On Monday and Tuesday I took an overnight road trip to Warner Robins, GA to visit the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB. I visit several times a year to see what's new and how they're progressing on their B-17 plus I wanted to pick up some new museum T-shirts since I've lost so much weight over the past year. Unfortunately, he notes from this trip aren't as in depth as usual because I ran into a radio issue during the trip; more on that later. I was surprised that I didn't hear more MilCom than I did; on Monday afternoon on the way up and Tuesday morning on the way down, I didn't catch any Bulldog MOA activity and while visiting the museum on Monday afternoon, I only heard and saw a C-130 doing a test flight out of the Robins ALC. Public Safety busy both days, particularly from Dublin to Warner Robins and from Metter to Savannah, and some Amateur Radio QSOs helped make up for the lack of MilCom activity on Monday.
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| KF4LMT Mobile and one of the Museum of Aviation's F-15s |
On Monday evening, when I connected my Whistler TRX-1 to the laptop to look at and listen to it's logs and recordings, the computer wouldn't recognize it. When I tried to turn it on, I got SD card related error messages so I tried pulling it out of the radio and reading it directly and the laptop wouldn't recognize it either. I found some 16gb high speed cards and tried formatting one and loading it with the TRX-1 library and V-scanner folders and that wouldn't work either. Since nothing would recognize the SD card, that meant that the logs and recordings on it for the day were lost (most of it would have been VHF/UHF conventional public safety, railroad, and encrypted talkgroups from the USAF 157 system at Robins AFB). I ordered an 8gb Class 4 SD card for the TRX-1 and waited for it to come in on Wednesday to work with it some more. On Thursday, I formatted the new 8gb card with the libraries and V-scanner folders and when I put it in the radio and turned the radio on, everything worked fine. Luckily it was just the old card failing and not a problem with the radio. Apparently, the TRX-1 just doesn't like newer/higher capacity/faster SD cards.
Amateur Radio
Since I wasn't hearing much MilCom activity on the way to Warner Robins on Monday, I had a couple of amateur radio DMR QSOs. While between Statesboro and Metter, I threw my callsign out on the Vidalia Net talkgroup (310592) using the Twin City and then the Dublin DMR repeaters and had a good extended QSO with Kevin, KE4LRS until I stopped for lunch in Dublin. After lunch, I still wasn't hearing much MilCom, so swapped over to the First Coast DMR talkgroup (31121) and using the Dublin, then the Cochran DMR repeaters, joined a QSO with Steve, KC9OTI and Donnie, KM4CTB and talked with them until I was almost in Warner Robins. There is a DMR gap in the Statesboro area between the Savannah and Twin City repeaters, but once you get into range of the Twin City and Vidalia repeaters after Statesboro on I-16, you've got good coverage all the way to Warner Robins and Macon using those two repeaters plus the Dublin, Cochran, Kathleen/Warner Robins, and Macon repeaters.
145.4300- (PL 88.5) - Macon
146.6700- (PL 82.5) - Warner Robins (Peach State Intertie)
146.7750- (CSQ) - Macon
146.8950- (PL 88.5) - Macon (Peach State Intertie)
147.0000+ (PL 156.7) - Twin City
147.1500+ (PL 123.0) - Cedar Grove
147.3000+ (PL 107.2) - Centerville
440.5750+ (DMR CC1) - Kathleen/Warner Robins
440.6500+ (DMR CC1) - Cochran
442.9000+ (107.2) - Warner Robins
443.1500+ (PL 82.5) - Warner Robins
443.5625 (DMR CC1) - Twin City
444.2500+ (PL 94.8) - Twin City
444.7000+ (PL 103.5) - Macon
444.7875+ (DMR CC1) - Dublin
Aviation/MilCom
Although I didn't hear as much MilCom activity as I expected, it wasn't necessarily a disappointing trip from that perspective. On Monday evening, a couple of VP-30 P-8s along with a E-6B did pattern work at Robins AFB and on Tuesday morning I caught a 113th Wing C-40 arriving at Robins. It turned out from news reports I saw later, that the C-40 was bringing the Air Force Chief of Staff to Georgia to visit Air Force bases in the state with one of our Senators. I also heard more unencrypted traffic on the USAF (157) TRS at Robins AFB than I have in the past. I've always heard some unencrypted traffic on what seems to be the Robins ALC MOC talkgroup, but on this trip I was also hearing Robins AFB FD dispatch unencrypted (although the FD units were encrypted). AIREVAC 154 from Perry was active throughout and I caught it several times with Robins AFB Tower, Middle Georgia Regional Tower, and on 123.025 as it passed through the Warner Robins area going back and forth to Macon.
132.225/257.975 - Robins AFB Tower
128.200/257.800 - Middle Georgia Regional Tower
119.600/124.200/279.600 - Atlanta TRACON
123.025 - Helicopter Common
119.375/371.950 - Atlanta Center Macon High
123.950 - Atlanta Center Sinca Low
124.325 - Atlanta Center Clark Hill Ultra High
124.375 - Atlanta Center Lanier High
125.575 - Atlanta Center Lagrange High
125.825 - Atlanta Center Hampton Ultra High
126.425/307.050 - Atlanta Center Dublin High
128.100/322.325 - Atlanta Center Augusta Low
134.500 - Atlanta South Departure Low
126.125/285.650 - Jacksonville Center Statesboro High
127.575 - Jacksonville Center Waycross Low
132.425 - Jacksonville Center Hunter Ultra High
132.925/363.200 - Jacksonville Center Allendale/Savannah Low
133.300 - Jacksonville Center Moultrie Ultra High
135.975 - Jacksonville Center Alma High
ROGUE ## (C-130J, Robins ALC)
BOXER ## (C-40C, 113th Wing)
NAVY LL ## (P-8A, VP-30)
TONKA ## (E-6B, VQ-4)
NIGHTTRAIN ### (Various, Middle Georgia State University)
N553AE (B06, AirEvac 154 Perry)
USAF (157) TRS
TG 56065 - Robins AFB Unknown; enc/unenc
TG 56066 - Robins AFB FD/EMS; enc/unenc
TG 56070 - Robins ALC MOC; enc/unenc
Public Safety
Even though I lost most of my conventional Public Safety logs with the TRX-1 problem, I still got some using the Uniden SDS100 on Monday evening and Tuesday.
159.2400 (PL 167.9) - GFC D6 Bleckley Repeater
159.2250 (PL 123.0) - GFC D3 Macon Repeater
154.3550 (PL 141.3) - Butts Co FD Dispatch
154.0700 (PL 186.2) - Laurens County FD Dispatch
155.3550 (DMR TS1 CC1 TG 300) - Laurens County FD Dispatch
154.3850 (DMR TS1 CC2 TG 500) - Dublin FD Dispatch (Laurens County)
Houston County P25
TG 16 - Houston CO FD Dispatch
TG 17 - Houston Co FD Fireground 1
TG 61 - Warner Robins FD Dispatch
TG 91 - Centerville FD Dispatch
TG 121 - Perry FD Dispatch
TG 122 - Perry FD 2
CGIRRS
TG 132 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Dispatch 1
TG 134 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 2
TG 135 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 3
TG 136 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 4
TG 137 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Scene 4
TG 152 - Macon-Bibb Co FD Event 2
TG 1101 - Monroe Co FD Dispatch
TG 1161 - Monroe Co ES Alert 1
TG 1162 - Monroe Co ES Alert 2
TG 1164 - Monroe Co ES Alert 4
Tattnall County NXDN TRS
TG 12 - Tattnall FD/EMS Dispatch
Railroad
The hotel I usually stay in when I'm visiting Warner Robins is near one of Norfolk Southern's railroad tracks, so it makes for easy listening to their communications. I lost most of the Railroad logs when the TRX-1's SD card went bad, but like Public Safety, I used the SDS100 for it on Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
160.6950 - AAR 39, Norfolk Southern Dispatch/Road? (Warner Robins/Macon area)
161.5650 - AAR 97, Norfolk Southern (Warner Robins/Macon area); CW ID
Museum of Aviation
I spent several hours at the Museum of Aviation at Robins AFB on Monday afternoon and really enjoyed my visit. USAF personnel were busy setting something up in one of the hangars and it turned out that it was for a meeting with the Air Force Chief of Staff who visited on Tuesday. Of particular interest on this visit were the E-8C JSTARS, MiG-21, B-17, and F-117.
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| The Museum of Aviation's E-8C JSTARS, 00-2000, formerly of the 461st/116th ACW based at Robins AFB now that it has been fully reassembled |
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| A view of the E-8C JSTARS from the Museum's observation deck on the 3rd floor of the main hangar |
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| On my last visit to the Museum of Aviation, this MiG-21 was sitting next to the restoration hangar/workshop; on this visit, it's been painted and is on display near the E-8C behind the main building |
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| The Museum of Aviation's B-17G, 44-83690; the exterior seems to be almost fully assembled and of what I could see through the windows, it looks like the interior is well underway. This photo does a good job of contrasting the size of the B-17 to the B-29 behind. |
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| The Museum of Aviation's B-17G, 44-83690 |
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| The restoration crew had 44-83690's chin turret cover off during this visit offering a good look at the mechanism inside. |
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| F-117A 81-10794, Delta Dawn, is now inside the Museum of Aviation's restoration hangar. I can't wait for them to finish their work and see it on display! |
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| Sunrise over Robins AFB on Tuesday morning before hitting the road back to Savannah |
Food
For dinner on Monday evening, I tried Georgia Bob's, a BBQ restaurant in Warner Robins. I had some good pulled pork and some really good smoked sausage along with green beans and a side salad. The pork was moist and cooked in a tart tomatoey vinegar based sauced that is diabetes friendly in that it wasn't sweet and didn't raise my blood sugar. The sausage was homemade style and reminded me of the sausage from Ratchford's Meat Market in Guyton, GA that my grandmother cooked when I was a kid; it was even cooked the same way with crispy casing. The meal was not only delicious, it brought back some fond memories.
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| Pulled Pork and Smoked Sausage with Green Beans and a Side Salad from Georgia Bob's in Warner Robins |
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