With Superbowl LIII in town, I just had to turn this into a radio event somehow. Then I heard about the USAF Thunderbirds arriving at Dobbins ARB for the flyover! I watched several videos and news stories of their preparation and practice runs for the event! Then I thought, “Wonder if I can monitor their radio traffic during the big event?!?!?”
I knew the location and I knew the time. I did not know the frequency that they would be on. By the time that I got serious about this idea, they had already did their trial runs and I had no chance to monitor for any “practice”. I turned to my local ham radio reflector and asked if anyone had any resources for the poss frequencies. I received several great responses with a variety of frequencies and ranges. I decided which range was going to be my best chance of capturing the audio and I set my SDR up for the big day!
I used the SDRPlay RSP1 with HDSDR as the software. It is an amazing SDR that can monitor a 10MHz spectrum at once! It has an SMA connection on the side that I usually attach to an external antenna from the shack. For this project, I decided to go with a more portable antenna since I was planning to be outside and only 14 miles from the Mercedes Benz Stadium. I used a SMA to BNC adapter and then attached a 2m/440 antenna from an HT. This combination, alongside my surface pro tablet, got me portable! I set the software to cover as many of the “possible” frequencies as possible and waited.
While Gladys Knight was singing the National Anthem, I started to see the AM carrier toward the right side of my screen. Just after the pass was visible on TV, I started to hear some audio on the SDR. (With the spectrum recorded on my tablet, I was able to go back and replay the pass and dig out the audio that I originally didn’t hear.)
Below is what I caught condensed down to about 18 seconds.
Lessons learned…
- Prepare as much and as early as you can! I missed several of their trial runs that would have given me a good idea of their frequencies and range of my antenna.
- Don’t skimp on the antenna. As well as mine worked, anything else even with the modest of elevation would have been better than the “ruber duck” attached to the SDR. I even had a discone sitting on the ground in the back yard. I guarantee that I would have gotten more/better audio if I had that guy mounted even 10-15 feet above ground. Directional would have been even better.
End result…
- I captured audio directly from all 6 USAF Thunderbirds during the big event!
- I had fun doing it!
- And I learned from it for next time!
Till next time, 73’s! de K4NHW!