Joint Services Open House

The Joint Services Open House (JSOH) is this weekend at Andrews Air Force Base. Friday's show is only open to DoD personnel, school groups, and media, but the public is welcome on Saturday and Sunday. At an event this large, there is plenty of radio traffic to monitor. In previous years, I've focused mostly on land-mobile users. The Andrews 380 MHz system and the Prince George's 700 MHz system provide most of the action. (To monitor the PG system, which uses TDMA talkgroups, one needs a PSR-800 scanner.)

Air show personnel typically use more than a dozen talkgroups on the Andrews system, most of them in the 500s. Security/law enforcement personnel use many talkgroups in the 150s and 160s.

Beginning with last year's show, Prince George's moved from 490 MHz conventional frequencies to the 700 MHz system. Talkgroup 1055 was used for first aid/medical, and 2015 was used for traffic control around the base. 2001 was used for parking/traffic at FedEx Field, which is one of two locations for people to catch shuttles to the base.

Other land-mobile users are typically found in the UHF business bands. 464.5500 [ d023] was active last year with shuttle bus coordination at the base. 464.5000 [ d023] was active in 2010 with shuttle bus coordination at the Branch Avenue Metro Station. 463.3250 [ CSQ] was active in 2010 with concessions.

For specific frequencies and talkgroups used from 2007-11, see my Prince George's County page.

A RadioReference Wiki page has information about the 2006-11 shows, including military and civilian air frequencies.

The Monitoring Times 2012 Air Show Special (which was in the March issue of the magazine) is apparently not available for free as a PDF this year. Grove is selling it for $0.99 in the Kindle format.