On the evening of Jan 7, JW Mitchell High School Girls’ Varsity soccer team had their last game of the season up in Trinity. The high school’s announcer and scoreboard operator submitted a DoD request about 11 months ago for a pregame flyover at one of their matches and the approval came in just before the holidays. I got a ping from Roger KY4YC, who got an ask from the announcer to see if we could help with planning and run ground comms with a United States Coast Guard Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter doing the flyover. So, I reached out to Jason N4BOZ and Jack N4KIN to have a proper posse on hand and assistance. I thankfully was able to get my 123mhz tuned vertical antenna to Alan W4UB the morning of the event to replace the coax end connector that had fallen off, as I couldn’t find my box of parts to put on the new end myself in a few hours’ time. I picked up the antenna on the way to the high school, and it worked like a champ. In the end, the event went very well!
At the event, Jason was testing out his recent setup of the TAK software and ran all of it from his tablet and
cellular hotspot. I also had a view of the same TAK info on my iPad for a backup. Roger was the point man and coordinated our activities with the announcers in the booth and was the official countdown timekeeper. Jack was doing all the assistance things while running the camera for pics and video, never an easy job.
We were able to pick up the MH-60’s location about 12miles north of us via ADS-B data. They had just finished up some exercises up near Brooksville. While we did a total dry run the night before for planning and timing purposes, we weren’t able to have much direct communications with the pilots for planning, other than we told them we would be able to support 2 way comms via civil air band or marine VHF channels. 
We got the word just a few hours before game time that they would be monitoring 123.025mhz in the MH-60 Jayhawk, but that was all we got back. After we got setup atop the bleachers and the antenna about 15ft overhead, we called the MH-60 “Coast Guard Jayhawk” from my Icom A25N Airband HT “Mitchell high school” to confirm their location we had on the tablets and they had us loud and clear. I think they might have been a bit surprised by us ‘seeing’ them and calling them first with their location, but that’s just what professionals do.
One very key callout to this event: I (Ryan AF4O) have a private pilot’s license with the FAA. Having a valid license gives the license holder authorization to operate on civil air bands, provided: it is done following FCC Part 87 regulations, the radios are FAA type accepted and used for specific aviation operations. This was NOT an event where having a MARS modified radio and a Ham license would give someone the legal approval to operate on the civil air band frequencies.
After we established comms, Jason was keeping a close eye on all air traffic in the area that had ADS-B enabled, including UAS Drones that might be in the area using a TAK sensor connected to his phone, as an extra set of eyes that we could relay to the pilots if needed. We’re pretty sure the MH-60 Jayhawk has radar onboard for traffic awareness, but an extra set of eyes at night doesn’t hurt. In fact, about an hour before the flyover, a Bayflite helicopter transited very near to the field at 800ft to an accident in Port Richey and then back to Tampa General Hospital a few minutes later. Given the location we were at, aircraft under 3000ft are not in a controlled airspace by Tampa or St Pete airports.
NOTE: we were not acting as ATC in any way, to be clear. Nor were we doing any comms with TPA or PIE or interfering with ATC. But rather we were just providing direct ground to air comms and an extra set of eyes and situational awareness for the MH-60 Jayhawk pilots. Once the announcer started with the announcements, starting lineups and the National Anthem, we provided the pilots with 8min, 5min, 2min, 1min and 30sec ETA callouts and the timing worked out great. They flew over the field at 300ft doing 93kts/107mph and the crowd loved it. Lastly, we thanked the pilots for their time and their service and wished them a safe flight back to PIE.
73 and happy new year! Ryan AF4O Jason N4BOZ Jack N4KIN Roger KY4YC
