ScanRiverside.com

This afternoon I was listening to VIKING 3-1. I couldn't hear or catch the callsign of who he was talking to, but it was obviously a target spotter at a ground range. VIKING 3-1 wasn't loud & clear at my location, but it was a good signal for over thirty minutes.

In the past thirty years of milcom monitoring in southern CA, I've never heard this frequency in use before. Does anyone have any info on this?

<>< Mike
Monitoring from western Riverside County, CA

VIKING are F/A-18s from Lemoore NAS. I hear them frequently on the offshore BEAVER CONTROL freqs, but this is a new freq for me. According to Radio Reference, it is Ch 9 on inter squad radios, so maybe the ground station was using one to talk with the jets?

I did see on my own frequency list that this is an ISR frequency, but ISR is normally FM. The VIKING side was AM. I don't know if the ISR's can switch to AM or not, I'm not that familiar with them. However, it's a good thought. Thanks.

As for the VIKING call sign, unless otherwise noted, here in soCal it's usually the F/A-18's of VMFA(AW)-225 MAG-11 out Miramar, former out of El Toro. Been monitoring them for many years.