Amityville Village Police (Suffolk County)

[Joseph11]

I'm hearing another agency's repeater coming over the Amityville Village Police repeater. I looked at their license, and it has two frequencies that can possibly be the input. 156.0300 MHz, 159.0300 MHz, and 159.1500 MHz. Does anyone know the correct input frequency? Thanks.

[ARTIEA]

I am wondering where you live that you are hearing another repeater coming in over the Amityville PD's repeater. I am also curious if your receiver is using PL decode. I do not know of any other repeater in the area that uses the same PL Tone on the Repeater OUTPUT. Amityville uses one PL tone on the input and a different PL tone on the output.
Previously, the Suffolk County Police 6th Precinct had a repeater on the same output frequency, but utilizing a 146.2hz PL, which was the standard PL tone for the Suffolk PD
VHF-HI (155mhz.) frequencies. I believe all of the 6th Precinct communications are on the 800mhz. Trunked system;possibly simulcasting on the old VHF-HI frequency. Personally, I monitor Amityville PD using PL decoding on my scanner so that I only hear them The input to their repeater is 159.150mhz. 156.03 was the old Car to Car (Channel B) frequency that Amityville PD units would use to talk to Suffolk County PD 1st Precinct cars, in adjoining towns. 159.03 was the input frequency to the Old Suffolk County PD Data Band (Channel C)
frequency, with the output of the Channel C repater on 155.79. Hope this helps.
Artie

[Joseph11]

I was getting it with a PL of 88.5 Hz. I can tell that it was coming into the repeater through the input. The dispatcher sounded a little panicked because of it. Thanks for the reply. Can you PM me the input PL, please? Thanks.

[ARTIEA]

Joseph,

I was a little confused with your thread.
You mentioned that you heard another repeater on 155.58 on top of the Amityville PD's repeater. Are you hearing this other repeater ALSO with an Output PL of 88.5?

Which dispatcher seemed a little panicked by it... The Amityville PD dispatcher?
I am not sure if the Amityville PD dispacther monitors the Input or the Output
of the repeater. If they monitor the Input, then an 88.5hz. tone will not open up
the squelch on their Input receiver. I will do some research and see if I can see what agency may have this other repeater. I will check with a friend of mine who is the Commincations Officer for Amityville PD and see if he has heard anything about a
co-channel interference problem.

Artie

[Joseph11]

The agency's repeater output is the same frequency/PL as Amityville Village Police repeater's input.

[ARTIEA]

Joseph,

I now understand what you were talking about.

What happened is a very common condition that takes place in the Early part of the fall.
It is known as "ducting" and the results can be compared to "skip". The difference between ducting and skip is that during skip conditions, stations from far away (i.e. the West Coast of the U.S.) are received on the same frequency as the station that you want to monitor. This is especially common on the Low Band (30-50mhz) frequencies. There have been many times that while I am dispatching at the Fire House I work in, I will hear alert tones that I do not recognize. At the end of the voice transmission, many times I will hear the time being transmitted... 3 hours earlier than my current time. I know then that conditions are favorable for skip. Ducting is more local, so to speak. I live on the South Shore of Long Island and when ducting is taking place, I will hear Ham Radio Repeaters as far away as Virginia, on the same output frequency as my local repeater. I am receiving signals from East Coast states that are within a few hundred miles from my location.
If you are interested in seeing how far the ducting is taking place, put a receiver on 156.80
(Marine Ch. 16) when you believe ducting is in effect and see how far up and down the coast, you can receive. Although the USCG uses high power and tall antennas on this frequency, the stations that you are hearing, would not usually be received at your location, under normal circumstances.
Based on database information in this website, I would have to assume that the co-channel interference that you monitored on the Amityville PD repeater output freq., originated from a Sheriff's Department in Virginia. Unless you have any callsign or other obvious ID from the other repeater, I will bet that ducting was taking place at the time you received the transmission.

Hope this answers your question.

Artie

[Joseph11]

Thanks for the information. Tropo ducting is one of my favorite parts of scanning. Eariler this week, one of my friends was able to talk on a HAM repeater in Maryland from Toms River, NJ. Pretty good tropo.