repeaters. Each repeater, packaged for transport, will be the size of a refrigerator and will weigh 300 pounds. A forklift will probably be needed to unload the repeater, but once unpacked, it should be possible to transport with a handcart.
• At each repeater site, between April 1 and September 30, the old repeater must be removed from service and the new repeater, operating on new frequencies, must replace it.
• Prior to beginning the program of switching repeaters, every radio in the wing will need to be reprogrammed to include both “old” and “new” frequencies.
• After the last repeater has been switched out, every radio will have to be reprogrammed again to eliminate the “old” frequencies, which will become the territory of other federal agencies.
• Some repeater sites may need a formal process of coordinating frequencies with other users of the site.
• During the transition period, users from other agencies may appear on both the old and new frequencies. CAP must work with these other agencies to try to support our missions while not causing unnecessary interference to their missions.
• Current “old” CAP VHF-FM frequencies may not be used by CAP used after September 30, 2006. The overall project of converting to new frequencies will affect 587 repeaters across the country and thousands of individual radios, making it one of the biggest projects CAP has ever undertaken, as an organization.
"Mark Kunkowski, of CAP's National Technology Center, told comm managers in Reno that they need to be planning for this effort NOW in order to ensure a smooth conversion to the new frequencies. He said that the list of new frequencies should be ready to release to comm managers soon. In order to have access to the list of new frequencies, members must have agreed to the Non-Disclosure Agreement at the conclusion of the Operational Security training announced recently."
I have a complete list of all the new CAP VHF frequencies in the November issue of Monitoring Times magazine in my monthly Milcom column. These frequencies were posted to a publicly available website, and were NOT obtained directly through any official CAP sources.
So much for the big CAP secret frequencies! Did these folks honestly think that their frequencies were going to remain under wraps? How hard is it to hide VHF frequencies coming from a VHF repeater the size of a refrigerator? Duh! It is obvious that the people in the CAP National Technology Center need to learn a bit about VHF line of sight propagation. For a fee I will be more than happy to educate those who obviously are clueless.
