MCAS Beaufort Airshow

Had a great time at the Beaufort Airshow today. Lorie, Jackson, Lorie's sister Cyndi, and I got to the air station at about noon today. Lorie and Cyndi went their own way and I made my way over to meet up with Ryan-AJ4MY and his family. Jackson had one of our FRS radios so we could stay in touch. I "opened up" the VX-7R a few weeks back so I could transmit on that band instead of having to carry an FRS. Ryan and I had been in touch on simplex as we were on our way in. Spent and few minutes with him and his family before they left then I made my way around to check out all of the static display aircraft. I broke out the Pro-96 scanner and the VX-7R to see if I could hear any comms on the frequencies that I got from the Monitoring Times Airshow Guide. Really didn't hear anything. Tried to scan around and find the "Air Boss" frequency but no luck again. So I began to search for the Air Boss station. Found it but it was inside the gated area. Dang. I had hoped to ask one of them what freqs they were using like Dan and I did at the Vidalia Air Show a few weeks back. Couldn't get close enough to ask anyone. Bummer. So I just grabbed a bite to eat and enjoyed the show until 3:00pm when the Blue Angels show began. As I was getting the radios ready, another HAM spotted me and came over to chat. It was Wally Calhoun-KI4NXV from Rincon. We had never met before but of course we know alot of the same people. Wally is in in the Georgia Air Guard and works with the 165th in Savannah. So I tuned the scanner to the Blue Angel frequencies and was able to listen to the whole show! I listened the the main formation on the Pro-96 and the Solo aircraft on the VX-7R. Wow, it really adds alot to the show to be able to hear the pilots communicate. The were using Military band UHF for both freqs. After the show I put out a call to Jackson on the FRS channel and we hooked back up for the walk back to the truck. We spent the next 1.5 hours trying to get off the base with thousands of others. I put out a call on the local Beaufort repeater to find out if anyone had an idea why it might be taking so long. Billy-KE4CEV came back and said there had been a vehicle rollover that was causing a delay. So I chatted with him for a while during the wait. I was also monitoring the Beaufort County trunking system on the Pro-96.

We finally made it off the base and it was smooth sailing back to Savannah. Talked to David-WD4FIH and Mac-KF4LMT on the way back. It was a good day.