United States Coast Guard
From The RadioReference Wiki
The USCG are heavy users of the Marine VHF band; Channel 16 is reserved for distress, safety and calling, while channel 22A is utilized for special warnings, Marine Safety and other announcements. Other frequencies utilized vary from sector to sector.
- Asset Guide by M.Cleary (linked on MT Website)
- USCG Maritime Communications Page
- USCG Allocations on the Mississippi River (and others)
- For a list of USCG VHF Marine channels, and the new Land Mobile Channel list, see the May 08 edition of 'Fed Files' page 54 of Monitoring Times
Air Operations
New nationwide United States Coast Guard frequencies, as of January 1, 2005, are listed below. The frequencies were changed due to the mandate to vacate 380-400 MHz so that the spectrum could be used for military trunked radio systems.
345.0 Operations Primary AM Mode 237.9 Operations Secondary AM Mode 326.15 Air-to-Ground Primary AM Mode 379.05 Air-to-Ground Secondary AM Mode
HF Operations
The US Coast Guard uses 4 different types of mechanisms for HF Radio Communications.
The first method is the use of the Dept of Homeland Security HF COTHEN ALE Network. This network supports most normal flight operations and flight following for US Coast Guard aircraft and helos and is the primary HF communications method for USCG assets.
The second method is the use of a backup USCG HF Radio network that primarly supports aircraft and helos that do not have ALE capable HF radios. The following frequencies are typically used:
5696 8983 11201
Third, the USCG uses a set of HF frequencies for tactical radio communications between aircraft, base stations, and USCG Cutters
8337.6 10993.6 11197.4 (Mobile AL)
And finally, the USCG has a network called TISCOM which operates on the following frequencies:
3053 4730 6709 8057 8859 8980 9034 11196 13221 15082 17988 20135.5 23072.5
Also see the the Oct 2006 Milcom column edited by Larry Van Horn in MT which describes USCG communications in detail.
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