Recordings from the 39.5 days?

[illini52]

After reading the various dates of sheriff departments switching from 39.5, it got me wondering. Has anyone recorded what that frequency sounded like in the 60s-80s?
That was before my time

 

[baronofbeer]

I don't have any recordings, but I remember my Dad telling me how bad it was to use Low Band. He said that since the neighboring county was on the same frequency, they had to wait their turn.

However, me and him were talking about Low Band today, and he said that is what his department should go back to, since pretty much everyone is going away from Low and High band to UHF and trunked.

 

[N9JIG]

I don't have recordings but I used to listen to 39.50, 39.66 (used as a mobile freq to 39.50 by many counties) and 39.46 (Point to Point) whenever I was in the car. Of course usually it was routine every day stuff from whatever area I was in such as stray cattle, traffic crashes or family fights but when skip came up it was great. Trying to ID stations in the pre-computer days was a huge challenge!

 

[bessiedawg]

In the Decatur area, I don't recall that much of a problem with agencies interfering with one another on 39.5. One reason was that each county had a separate designated frequency for their cars to operate on. It acted as an input frequency to 39.5, but without the repeater. Since all those input frequencies were different, there was not a problem with base hearing a car. Car's didn't have a problem hearing the bases since their dispatch was usually closest and strongest. From a scanner standpoint, you could hear most of the surrounding county base stations on 39.5. That did get irritating sometimes if one of them had something going on, and they were being covered by other counties.

The other part of this was how counties communicated with state police cars. The state cars had 39.5 monitors in them. County dispatch and county cars had 42.5 monitors which was state "car to car". Thus all could communicate via cross monitoring.

This was all very difficult for hobbyists when all we had was a tuneable radio. When the first scanners came out, we thought we were in Heaven because we could program all of the above frequencies and actually hear complete communications !

 

[timmer]

I remember very well all the difficulties in monitoring all the diffrent frequencies. In Sangamon county, they used 39.26 for the mobiles. I remember having a bearcat 3 I believe with just the stock metal screw-in antenna. The reception was actually pretty good. I remember hearing the weather alert tone on 42.5 from diffrent areas of the state whenever severe weather was popping up in the summertime. I had a Panasonic tuneable radio for vhf high band to monitor the state high band freq. (154.935)

 

[N9JIG]

The other part of this was how counties communicated with state police cars. The state cars had 39.5 monitors in them. County dispatch and county cars had 42.5 monitors which was state "car to car". Thus all could communicate via cross monitoring.

State Police low band radios in the day had a "Sheriff" switch on them that changed the RX freq on LF1 (42.50) to 39.50 for this method of communications. Sheriff's squads had similar set ups in reverse to allow them to monitor 42.50 and talk out on 39.50. This way each agency transmitted on channels they were licensed for.

Eventually VHF Highband radios became more available, especially after all the thousands of ISPERN radios provided by the ISP to local and county police agencies. The Sheriff's Option switch was not included with the later generations of ISP low band radios although some were programmed with a channel slot with 39.50 for receive and 42.50 for transmit for those troopers in districts that still used 39.50.

I think the last counties to use 39.50 and other 39.xx channels for dispatch included Ford and Macoupin. I was able to hear Ford County on ground wave occasionally from home until about the late 1990's. I would hear Macoupin until about the same time frame during various trips thru the area.

Imagine 15 years from now we will be saying similar things about VHF and UHF as they are finally starting to actually use StarCom21. Who knew that the 21 in the name referred to 2021, the year in which it was finally completed and put into full service...

 

[K9JLR]

Livingston County used all of the 39 MHz frequencies until 1996..some cars used 39.660 MHz for car to car communications until about six or seven years ago....that's the last I remember hearing anything on those frequencies. I still occasionally hear a couple of DNR guys on the 31 MHz stuff.

 

[daleduke17]

I have a recording of a state police unit from the Chicago area that went something like this (they were probably on one of the low band freqs):

Unit: We are in high speed pursuit northbound on Cortland Avenue of a black and white 1974 sedan with Illinois plates...request assistance.

I think they ended up near (and in) the Dixie Square Mall as well.

 

[SLWilson]

39.62

After reading the various dates of sheriff departments switching from 39.5, it got me wondering. Has anyone recorded what that frequency sounded like in the 60s-80s? That was before my time

In the 80's!!! We still use low band here. Have a fire department currently operating on 39.62. Call sign WZM868. AND, it's great. Every surrounding county has moved to VHF Hi or UHF. They have low band all to themselves now. Works just fine!!!

Steve/KB8FAR

 

[N9JIG]

I have a recording of a state police unit from the Chicago area that went something like this (they were probably on one of the low band freqs):

Unit: We are in high speed pursuit northbound on Cortland Avenue of a black and white 1974 sedan with Illinois plates...request assistance.

I think they ended up near (and in) the Dixie Square Mall as well.

I remember that chase well and have several recordings of it also. It originated at Devon and Talcott in Park Ridge. I don't recall exactly how they got from Park Ridge to the Dixie Mall in Harvey so quickly however...

I worked for Park Ridge PD in 1979 when it occurred and was "documented". I actually had recovered and kept one of the low band whips that came off one of the destroyed cars. Funny thing was when I was going to use it I found out it was cut for 27 MHz., not 42...

 

[daleduke17]

I remember that chase well and have several recordings of it also. It originated at Devon and Talcott in Park Ridge. I don't recall exactly how they got from Park Ridge to the Dixie Mall in Harvey so quickly however...

I worked for Park Ridge PD in 1979 when it occurred and was "documented". I actually had recovered and kept one of the low band whips that came off one of the destroyed cars. Funny thing was when I was going to use it I found out it was cut for 27 MHz., not 42...

I'm glad someone got the joke. Great movie.

 

[bessiedawg]

One of the nice things about regularly monitoring low band, was your awareness of long distance skip. In addition to being able to occassionaly here Louisiana, I also recall picking up California Highway Patrol, and LA County SO. LA County was very distinctive in that you usually would hear a "beep" tone between their transmissions. I'm not sure, but I believe that was used to indicate that their was active traffic on their mobile channel so as not to have units cover each other.

 

[N9JIG]

One of the nice things about regularly monitoring low band, was your awareness of long distance skip. In addition to being able to occassionaly here Louisiana, I also recall picking up California Highway Patrol, and LA County SO. LA County was very distinctive in that you usually would hear a "beep" tone between their transmissions. I'm not sure, but I believe that was used to indicate that their was active traffic on their mobile channel so as not to have units cover each other.

That was exactly the reason for that beep signal.

I recall a trip out west years ago from Chicago to Phoenix. As I was going thru the Springfield (IL) area I ran across some thunderstorms and listended to all the ISP districts putting out the various warnings on 42.50 on my then-new BC-20/20 that I had installed in my Ford Bronco at the time. Two days later I was pulling in for the night at Gallup New Mexico when I heard similar warnings for a new line of storms from the same ISP posts. It was a couple minutes of trying to figure out if I was in the path of these storms (since there were a line of storms coming in where I was) before I realized I was 1500 miles away from this.

I used to keep a set of low band freqs used locally in my scanner not so much for the local traffic but rather to keep an ear out for skip. Freqs like 39.50, 39.46. 39.80, 39.62, 39.42, 39.66, 39.34, 39.08, 39.22 and 39.90 as well as many ISP 42.xx freqs and some fire channels on 33.xx were always in my radios and when skip hit I would start searching.

I had a Pro2006 that had the extended memory mod that provided 16 sets of 400 channels. I had several of these sets dedicated to various low band ranges. Since the 2006 didn't have search lock-outs I used to scan ranges in order to lockout birdies or other interference laden channels. Worked great!

 

[intrepid97]

Montgomery Co. Just recently switched over to VHF-HIGH from 39.840-39.340 and 39.500.

39.5 was used to communicate with Litchfield PD as Litchfield used 39.5 as a primary frequency at one time.

Macoupin Co. switched a few years ago from 39.080 and 39.780 to 159.090

Greene Co. I believe was also low band as well as Calhoun etc.

 

[bessiedawg]

This may be a stupid question, but here goes. Why was low band use so frequently used in California? In addition to LA County, I believe LA City Fire Department was at one time on low band, as well as the San Francisco Police Department. That jsut seems odd for metro areas.

Was it something related to the geography ?

 

[illini52]

All very interesting comments everyone. I love listening to lowband. I have a 42 MHz whip on my truck and its amazing how far you can hear the various ISP districts.

As for California on lowband, I think it is because of the hills and mountains there.

 

[K9JLR]

This may be a stupid question, but here goes. Why was low band use so frequently used in California? In addition to LA County, I believe LA City Fire Department was at one time on low band, as well as the San Francisco Police Department. That jsut seems odd for metro areas.

Was it something related to the geography ?

I would have to say that geography would be a significant factor, since lowband tends to have poor structural penetration and is plagued by "uncle skip" when the band opens. Lowband tends to get the job done better in some of the valleys, which might explain its heavy use in CA. Let's not overlook the fact that VHF highband and UHF were "foreign" parts of the frequency spectrum to many public safety users back in the early days of two-way radio.

Some of the older guys in one of the local ham clubs in Central IL said there was considerable debate among very knowledgable amateurs about funding a two meter repeater in the Toluca area during the 1960s since it was doubtful that it would reach more than 25 miles!!!!

 

[SLWilson]

All that existed?

This may be a stupid question, but here goes. Why was low band use so frequently used in California? In addition to LA County, I believe LA City Fire Department was at one time on low band, as well as the San Francisco Police Department. That jsut seems odd for metro areas. Was it something related to the geography ?

I'm just making an educated guess here, but, in the very early days of "mobile" radio, I'm talking early 50's, 60's etc....Low band was just about all there was.

In addition to that, low band had and has the ability to penetrate (or drop into) the valleys like they have there (and like we have here in SE Ohio)...That's one reason one of our fire departments still operate there. (39.62 WZM868) They cover 99 square miles of very hilly terrain....

Our first call sign (we still have it by the way) hear in SE Ohio was KQA360 and was for 39.58, 39.46 and 39.66. The license was for a whopping THREE HUNDRED Watts of power!!! The local state highway patrol post was KQB365....

It was nothing in the late 70's for us to actually TALK to mobile units in CA, KS IL and other parts west!!!

Oh, well. Thise were the days....Not all that RF noise that we have so much of nowadays!!!!

Steve/KB8FAR

 

[timmer]

I sometimes wish they would stick with low and high band vhf, although there's no stopping progress and technology, I guess. The new starcom should be interesting to monitor, (if they don't end up encrypting it), but I still think it's a he** of alot of money, (yours and mine), and I don't know if it's totally neccesary.

 

[daleduke17]

All very interesting comments everyone. I love listening to lowband. I have a 42 MHz whip on my truck and its amazing how far you can hear the various ISP districts.

As for California on lowband, I think it is because of the hills and mountains there.

What is the length of that antenna?