Charlottesviille/Albemarle Unknown Freqs

QDP2012 · Jan 11, 2017

Good morning all,

While listening in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area, I heard traffic on the following frequencies, but have not found any official listings yet as to what they are. Help confirming them would be appreciated:

282.200000 MHz - aviation traffic;

950.981250 MHz - sounds like simulcast of WINA 1070 AM talk-radio station; possibly some type of link; various CTCSS tones seem to rotate or change back-and-forth

Thanks in advance,

P.S.: If anyone else has unknown freqs, please share.

BM82557 · Jan 11, 2017

QDP2012 said:
Good morning all,

While listening in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area, I heard traffic on the following frequencies, but have not found any official listings yet as to what they are. Help confirming them would be appreciated:

282.200000 MHz - aviation traffic;

950.981250 MHz - sounds like simulcast of WINA 1070 AM talk-radio station; possibly some type of link; various CTCSS tones seem to rotate or change back-and-forth

Thanks in advance,

P.S.: If anyone else has unknown freqs, please share.

282.0000 is ZDC Casanova - see Washington (ZDC) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

ecps92 · Jan 11, 2017

The 950 is an STA Link from the Office to the Transmitter site or reverse.
The PL is likely due to a fluctuation in the Voices causing the changed PL

QDP2012 said:
Good morning all,

While listening in the Charlottesville/Albemarle area, I heard traffic on the following frequencies, but have not found any official listings yet as to what they are. Help confirming them would be appreciated:

282.200000 MHz - aviation traffic;

950.981250 MHz - sounds like simulcast of WINA 1070 AM talk-radio station; possibly some type of link; various CTCSS tones seem to rotate or change back-and-forth

Thanks in advance,

P.S.: If anyone else has unknown freqs, please share.

QDP2012 · Jan 11, 2017

BM82557 said:
282.0000 is ZDC Casanova - see Washington (ZDC) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Thanks for the reply. Somehow I missed checking that page. I think you're right, the one I heard was the 282.2 on Buck's Elbow (ZDC02 CSN).

Thanks again,

QDP2012 · Jan 11, 2017

ecps92 said:
The 950 is an STA Link from the Office to the Transmitter site or reverse.

This was my guess, too.

ecps92 said:
The PL is likely due to a fluctuation in the Voices causing the changed PL

Interesting, I did not know that was possible. I was guessing it was something deliberate on their radio-setup. I was expecting a single CTCSS tone much like Public Service or Amateur repeaters, but that is probably because I don't regularly monitor such links often.

If voices are fluctuating the CTCSS as you describe, does that then indicate that the link is CSQ, with no preset CTCSS tone, whereas a preset tone would not be influenced by the voices?

Thanks,

dlwtrunked · Jan 11, 2017

QDP2012 said:
This was my guess, too.
Interesting, I did not know that was possible. I was guessing it was something deliberate on their radio-setup. I was expecting a single CTCSS tone much like Public Service or Amateur repeaters, but that is probably because I don't regularly monitor such links often.
If voices are fluctuating the CTCSS as you describe, does that then indicate that the link is CSQ, with no preset CTCSS tone, whereas a preset tone would not be influenced by the voices?
Thanks,

Correct, there is not CTCSS (PL) on the frequency. It is not CSQ either. There is no squelch at all on studio to transmitter frequencies. It is a wide FM signal so will sound distorted in narrow FM receive mode.

Take note that listening to these frequencies (yes, we all know it does not make sense) is expressly illegal by the ECPA 1986
http://calfireweb.fire.ca.gov/library/handbooks/8000/8008.pdf (pg. 8008-1 last bullet)

The only problem with this, is that the frequency you gave is not one that the FCC assigns. The closest one is 951.0000 WPZD893 for WOJL in Louisa. If it was not them, and was narrow rather than wide FM, it is likely you are receiving some sort of receiver overload or intermod.

dlwtrunked · Jan 11, 2017

BM82557 said:
282.0000 is ZDC Casanova - see Washington (ZDC) Air Route Traffic Control Center Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

I thought I had a copyright on that typo.

You meant 282.2 (simulcast with 133.2).

To confuse matter, although this is for the Casanova Sector, the similarly named Casanova VOR is not there at Bucks Elbow but quite far away at roughly halfway between Culpeper and Warrenton.

QDP2012 · Jan 11, 2017

dlwtrunked said:
Correct, there is not CTCSS (PL) on the frequency. It is not CSQ either. There is no squelch at all on studio to transmitter frequencies. It is a wide FM signal so will sound distorted in narrow FM receive mode.

Take note that listening to these frequencies (yes, we all know it does not make sense) is expressly illegal by the ECPA 1986
http://calfireweb.fire.ca.gov/library/handbooks/8000/8008.pdf (pg. 8008-1 last bullet)

The only problem with this, is that the frequency you gave is not one that the FCC assigns. The closest one is 951.0000 WPZD893 for WOJL in Louisa. If it was not them, and was narrow rather than wide FM, it is likely you are receiving some sort of receiver overload or intermod.

All good info. Thanks for letting me know about the prohibition; I was not aware of that, either. The overload/intermod is definitely a possibility.

dlwtrunked said:
I thought I had a copyright on that typo.
You meant 282.2 (simulcast with 133.2).

To confuse matter, although this is for the Casanova Sector, the similarly named Casanova VOR is not there at Bucks Elbow but quite far away at roughly halfway between Culpeper and Warrenton.

No worries. I'm still learning. Thanks for the clarification.

Thanks again,

WPXS472 · Jan 11, 2017

That's interesting that it is illegal to listen to STL/RPU frequencies. Especially since the content is broadcast for public consumption anyway. I guess I have broken that law many a time without even knowing it.

QDP2012 · Jan 11, 2017

dlwtrunked said:
Take note that listening to these frequencies (yes, we all know it does not make sense) is expressly illegal by the ECPA 1986
http://calfireweb.fire.ca.gov/library/handbooks/8000/8008.pdf (pg. 8008-1 last bullet)

The above link and a few others have been added to the Scanner Laws RR Wiki page, so more people can learn about this.

Thanks again,

n4jri · Jan 11, 2017

WPXS472 said:
That's interesting that it is illegal to listen to STL/RPU frequencies. Especially since the content is broadcast for public consumption anyway. I guess I have broken that law many a time without even knowing it.

Back when Richmond had three traffic planes in the air, we just listened directly to the downlinks--which of course, made it impossible for us to hear commercials for the sponsors. Certainly worthy of a federal ban.

Even more amusing was that there was an outfit called Metro Traffic which serviced a number of independent stations. They would download a traffic report to be recorded for later broadcast--a friend of mine found out that the replay might be nearly a half hour later. Ironically, these downlinks for recording were referred to as 'actualities' even though by time they were broadcast, they might not be 'actual' traffic conditions.

Of course, now they're pinging your cell tower to decide what color they'll paint the highway on Google Maps, but back in the day, it was fun to get traffic reports on the scanner, from three different sources, and way more in real-time than some stations were broadcasting them.

It's good to be a gangsta!

73/Allen (N4JRI)

KC4ASF · Jan 12, 2017

n4jri said:
Back when Richmond had three traffic planes in the air, we just listened directly to the downlinks--which of course, made it impossible for us to hear commercials for the sponsors. Certainly worthy of a federal ban.

Even more amusing was that there was an outfit called Metro Traffic which serviced a number of independent stations. They would download a traffic report to be recorded for later broadcast--a friend of mine found out that the replay might be nearly a half hour later. Ironically, these downlinks for recording were referred to as 'actualities' even though by time they were broadcast, they might not be 'actual' traffic conditions.

Of course, now they're pinging your cell tower to decide what color they'll paint the highway on Google Maps, but back in the day, it was fun to get traffic reports on the scanner, from three different sources, and way more in real-time than some stations were broadcasting them.

It's good to be a gangsta!

73/Allen (N4JRI)

You are right Allen, I listened every morning and evening up and down 95. 450.9125 I think was air to ground?

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Charlottesviille/Albemarle Unknown Freqs

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