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The aircraft emergency frequency (also known in the USA as Guard) is a frequency used on the aircraft band reserved for emergency communications for aircraft in distress.The frequencies are 121.5 MHz for civilian, also known as International Air Distress (IAD), International Aeronautical Emergency Frequency, [1] or VHF Guard, [1] and 243.0 MHz—the second harmonic of VHF guard—for military ...
121.5 MHz VHF ± 6 kHz (frequency band protected to ±50 kHz) [66] (Satellite detection ceased on 1 February 2009, [67] but this frequency is still used for short-range location during a search and rescue operation) 243.0 MHz UHF ± 12 kHz (frequency band protected to ± 100 kHz) [66] [68] (prior to 1 February 2009 – COSPAS-SARSAT Compatible)
123.1 MHz: Aeronautical Auxiliary Frequency (International voice for coordinated SAR operations). 138.78 MHz— U.S. military voice SAR on-the-scene use. This frequency is also used for direction finding (DF). 155.160 MHz; 172.5 MHz— U.S. Navy emergency sonobuoy communications and homing use.
The civilian aircraft frequency for voice distress alerting is 121.5 MHz. Military aircraft use 243 MHz (which is a harmonic of 121.5 MHz, and therefore civilian beacons transmit on this frequency as well).
In the 25 kHz channel spacing scheme, an upper audio frequency of 12.5 kHz would be theoretically possible. [19] However, most airband voice transmissions never actually reach these limits. Usually, the whole transmission is contained within a 6 kHz to 8 kHz bandwidth, corresponding to an upper audio frequency of 3 kHz to 4 kHz. [19]
Prior to the founding of Cospas-Sarsat, the civilian aviation community had already been using the 121.5 MHz frequency for distress, while the military aviation community utilized 243.0 MHz as the primary distress frequency with the 121.5 MHz frequency as an alternate.
The transmitter component was the BC-778. The frequency was 500 kHz at 4.8 watts, giving it a range of 200 miles (300 km; 200 nmi). Keying could be automatic SOS (including the 4-second long dash for autoalarm), or manual. Crystals for frequency control were a scarce item for the U.S. during the war and the SCR-578 was not crystal-controlled.
The Royal Navy also deployed direction finding equipment on ships tasked to anti-submarine warfare in order to try to locate German submarines, e.g. Captain class frigates were fitted with a medium frequency direction finding antenna (MF/DF) (the antenna was fitted in front of the bridge) and high frequency direction finding (HF/DF, "Huffduff ...