Groom Lake Apprach/Departure Frequencies?

What is the Groom lake Approach/Departure frequency after when JANET flight are handed off from Nellis Control 119.350?

Thanks.

Approach, tower, and ground are not published. I have them, but if I publish the frequencies, supposedly they get changed.

All that said, it takes very little work to find those frequencies. First up, you need a list of known frequencies.
Nellis range frequencies

At this point, get to a location where you can hear the radios from the base. Tikaboo Peak is obviously the best place, but except for ground, you can find all the secret frequencies from just being parked by the ET Highway near the base. Bandscan the civilian air band. When you hear something, park on the frequency. Check it against the list and determine if it is something unknown or not. Once you have definitively identified the frequency, lock it out and start bandscanning again. Repeat the procedure, locking out the known frequencies. Eventually you will find the control and tower frequencies, probably in that order. There is more chatter on control than on the tower, so it is easier to find.

The military airband frequencies take way more work to find, mostly because the band is so much bigger.

Note that everything on the frequency list I provided has been heard by myself or someone I trust to give me a known frequency, or come directly from government documents. There are lists all over the net that are much larger, but not very well vetted.

Put it this way. When KLAS videotaped the last F117s landing at Tonopah, the audio came from my hardware. I keep meaning to upgrade the list, but I want to set up mysql rather than running a spreadsheet and then making a PDF. That's a project that never gets done. ;-)

Originally posted by gariacyou can find all the secret frequencies from just being parked by the ET Highway near the base.

umm.. did you know that all military radios support encryption keys, and anything of a sensitive nature will be transmitted via ciphertext? Its pretty much a given that anything of any value at all will be encrypted. If you can pick it up over the airwaves, then either its not military or its not important.

The frequencies don't really matter at all. Without the current COMSEC key (and the knowledge of how to use it), you won't be listening in on any secret transmissions.

[edit on 25/3/2010 by Artilleryman]

The frequencys below are the Papoose Mtn site, EDACS radio system for Groom Lake. You need a scanner that will operate in EDACS mode (pretty much any nowadays) and load the freqs into the scanner in the order below. For MilAir freqs, just scan the air bands from 110MHz to 147MHz (just under the ham freqs) and use am/fm/digi modes to find what you wish to hear. The 220MHz and all the up into the 300MHz is a good place to search also. Some are digitally encrypted or use the NAC code system which a digital scanner can decode. Encryption is illegal to listen to plus the equipment to decode is expensive not to mention that you have to know the decrypt key also.

01 407.55000 02 407.22500 03 409.22500 04 409.42500 05 410.30000

Groom Lake EDACS radio system frequencys.

[edit on 3/25/2010 by mikelee]

deleted, another member posted link first.

[edit on 3/25/2010 by mikelee]

reply to post by Artilleryman


The military flights can use Have Quick and also Link-16. However, they do their comms unencrypted. I have listened to many tests out of Groom. Look at it this way, encryption is a pain in the arse. You have to keep keys current. The very nature of test flights means that conditions may not be optimal, so you really rather not have anything interfere with flight safety. The comsec is maintained by the pilot and ground personnel by speaking in code and jargon. These people aren't stupid. For test flights, the test data is all over encrypted telemetry, so chit chat over voice isn't an issue.

reply to post by mikelee


The mil air limit is 400MHz, not 300MHz.

Though they don't use ESK, no scanners can track the Groom Lake EDACS trunk system. All the information posted on the net has come from software monitoring a demod tapped radio parked on a control channel. The voice channels are encrypted, so even if a scanner could follow them, I don't think this would be very useful.

Back to mil air, I have this webpage of suitable radios. Many can be bought used.
mil air scanners

While you would think the Nellis range is ablaze with radio transmissions, it is really a very quiet area compared to the hash you find in urban areas. I've bandscanned while near the Nellis range and picked up satcom in the mil air band with just a whip antenna. You need to flip the mode to NFM for satcom.

That VHF band just below the ham band technically isn't military air but rather government. However, there is enough air traffic around the range that Nellis uses it for aircraft. It becomes a bit of a problem when civilian aircraft fly the range and can't contact VHF Blackjack since it is just out of range of the civilian aircraft radios. That 138-144 band does have some telem in it (138.025 IIRC), so it is not strictly aircraft.

I guess for completeness, here are the Nellis Range navigation beacons:
Nellis Range Navigation Beacons I've never heard the Groom localizer, so I guess it is so directional that it can't be heard from TIkaboo, or they just turn it on when requested. I have monitored ILS landings, though they are quite rare.

Groom flights are at 14k/15k when flying around route 95. Tonopah flights are much higher, so you can tell where the planes are going based on altitude. Most flights to the Tonopah Test Range go over TPH (Tonopah civilian airport).

reply to post by gariac




I was just getting the guy into the right direction. Thats all.

L8TR..Mike