35.44 Troy / O'Fallon

[misterpaul71]

Hi all,

can anyone confirm that Troy Ready Mix in the Troy / O' Fallon area on 35.44 uses a PL tone of 131.8?

Tentatively heard via skip here in Ireland with some references to Chesterfield and "Plant 1" "Plant 2"

can anyone confirm this is what was heard?

Paul Logan
Lisnaskea, Ireland

 

[teufler]

not someting that I scan but just puit in and will tell you later today.
Is féidir leat a fháil t-ádh le do grab minicíocht.

 

[misterpaul71]

Go raibh maith agat! Hope you can catch it.

 

[teufler]

I am sitting on the frequency. heard voices laughter but just random speech patterns. nothing that I can identify to anyone. Had the frequency with the sub tone, heard nothing so trying without the tone.

 

[teufler]

you are in luck. Apparently you got a good skip pickup. I live about 5 miles east of the area where the concrete company is at. Getting full scale on 35.44, tone of 131.8, "truck 2, come on up". Getting base pickups but nothing from the mobiles, or they do not talk much. Scaner is a 396xt, antenna outside dual band vertical. wd0gsy

 

[misterpaul71]

Great stuff! Thanks so much for your help. It was actually coming in here yesterday pretty loud. I could hear two bases and at one point at least one mobile. The reference to Chesterfield narrowed things down a bit. Amazing what the ionosphere does Today around midday your time I could hear the municipal rail on 31.14 (PL 123) out in San Francisco.

Alas this cycle isn't delivering much from the Missouri Highway Patrol - have only heard them once or twice this time round. Heres a video: 42.82 Missouri Highway Patrol, Macon reception in Ireland - November 15th 2011 - YouTube

73 de Paul MI3LDO

 

[teufler]

the highway patrol is mostly vhf 150-170 now on the MOSWIN system. Californnia HP is still on low band, pretty much the same frequecies that Mo had. Not having alotg of low band skip[ experience, I am surprised thaat you get the sub tones too. Maybe I need to search out the low bands

 

[scanman1958]

Amazing, amazing amazing skip. And from St Louis I thought that low band skip from California and the east coast on a daily basis back in the mid 1980's was cool. Wow!

I did put in 35.44 without the pl tone for a few hours while driving around the St Louis area on Thursday but only heard what I could describe as a very quick, couple of words, conversation. I guess I will have to try again in a few days.

 

[teufler]

35.44

it was the Concrete company in O'fallon, on the north side of I-70. I have prgrammed the scanner to a search in the 30-50 range tomorrow. Yeah skip in the 70's and 80's on low band, got all kinds of state hp units, from many states away.

 

[misterpaul71]

Heard again today, Saturday, with mentions of Wright City. Will post some recordings later to let you guys see the kind of levels the signals are at. If you find any other local St Louis area signals (betwen say 30 and 40 mhz) - please let me know - especially the PL / DPL tones. I have LOTS of unidentified signals.

 

[teufler]

what do you use for an antenna?

 

[misterpaul71]

At the moment a dipole, resonant on 34 mhz made from 3/8 inch aluminium. Each leg of the dipole is 7 feet long. It's up at about 20 feet, horizontal. It seems to do well from 29 - 44 mhz. As I type MA, NY, PA fire traffic is THUMPING in on 33 mhz (at 1 pm local, 8 am in St Louis)

 

[teufler]

Does Ireland have a band on 34 mhz because that is an odd frequency here in the states. 10 meters, then we go to 52-55 mhz for the ham 6 meter band, then 2 meters, etc. fire traffic on low band does not occure here in st louis.

 

[misterpaul71]

I cut the dipole for 34 mhz and it shows a 2:1 swr from about 32.3 - 36.3 mhz. So I have the 33mhz US Fire, 34 mhz (Turkish and Brazil signals) and 35 mhz US business all on the one antenna. In reality it does really well from about 29 - 44 mhz.

This afternoon at 4:48 pm local I could hear 42.14 with 186.2 tone with references to a motorcycle crash on I70 east bound. I guess this is the Weldon Spring area highway patrol. Signal was reasonable but very short lived. Atmosphere is in great shape these days.

 

[scanman1958]

42.14 is the low band for the Missouri Highway Patrol. One of many freqs they still use as a back-up to the new statewide VHF high/700MHz band trunking system. It is a great system but I am guessing it's signal will never go that far around the world.

 

[nd5y]

I am guessing it's signal will never go that far around the world.

Guess again. It can at times. At the peak of the solar cycle back around 2000-2001 when I lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area I worked several European countries on 6 meters (50 MHz) with 5 - 10 watts to a dipole antenna in my attic.

 

[scanman1958]

I was referring to the states new VHF High band system. Not the low band. Sorry if that was not clear.