Prep Comms - Scanners for Aviation Listening

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Editors Note: Attention. This program was recorded less than 24 hours before President Joe Biden announced he was giving up his re-election bid. This significant development suggests further changes are on the horizon. You are encouraged to Prepare your communications accordingly. The past ten days have been nothing short of tumultuous. Honestly, I foresee even more chaos before we see any real calm. With that said, thank you for tuning in to this episode. Today, I jump into current events (against my wishes), including the Trump Rally Shooting and the CrowdStrike outage. Then we also explore the use of aviation scanners and a faithful listener (Craig) reminded me of that end of the spectrum ('scuse the pun). Additionally, I discuss how your $20 walkie-talkie isn't truly a scanner but might suffice in a pinch. The $35 pawn shop scanner is still a better choice! Remember, ScannerMaster remains the premier destination for all your scanner needs, and I'm here to assist with any questions you might have (VM/DM, email). Where would we be without our show sponsor, Hub City Mercantile? Your source for answers and clean water solutions. Use code AJM15 to enjoy a 15% discount on filter system purchases. It's time to get your communications on line and ready to go! It's not hard or overwhelming but you have to be dedicated to make it work! (I wonder if my ol' buddy Chris will read that?) In all sincerity, God Bless You and Yours and Thank You for allowing me your time! New Blog with PDF freq charts: Scanners for Aviation    Caleb/K4CDN AM/FM Radios In Stock Suggested Shortwave Radio Suggested Weather Radio My Favoirte Scanner All Filter Systems 15% off with AJM15  Prep Comms Swag and Stickers  

Attention! This program was recorded less than 24 hours before President Joe Biden announced he was giving up his re-election bid. This significant development suggests further changes are on the horizon. You are encouraged to prepare your communications accordingly. Now all stations stand by for PrepCom's podcast with Caleb Nelson. It's the PrepComs Podcast. Caleb Nelson, your host. Thank you so much for tuning in. You know, I never intended this show or even knew or had an idea that this program would be like a current events program. But I guess here we are. Just the last time I was on

here with you about the special edition show when we talked about the Amron T-Rex exercise, radio exercise happened over the weekend between the 18th and the 21st, I believe, or the 19th and the 21st of July, 2024. A lot of great show notes in that one really short episode, primarily for those of you who may have an interest in learning more about how to communicate long distances or even listening to things that are long distance or further away. Back in the early programs here on the show, we talked about shortwave radio listening. One of the things that I didn't get into yet because it's more of an amateur radio listening thing is digital modes and how ham radio operators can use

their computers to send and receive and decode signals there's a great video for that in regards to the exercise that you can apply at any level over in the show notes from the past episode now this current episode wow uh we've had a lot happen in the last couple of days. And here we are. Donald Trump was shot at and grazed by a bullet at an event in Pennsylvania. And then just a couple of days ago, we had this huge CrowdStrike source. Their saying was just a well-intentioned update, but that had some bad information in it. I'm not the guy to get the real answers for that, other than that sounds quite suspicious to me, but I've been told I'm quite suspicious from time to time. So with that said, a lot of people generally out here in the populace were not affected with the most recent CrowdStrike breakdown. But if you were trying to get on an airplane, or maybe if you were like

Jake and going to the Bank of America, couldn't get any money out there. And we really don't know what type of implications this will have down the stretch, because if it requires these computers to be reset right there in person, like you can't do it remotely, well, then there's a lot of work that may need to be done. Now, again, I'm not the guy that's going to try to come on here and explain it and make it make sense. I just, I'm talking to you from a communications perspective. And that being, we kind of missed a bullet on that. Now, some T-Mobile customers did have some issues. But beyond that, it seems like everything communications-wise, you know, cell phones, internet, pretty much was okay.

It was just big industry, airlines, banking, you know, just the important stuff that got smashed on a Friday morning. Oh, man. So that's what we're doing this program for. That's why I'm here. I'm really trying to drive home the point that your communications plans and methods are very important. You really need to think about communicating when you can't communicate. We've talked about that. It's a mindset thing. Very first, second, first and second episode went through it all. You really need to give some consideration of that. And I'm guessing you probably are. That's why you're listening to this program. If you're a

prepper, you're thinking down these roads anyway. And I've found that in a lot of prepper circles, two of the biggest things that fall to the side is water and communication. And it just so happens that I sell water filters and I'm a communications nerd. So you get the total package here, Lex Luger. Did you guys see Hulk Hogan at the Republican National Convention? You know that the country's in a bad spot when we have pro wrestlers introducing our apprentice actor. Anyway, I don't want to go to politics, but I do want to stress that this hang up, this attack or whatever we're going to call it, was something real happened. And the next one, and there will be another one. Don't be scared. Just telling you the truth. There'll be another one. It could be much worse. It could be not as bad.

The point is you need today to start working on your plan. Now, we've been talking a lot about scanners, and I kind of want to finish up that today. I received a great point the other day from one of my listeners, and I think it was Craig, that messaged me and said, hey, you forgot to tell your listeners how amazing it is to listen to aircraft with your scanner. And I think I might have just in passing said, oh, you can listen to airplanes. Well, you can listen to airplanes, but you can listen to a lot more. I mean, like airplanes. What does that mean?

Well, I live out in the country. I live a long way away from everything. But the cool thing is, even though most of us may live closer in or even some way far out, because the airplanes are so high, the signal goes a long way. So you can average at a minimum about 100 miles. You can listen to air traffic control, talking to the planes back and forth, at least from the planes to air traffic control for about a hundred miles away. And that's really cool. Why do you want to listen to that? I don't know. Maybe you find it interesting, but there's a lot of things inside the whole realm of aviation, uh, approach control, ground control, local control,

the air traffic route coordinators. You've got Unicom, air shows, military. I mean, it's out there wide open and 99% of the scanners that you buy, whether it's, you know, a $600 SDS, or it's a $500 unit in home patrol too, or if it's the $35 that you picked up at your local pawn shop, it probably 99% of the time can listen to air traffic. And it's really interesting if you're just that kind of person. You know, I'll tell you kind of a radio story that's not really scanner related, but just to show you how the altitude makes a difference in the signal. I got a call a couple of years ago from a friend of mine named Gerald. Gerald used to help me some with my Ham Radio 360 show, and he's got a new call sign.

It's K5FO or something, but what was it? KF5JNU, something like that back in the day. Anyway, Gerald was flying in an airplane from oklahoma to myrtle beach south carolina and it was he worked for this aviation company and he was like in the back seat guy he was just riding along for the trip and he said when i get to a certain area i'll text you or call or something and anyway somehow we yall, this is a long time ago. We coordinated when he would be crossing into North Carolina from Tennessee. And at that point, we, um, I went up to my shack and I got on my UHF VHF radio and we utilized a VHF frequency. So like 140 some odd megahertz.

And we talked, he was in an airplane flying over the state of South Carolina, just inside, just over the North Carolina line, flew from one end of North Carolina, basically to the other, which was Myrtle Beach. And we talked the entire way on my 50 watt radio in my shack and him on a handheld radio in an airplane, what, 20, 30, 40,000 feet up in the sky. It's like a satellite. Your little dish down here can see the satellite up there and receive the information and it can feed multiple people. Well, Gerald was in the same spot. He could talk to multiple people at one time if he chose to, because he was so far up there that the signal was just kind of blanketing the area.

And it was crazy. Like if he would have been on the ground with that same walkie talkie, we may have been able to talk two or three miles at the most. And you guys need to understand those walkie talkies you see on the internet going to talk around the world, it doesn't happen like that in physics. You can't get over it. But because he was so high, the signal had no interruptions. There was nothing to block it down here to my antenna at 35 feet. And we talked for a very long time as he traversed the whole state of North and South Carolina. That was amazing. So I tell you that, but going back to scanners to tell you this, when you have a scanner and you're listening to the aviation, you can listen to nearby airports or close in airports. You may hear traffic from Florida. If you're in Georgia, you may hear traffic from Kansas. If you're in Texas, it just depends on how far and

how far they are up there and the signal that they're, you know, producing and anything that could get in between it, like, you know, buildings and bricks and rocks and whatever, but it's, it's a lot of fun. So I just wanted to kind of mention it. Thanks, Craig. Uh, I may not have made the best case for it, but listening to aviation, while it's not my very first, my number one that I listen to, there is a scanner in my shack that stays on and it monitors local air traffic control and all of that all the time. So when I'm up there, fire, rescue, police, military, ham, all these different things, as well as aviation so one of the last things to say about a scanner if you're interested in that that's the way to go even even the really cheap ones guys can hear something now you may not be able to plug a bunch of frequencies in if you've got a smaller you know

database set inside the scanner itself but it can still pick up the frequencies and you can listen to those things all right real, real quick on scanners. Scanners are not transmitters. They will not transmit a signal at all. They're not a transceiver. They're a receiver. So they're going to receive frequencies based on how they're built and how you program them to receive those frequencies. In addition to that, there's a lot of great, well, I don't say a lot.

There's a couple of nice models that you can buy. They're not cheap, but they're worth it to me. Where you bring it home, you plug in your zip code, tell it what you want to listen to, and that's it. There's no 463.251. None of this stuff programming. It's a zip code, and you're up and running. I love mine. It's such a, such a well spent

investment. If you're really looking for a nice one and you've got the cash unit and home patrols are hard to beat. I've got the base model now actually like it better than the handheld that I had back in the day. Uh, let's see beyond that scanners will give you a tactical advantage. I don't like the word, but it's the truth. It gives you a tactical advantage over most everybody in your surroundings because you have knowledge firsthand as the calls are being sent and received through the authorities. So when the police get a call and dispatch, you're hearing it. When the fire department goes out, you're hearing it. When you have a report from a storm chaser, you're hearing it first. And that's the power of a scanner. Now I just, I've got to get out there and say, scanners are very expensive

in some regards, and they could also be very cheap in some regards. So the more, really, the more you spend, possibly the better you're going to, the more service from it you're going to get. If you're not interested in everything else, the pawn shop scanner may be what you want to do. If you want the bells and whistles, the unit at home patrol, even the ones above that would be a definite, give those a look. Now there are scanners that aren't really scanners that you plug into your computer. They're called SDR. We're going to talk about that down the road not doing that right now we're not ready for that all right uh but but those are an alternative as well that we'll get to one of these

days uh scanners again tactical advantage they give you an opportunity to hear what's going around you before anyone else knows i highly recommend a scanner especially if you're a prepper uh if you're not a radio guy if you're not a geek dude, a scanner still will be a nice asset to have. Uh, just because again, it gives you an ass. It gives you, it gives you an ass. Sorry about that. It gives you a tactical advantage to be able to hear things before others do. Um, I keep saying that because it's one of the most important things about a scanner.

And one of the reasons that you really need to consider those. Lastly, your $20 handheld radio from Amazon is not a scanner. It's a transceiver and it's really not that great of a transceiver unto itself. It'll work. Okay. You can program frequencies in it and you can press the scan button and it may shift through the frequencies, but it isn't created to scan at the speeds a scanner will. A scanner can just fly through frequencies that are saved in your memory, whereas the little $20 walkie-talkie is going to take its time. And the thing about a scanner is you want to hear what they're saying. So the faster it scans, the more likely you are not to miss the traffic, the radio traffic. So if all you have is a $20 handy talkie and you've got it programmed with five or six frequencies and it's

sitting over there in the corner, it's not a bad idea. It wasn't a terrible investment. You didn't waste your time or money. But if you want to listen to multiple agencies on multiple frequencies across multiple bands, you need to invest in a scanner. Okay. And let me say this. If you've got five or six of those cheap little walkie talkies and you want to set them up, you know, one scan in GMRS, one scan in MERS, one scan in FRS, one scan in the fire department, one scan in the hammer. That's fine. You can do that. Just don't expect one unit to operate like you really want it to, because the scanning speed is just not built to the level of an industrial or commercial scanner scanner master still a great place to go

there's a link in the show notes that it can get you there the folks have been doing it for almost as long as i've been alive they'll program your rigs if you need them too you can buy from them you know i it's not a commercial just go if you're looking scanner master it's not a commercial. Just go. If you're looking scanner master, it's in the link. Next time, we're going to start a whole another talk here. And I'm not sure if I'm ready to tell you what it's going to be about yet, but I'm really excited about it. So please come back. Listen, share the show with your friends. If you know someone that's interested in communications and they just don't know where to start, this is the place to start. I'm making it as easy as I can be made.

Except, you know, maybe me coming to your house and doing it for you. It's not going to happen. Well, it could happen, but I don't know if your checkbook's that large. Here's the thing. I'm doing this to help you get started. I want to help you get started because I understand the importance and how it's necessary to get your plans in place before something happens. We've seen weird stuff for years. We've seen some really weird stuff in the last 14 days. So it's time. It's time. If you have any questions, go all the way back to the

front. Start over. Maybe in episode number three, talk about AM FM radios, have those in the store. Whatever I can do to help you, please don't ever hesitate to reach out. We can get connected. Love to help you get started and going. I got to get a new chair. This one's squeaking, but Hey, I'm Caleb K4CDN. I appreciate your time. Thanks for listening. Any questions, put them in the comments, send them on the DMs. I'm here for you. I want to get you and your comms prepared. We'll catch you next time. Send me three y'all. God bless.