PG&E Wide Area MPT-1327 System - Post your findings here!

[inigo88]

No problem. Leaves something for me to figure out when I come back and visit.

From my first post in this thread, there were 3 control channels in range in Marin. One was Mt Tam, the second was Big Rock and the third was Round Top (in Coco county).

[norcalscan]

Originally Posted by inigo88

You guys rock! Just out of curiosity, was anyone ever able to confirm whether 53A9 Ch 168 was Sutter Buttes? It was kind of a shot in the dark guess (from 500 miles away) but it seemed worth a try.

I've got the FCC licensed freqs for pge on sutter programmed in. I just heard one of them morse code on my way home tonight but was rushed to something else and missed all of it. But it did seem pretty strong for uhf from sutter buttes from the location I was at so I'll need more time. No CC heard from there yet. I also have programmed every "somewhere in butte county" site that is referenced in the database here, including your 53A9. I am traveling down I5 to San Fran and back this week for work and will ID every MPT channel I find either in search or what I got in the scanner from FCC pge and the database. I probably won't be able to linger too long on each channel though for voice channels (will be mobile) but will linger enough to get neighbors. I'll focus from red bluff to Dunnigan since it appears everything from Berryessa on into the Bay Area has already been ID'd, and I don't need to drive and trunk view while on 80.

[norcalscan]

Got some eyeballs on Flea Mtn and another PGE site in Butte County. Within the last 6 months new telewave 4bay folded dipole antennas were installed at those sites, (ANT450D6's) so with 6-9db I'm sure that pushes 40watts output into a much higher ERP.

Also, a search while up Hwy70 canyon yielded 452.200, but didn't have computer to ID the site. FCC and google sat view puts that on a little mountain just west of Bucks Lake. WQNP286
39° 54' 8.6" N, 121° 14' 59.9" W - Google Maps

I did get a small hit tonight on 53A9 - suspected Sutter Buttes, from north Red Bluff, with signal strength that would have matched UHF from the buttes. The morse ID I mentioned earlier on a freq that is also licensed as YG on Sutter for PGE was from an LTR system out of Redding. Interesting enough, none of the YG stuff licensed to PGE on Sutter matches 53A9 in the database, so maybe they have some of that CD/paging freqs up there too.

[WayneH]

One way to know if the voice channel is PG&E is by the 196.6 CTCSS tone and every transmission will end with an MPT data blip (instructs the radios to switch back to the CC chan) and then the morse code. The channels will not ID unless the system assigns them out.

I did some listening down south of me in Newman and I was able to pick up what's probably Fremont Pk out of Monterey. That's quite a distance to push over the hills to western Stanislaus county.

I've also loosely ID'd some of the T&D groups to their respective counties for the Stockton/Yosemite division. Most of the counties have their own group.

Both 1-65xx and 0-65xx seem to be Hydroelectric. 1-66xx-70xx seem to be the various electrical departments.

I can just barely pick up 53F9 in Stockton so I'm confused as to where it really is. Definitely not like I was thinking.

All the electrical guys have been complaining about the radios as the system flat out dumps the call after 90s, whereas the Hydro and Gas get double that. These timeout values are actually relayed to the radios via the control channel which is interesting (seems like a Tait thing). The system standard is 90s based on the CC messages.

[BriW]

Originally Posted by inigo88

Repeaters at each site are likely TB8100s, and mobiles and portables are likely TM8255s and TP8140s respectively. Brochures for all the above are available on the aforementioned TaitNet MPT-IP product information page.

FWIW, yesterday I saw a truck used for an electrical emergency call out in San Luis Obispo county that had a mobile radio which looked very much like the TM8255.

[WayneH]

PG&E

@1:27 you'll see the Tait radio

They have a decent Comm trailer too.

[inigo88]

Nice! The Tait mobile is the TM8200. There are also two Kenwood TK-790s in that shot. I can't read the top one, but the bottom one says "TAIT TA 1", i.e. Tait Talkaround 1.

[norcalscan]

On my trip to San Fran last weekend I grabbed the following while on I5.

54C9 Bucks Lake WQNP286
452.200 (096) good signal from Williams and Willows

Adjacent
54C1 - 086 (Flea Mtn? Or Sutter Buttes?)
5481 - 164
54D1 - 477 (this is a new site that just popped up)
54D9 - 198
54E1 - 200

54C1 - Flea Mtn but now I'm thinking Sutter Buttes?
452.075, heard very strong in Willows (with attenuator), Williams (with attenuator), Arbuckle and Dunnigan) I wonder if this could be Sutter Buttes. I pick this thing up everywhere, including northern Tehama and Shasta, where Flea just should NOT be propagating to by any normal rule of radio. It more closely fits the historical UHF footprint of Sutter Buttes that I've observed in my 20 years of scanning.
ID'd earlier in this thread on 1/24, however a new site popped up in the adjacent sites, ID 54D1 (477) that was not there on 1/24. We're thinking 54C1 is Flea based on FCC license. However in Shasta and Trinity, PGE is licensed for 461.8375 on Shasta Bally (and active), but also same freq but under a different callsign for Plummer Peak in Trinity County, which is deep within the Shasta Bally footprint and line of sight. So Flea and Sutter might be a similar discrepancy.

5421 - Ruby Bluff (Sierra County)
461.175 (heard in Dunnigan, but stronger signal in Williams)
no adjacent sites were broadcasted, and doesn't show up on any other site's adjacent sites. It did have the 196.6 tone that PGE uses. It is already in the database it looks like.

5411 - Osborne Hill (Nevada County)
464.0875 (heard the entire route - Willows, Williams, Arbuckle and Dunnigan)
Already in database

53C1 - Mt Reba Ski Resort
451.1125 (heard in Williams, Arbuckle and Dunnigan)
already in database

Nothing on the PGE licensed freqs for Sutter Buttes, or the Colusa Generating Station.

[ScannerDude244]

Originally Posted by WayneH

PG&E

@1:27 you'll see the Tait radio

They have a decent Comm trailer too.

They also have a scanner and CB nice!

[WayneH]

Originally Posted by norcalscan

54C1 - Flea Mtn but now I'm thinking Sutter Buttes?

I'm quite confident PG&E is following their licensed freqs with relation to location. I come across multiple sites I don't think should act the way they do, but they do. I shouldn't hear Scout Peak voice channels in the Tracy area but I do, and they're pretty clear.

I have found that not all sites use every licensed channel. They're only using what they need. In some cases they'll only use the 454 freqs because they have a larger licensed area. Pine Hill and Mount Oso for example have no licenses outside 454 and only use 454 freqs. I found Oso just by basic DF'ing tricks and I was up at Pine Hill one day so I could confirm it by sig level.

So Sutter is probably one of the sites only using 454MHz freqs. I don't think the power out on the equipment has been properly engineered for the vast majority. No doubt a case of do it and wait until someone complains.

[Unitrunker]

For folks logging this system with Unitrunker, there's a new release out today that should make this task easier. The data model used by the program to represent MPT1327 systems has changed. The program will convert your data but - to be safe & be sure you can roll back to an older version - please use the Save button on the Archive tab to create a backup before upgrading (or simply exit the program - that will save a new copy of your data).

Here's what';s new for MPT1327 ...

1. The MPT1327 four digit SYS number is now used for site identity. You will no longer have each site in its own system. Delegation is no longer used to link sites together. They will be placed under the same system. The number is now displayed exclusively as a four digit hexadecimal. Many users found the decimal form confusing. The number displayed as the system ID is just a placeholder.

2. Peers tab; the site window now has a Peers tab so you can see which sites are announced as peers.

3. Sites tab; you'll find you sites on the System window's Sites tab (instead of one long list of single-site systems on the Systems tab).

4. Band plan push-to-all-sites button; From the Site window's bandplan tab, you are one button click away from replicating the site's band plan to all other sites in the same system. *poof* you're done.

5. Automatic consolidation; using the peers information above, the program will consolidate two systems when it notices that they are part of the same system.

If you like any of these features, please give WayneH your thanks. Many of them are his suggestions.

[mkewman]

As always, Killer job on Unitrunker, and Wayne, thanks for all you do too.

I've got the latest version of Unitrunker and am Located in Sacramento, and I'm ready to help out. Where should I start?

[WayneH]

Originally Posted by mkewman

I've got the latest version of Unitrunker and am Located in Sacramento, and I'm ready to help out. Where should I start?

There are two ways you can help. ID'ing the location of a site or what a group's purpose or area is. I've been making random notes on area usage as the 1-67xx troublemen are slowly appearing on the system in different areas. I've been recording stuff but have been too busy to listen to it all.

Tracking the groups is the hard part as you have to either configure UniTrunker to voice track a site or scan the channels and look at logs to compare their activity. The PITA is much of the 67xx traffic refers to database numbers for poles and equipment but once and a while an outage occurs they have to hunt down, or a car-pole, and they give out location info.