Civil Air Patrol Narrowbanding Project Not Going Well

The Civil Air Patrol has been trying to convert their VHF radio systems to comply with NTIA narrowband guidelines for the last few years. But things have not gone well and they still have not converted their VHF network over to the Congressionally mandated narrowband system.

According to one anonymous source, the CAP HQ has now given a deadline of 31 Aug 2010 for all the wing commanders and directors of communication across the country to get their narrowband repeaters on the air.

Wings first requested new nationally-funded repeaters in the 2004-2005 timeframe, and CAP bought some $5 million in repeaters based on those requests. There were delays in actually getting federal frequency assignments (because of the need to coordinate with Canada/Mexico). As a result many of those originally-approved repeater sites have been lost. Some of the CAP wings just moved slowly in getting their new narrowband repeaters on-the-air.

August 31 will mark two years from the final release of the new VHF narrowband frequencies to the wings and a year-and-a-half since the first CAP narrowband repeater went on the air.

According to one source the Air Force is putting it's foot down because every repeater NOT on the air is wasted taxpayer's dollars. Nobody is officially saying what will happen if the 31 Aug deadline is not met, but it is clear that wings that do not get their repeaters on by the deadline will face some sort of repercussions.

Bottom line is you will probably see new comms over the next few weeks popping up on the CAP's new VHF frequencies. We had an extensive article on all of this in the May 2010 MT Milcom column (if you miss one issue you miss a lot). But to help out those who don't subscribe, here are the frequencies to watch for CAP activity:

139.8750 141.0000 141.5750 143.5500 143.6250 143.600 143.7000
148.1250 148.1375 148.1500 149.2750 150.2250 150.5625

National CAP Plan (Supposedly Zone 1 in all the new ground-only radios)

141.5750 Simplex 127.3 Hz Command Control
141.0000 Simplex 131.8 Hz Command Control
149.2750 Simplex 141.3 Hz Air-to-Air
150.5625 Simplex 151.4 Hz Air-to-Air
150.2250 Simplex 162.2 Hz CAP Guard Channel
139.8750 Simplex 173.8 Hz Tactical/Miscellaneous use (also used on
the Canadian Border as an input to the 148.1250 repeaters)
148.1250 Simplex 100.0 Hz Primary Talk-Around
148.1500 Simplex 100.0 Hz Secondary Talk-Around
148.1375/143.6250 203.5 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1375/143.6250 192.8 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1375/143.6250 131.8 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1375/143.6250 162.2 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1250/143.5500 203.5 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1250/139.8750 Canadian Border repeaters
148.1500/143.7000 203.5 Hz Airborne/Tactical Repeater
148.1500/143.6000 Canadian Border repeaters

Again there is more to all this, but that is about 2,000 words in the MT May issue.