Denver Int'l Airport site active

Saw it as a neighbor last night, and did a drive by this morning.

Site 355 appears to be the RTD- DIA site.

Chuck

- Already submitted for a DB update.

FileVersion:7
-TowerInfo
#This section is here for information only. With the exception
#of the Call Sign(s), This data is not Read back into the program at all.
System ID : D1C
System Name : Colorado DTRS
WACN : BEE07
Tower Number (Decimal): 3-55
Tower Number (Hex) : T0337
Tower Description : DIA
Control Capabilities : Data,Voice,Registration
Call Sign(s) : WPTZ761
Timestamp : Sun Aug 16 07:59:06 2015

-Tables
#Format: Table ID,Base Freq,Spacing,Input Offset,Assumed/Confirmed,BandWidth,Slots
00,851.00625,0.00625,-45.00000,"Confirmed",0.00625,1
01,762.00625,0.00625,30.00000,"Confirmed",0.00625,1

-Frequencies
#Format: Channel,Usage,Frequency(/Slot),Input Channel,Input Frequency(/Slot),Input Explicit(1/0),Hit Count
"01-1386","i",770.66875,"01-1386",800.66875,0,1
"01-1766","a",773.04375,"01-1766",803.04375,0,0
"01-1806","a",773.29375,"01-1806",803.29375,0,0
"01-1846","a",773.54375,"01-1846",803.54375,1,0
"01-1886","c",773.79375,"01-1886",803.79375,1,0

-Neighbors
#Format: TowerID,TowerIDHex,System ID,Channel,Frequency,Tower Name
105,"T0105",d1c,"00-0475",853.97500,"Mount Thorodin (Golden)"
112,"T010C",d1c,"00-0477",853.98750,"Mead"
124,"T0118",d1c,"00-0393",853.46250,"Dakota Mountain"
169,"T0145",d1c,"01-1870",773.69375,"Birch St - ADCOM Site"
332,"T0320",d1c,"00-0471",853.95000,"Betasso"
354,"T0336",d1c,"01-2060",774.88125,"Gun Barrel"
356,"T0338",d1c,"01-1952",774.20625,"Longmont - Sunset Water Tower"
361,"T033D",d1c,"00-0421",853.63750,"Bald Mtn N (Loveland)"

Are you sure this is not the Eldora site in Boulder County? RTD has the Airport Office Building site licensed under WQUX974, so it would be odd if they're pulling from the State license.

Having Betasso and Dakota Hill as a neighbors while lacking DRDC CF, DTB, Smokey Hill, and Zap for a site that far east is pretty strange.

It could be, I saw it as a neighbor to Birch, and did a drive up Tower Road to 76. It seemed like it was fading as I got terrain between me and the terminal, was full scale when I had LOS of the terminal. I wasn't considering Eldora as a possibility, so wasn't too focused on the terrain to the West.
I didn't do any checking once I started back west.

I may have been focused on confirming my suspicion and missed the other possibility.
The neighbors would make a lot more sense for Eldora, and the 20 minutes or so that I was monitoring it, there were no affilations or channel grants which would be more likely for a mountain site, than DIA.

I guess someone closer will need to do some further investigation. I probably won't be back on the front range for a couple of weeks.

Other thought, the zone 3 site number makes it much more likely to be a Boulder site, rather than DIA. Odd though that it lists Birch as a neighbor.

And looking at a coverage map...

I'm getting it from Broomfield (not terribly strong, but good enough to log in Pro96Com). Notably, when I search for the main CC in ULS, 773.79375, it comes up with no hits for Colorado. WTF??

Update: After about 10 minutes of logging I've got only 4 affiliations (no grants yet): Two Broomfield PD TG's and a CSP TG tried to affiliate but were denied. Very interesting, it must be a single-agency site. Maybe RTD...?

natedawg1604 said:

I'm getting it from Broomfield (not terribly strong, but good enough to log in Pro96Com). Notably, when I search for the main CC in ULS, 773.79375, it comes up with no hits for Colorado. WTF??

Click to expand...

You won't find a site or frequency specific license for a while if they're using WPTZ761. WPTZ761 is a State of Colorado license for 700 MHz statewide. They used to use it as the primary license for many of the 700 MHz channels on the Denver Metro sites before they started getting specific licenses. The last few sites using WPTZ761 are 1-020 DTB (3 frequencies), 1-070 Auraria (all frequencies), 1-071 State Services Building (2 frequencies), and now 3-055.

How does the signal from the site compare to DIA EDACS?

natedawg1604 said:

Update: After about 10 minutes of logging I've got only 4 affiliations (no grants yet): Two Broomfield PD TG's and a CSP TG tried to affiliate but were denied. Very interesting, it must be a single-agency site. Maybe RTD...?

Click to expand...

The lack of affiliations and grants sounds similar to 3-032 Betasso. Extremely infrequent affiliations and rare voice grants, basically a site you would avoid if at all possible. That might change in the coming year...

Denying CSP is odd behavior for either location as they both fill areas in need of coverage.

Smells more like DIA than Eldora to me. The logical neighbors for Eldora would be any site that could be driven to on Hwy-72 (Prospect, Bald North, Thorodin, Betasso, Dakota, Longmont, Gunbarrel, and probably Black Hawk and/or Mead). Nothing west of the divide needed since you can't drive over it from there. I think the sites listed as neighbors in the pro96com file more accurately reflect where RTD talk groups show up most often. However, the site selection is interesting given that usually mutual aid talk groups are allowed at all sites. I wonder if that's not the case at DIA given that if something happens at DIA, a 4 channel site will be woefully inadequate.

Obviously, an easy test would be to drive through DIA with a scanner on the control channel and remove the antenna as you cruise through to see if you can still hear it.

And one more note - I think 3-55 used to be Hoyt before ADCOM left. Maybe they wanted to re-use that site number for eastern Adams County coverage.

According to the MAP submitted to the FCC
355 should be "Tri-Area"

I know from the past the links from the FCC attachments don't work well so, I will try and add it here as an attachment. The Map shows the Site # and Names

Update = Even better is the 2nd attachment which lists all of the Frequencies per site

Spitfire8520 said:

Are you sure this is not the Eldora site in Boulder County? RTD has the Airport Office Building site licensed under WQUX974, so it would be odd if they're pulling from the State license.

Having Betasso and Dakota Hill as a neighbors while lacking DRDC CF, DTB, Smokey Hill, and Zap for a site that far east is pretty strange.

Click to expand...

ecps92 said:

According to the MAP submitted to the FCC
355 should be "Tri-Area"

I know from the past the links from the FCC attachments don't work well so, I will try and add it here as an attachment. The Map shows the Site # and Names

Update = Even better is the 2nd attachment which lists all of the Frequencies per site

Click to expand...

Appreciate the thoughts, however the attachments you have included are dated to 2010. The State updated the attachments that they submitted to the FCC in 2014, which I list in one of my previous posts. The system used to have a Site 3-055 Tri-Area in 2010. In 2014, that site was taken off of the system moved it over to the Front Range Communications Consortium as Site 5-055.

Site numbering is a very interesting point. There are many Zone 3 site numbers available for assignment and the reuse of the FRCC site numbers is very rare, so it's interesting why 55 was specifically selected. If the State/RTD were aiming for reusing some of the FRCC site numbers for areas of similar coverage, why isn't the Site 1-069 Birch (ADCOM) using Site 3-022?

I will say that this doesn't even remotely prove much of anything, but Site 3-055 fits nicely between Site 3-054 Gunbarrel and Site 3-056 Longmont.

Returning to the original reason I brought up a site that is not DIA; RTD has largely been building their two sites as a pair. To have RTD/Birch show up operating on WQUX974 on Day 1, but have RTD/AOB completely ignore the WQUX974 license is very strange. Eldora and AOB are both scheduled to be installed any day now, but there have been no licenses issued for Eldora.

greenthumb said:

Smells more like DIA than Eldora to me. The logical neighbors for Eldora would be any site that could be driven to on Hwy-72 (Prospect, Bald North, Thorodin, Betasso, Dakota, Longmont, Gunbarrel, and probably Black Hawk and/or Mead). Nothing west of the divide needed since you can't drive over it from there. I think the sites listed as neighbors in the pro96com file more accurately reflect where RTD talk groups show up most often. However, the site selection is interesting given that usually mutual aid talk groups are allowed at all sites. I wonder if that's not the case at DIA given that if something happens at DIA, a 4 channel site will be woefully inadequate.

Click to expand...

On the topic of neighbors, the Pro96Com neighbors list largely includes logical Eldora neighbors, sans Prospect and Black Hawk. Dakota actually denies RTD talkgroups, so it would ideally not be listed as a neighbor. Lacking other sites RTD heavily uses in the metro area like Auraria, DTB, Smokey Hill, and State just doesn't make sense to me for a DIA site as they are all closer and more likely candidates for RTD radios roam to than sites like Betasso and Longmont.

-k
Must have been in another thread, not this one.

Spitfire8520 said:

Appreciate the thoughts, however the attachments you have included are dated to 2010. The State updated the attachments that they submitted to the FCC in 2014, which I list in one of my previous posts. The system used to have a Site 3-055 Tri-Area in 2010. In 2014, that site was taken off of the system moved it over to the Front Range Communications Consortium as Site 5-055.

Click to expand...

ecps92 said:

-k
Must have been in another thread, not this one.

Click to expand...

Apologies, I was bit unclear. I meant that I listed the sites that still use the license in a previous reply, I didn't actually include the attachments. I have attached them below.

Signals are full strength here in South Greeley so I'm leaning toward it being RTD's Eldora site.

Also hearing BC LAW-1 (9100) on it this evening.

I just found more evidence this is a Boulder-area site: Poudre Valley Fire Authority, Longmont Fire & CDOW Area 2 talkgroups are trying to affiliate, in addition to Broomfield PD (they are all getting denied).

Alright, it's time to put a name to this site. As I don't believe anyone has taken a trip out to either location to prove the site, so I decided to take a trip up Boulder Canyon to Eldora with a Pro-106.

I can firmly report that I was able to hear and decode the control channel about 2/3 of the way up the canyon to Nederland using the stock RadioShack antenna. Full bars of signal was received in the areas near and in Nederland.

The site passed the no antenna test in the Eldora area. I was able to get a couple of bars that decoded as Site 3-055.

Only saw a couple of voice grants at the very end of the 20 minutes I ended up logging. The voice channel ended up revealing the 6th frequency associated with the site, but I failed to save the site file correctly to reflect it. The frequencies below are all confirmed in use by the site.

770.66875
770.91875
773.04375 (Alternate CC)
773.29375 (Alternate CC)
773.54375 (Alternate CC)
773.79375 (Primary CC)

Site 1-019 Black Hawk and Site 3-052 Prospect Mountain have also been added as neighbors for Site 3-055, filling out the rest of the logical Eldora neighbors.

At this point, I'm comfortable with saying that Site 3-055 should be added to the database as "Eldora" in Boulder County. If someone else who has been logging Site 3-055 has a more completely Pro96Com site file, feel free to share it.

Leave it to Spitfire to do a legit site survey! Appreciate the trip up the hill for clarification.