Statewide Skip?

gg750 · #1 (**permalink**) 08-14-2006, 09:56 AM

There's been a lot of "skip" lately (a month or more) up in Leelanau Co. on their fire freq., 154.250. I'm pretty sure it's coming out of the Lansing/Ingham Co. area, but it may also be Washtenaw. Most of the calls I hear are medical runs, and a few fire runs. It often comes in very clear, all times of the day. Leelanau central has made comments to it often.

I'm wondering if it's a two way thing or not. Has anyone down that way ever heard Leelanau dispatch on 154.250? Leelanau's PL for this freq is 103.5, and even with the PL in my scanners, the skip still comes thru...though I don't know if the PL tone will travel that far?

I'll try to get some locations and post, maybe pinpoint where it's coming from. At any rate, it's fascinating to hear!

G

rcvmo · #2 (**permalink**) 08-14-2006, 10:17 AM

I'm wondering if it's a two way thing or not. Has anyone down that way ever heard Leelanau dispatch on 154.250? Leelanau's PL for this freq is 103.5, and even with the PL in my scanners, the skip still comes thru...though I don't know if the PL tone will travel that far?

Yes I have!, not as good as Putnam County Ohio, or Saginaw county.
rcvmo

gg750 · #3 (**permalink**) 08-14-2006, 10:28 AM

Wow! I wonder if someone will make changes to their system. I know that Leelanau is *slowly* migrating to the MPSCS (I think FD is included, but they been working for over a year just on the SD), so maybe they'lldeal with it until they finish the migration.

G

KC8NIY · #4 (**permalink**) 08-14-2006, 11:55 AM

I haven't heard Leelanau from Washtenaw, at least not that I actually looked up and could confirm. Washtenaw uses 162.2PL, so I doubt it's them. Saginaw was my thought, but I'm not sure what PL they use if any.

Post some locations that you hear described and department names and you'll get a better answer.

rcvmo · #5 (**permalink**) 08-14-2006, 03:22 PM

I hear Ogemaw County on 154.430 as well as I do Monroe County.
I work in A2 as well. And I'm not using a scanner, but a commercial two-way, 1/2 in. hardline, and an 8dB commercial omni about 75 feet up. When you use a commercial rig, your front-end is much more selective with pin-point accurracy to pick out those distant stations. I may not have a real signal meter, but when you've been doing comms this long, you can tell how well the signal is coming in. With all the additional RF around us, I am still able to pick out stations including simplex mobile and HT's. It also helps out that our county is mostly 800 MHz leaving the intereference rate at VHF almost nil.
rcvmo

gg750 · #6 (**permalink**) 08-20-2006, 07:03 PM

The skip was coming through very strong tonight. It was also very irritating to Leelanau, as they were dealing with their own fire, but the skip was totally disrupting their traffic...not good.

Anywho, here are some bits and pieces I heard around 7:45 this evening...

Central (from where?) was dispatching Hamilton fire, then put their tankers on stand-by, "103" was calling "101 on 5", and "131 has command". I couldn't tell where they were being dispatched to as Leelanau was walking on them and they were walking on Leelanau. Maybe this will help pinpoint where it's coming from.

G

DewAddict · #7 (**permalink**) 08-20-2006, 08:15 PM

I live near Brighton and can hear Saginaw Dispatch while I am monitoring Washtenaw cty. I also pick up Kalamazoo area on the Livingston cty freq of 154.010. I have heard a lot of band openings in the last month in 150mhz band.

Rob

rdale · #8 (**permalink**) 08-21-2006, 10:14 AM

I was in Lakeside OH last week (near Cedar Point) and heard a familiar frequency on one of the UHF fire channels in the area... I listened closely and it was for a call in Lansing (110 miles away) so for kicks I opened up the Ingham Co EDACS system and it not only got the transmissions but also trunked nearly perfect for a time!

Thunderbolt · #9 (**permalink**) 08-21-2006, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gg750

There's been a lot of "skip" lately (a month or more) up in Leelanau Co. on their fire freq., 154.250. I'm pretty sure it's coming out of the Lansing/Ingham Co. area, but it may also be Washtenaw. Most of the calls I hear are medical runs, and a few fire runs. It often comes in very clear, all times of the day. Leelanau central has made comments to it often.

I'm wondering if it's a two way thing or not. Has anyone down that way ever heard Leelanau dispatch on 154.250? Leelanau's PL for this freq is 103.5, and even with the PL in my scanners, the skip still comes thru...though I don't know if the PL tone will travel that far?
G

Are you hearing Skip on the output or is it coming through the Fire repeater on 154.250 MHz?

I have heard Leelanau County Fire Dispatch down here in Washtenaw County, off my old Motorola Alert Monitor. They were loud and clear, but that was two years ago. Nonetheless, 154.250 MHz is a very common fire frequency and is used throughout the USA and some parts of Canada.

73's

Ron

Thunderbolt · #10 (**permalink**) 08-21-2006, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gg750

The skip was coming through very strong tonight. It was also very irritating to Leelanau, as they were dealing with their own fire, but the skip was totally disrupting their traffic...not good.

Anywho, here are some bits and pieces I heard around 7:45 this evening...

Central (from where?) was dispatching Hamilton fire, then put their tankers on stand-by, "103" was calling "101 on 5", and "131 has command". I couldn't tell where they were being dispatched to as Leelanau was walking on them and they were walking on Leelanau. Maybe this will help pinpoint where it's coming from.

G

Were they on 154.250 MHz, or coming through the repeater on 153.890 MHz? I know that Hamilton, Ontario uses the former frequency, but I have no idea what their PL tone is. Sounds like you were receiving some great Skip last night!

73's

Ron

gg750 · #11 (**permalink**) 08-25-2006, 06:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt

Were they on 154.250 MHz, or coming through the repeater on 153.890 MHz?

This was coming through on 154.250 with a PL of 103.5. There was more traffic than what I posted, but between the traffic from Leelanau and *?*, it was really hard to tell what was what and who was who. It's also possible that I'm hearing it from more than one place. Sometimes I think I hear police related traffic, other times its fire/ems. It seems to come through best in the late afternoon after a hot, sunny day. It's been cooling off here and raining more often (getting to be that time of year), but I'll keep listening for more.

One of my dads co-workers is a FF in Leelanau. He said he *heard* that Leelanau was either going to change their freq (they have one or two freqs licensed that they don't use) or expedite the FDs migration to the MPSCS. If they make the migration, they would keep their current freq just for paging. Where he heard this from, I don't know...so I'm going to hold my breath.

G