Tow Trucks

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bryan_herbert

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In California, I had no trouble finding tow truck freqs while spectrum mapping. Here in Nevada, I cant find a single freq. Where are they hiding?
 

troymail

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bryan_herbert

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Im in Vegas. Ive sweeped 150-160, 219-222, 450-470, 850-870, and 935-940 MHz including the trunked radio systems. When I had to be towed a couple months back, the tow truck drivers AAA radio had non-stop traffic and I still cant find them.
 

K2RNI

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I noticed a lot of them stopped using radios and have been just using cellphones instead. So Troymail is right on that one, you also could be finding them and mistaking the traffic for standard business traffic when they aren't dispatching tows at the time.
 

bryan_herbert

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Did not notice an antenna, its the first thing I look for. He had an FM radio blade and many of them now are swapped out for multi-use blades that not only receive FM radio but can also TX/RX on 700/800/900 MHz.

The company towing me was using an MDC to notify pick up and drop off times only. The radio traffic was actual dispatching, we were commenting on the calls being received that day and the ridiculous wait times to get through to AAA when calling them for a tow.
 

gvranchosbill

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I drove for AAA in Reno Tahoe area for many years and all comms were on 150.9050 Reno/Carson/Minden/Gardnerville/Fallon AAA, 150.9500 Reno AAA , 150.9650 Tahoe/Truckee AAA and 452.5250 Reno/Truckee AAA MHz.
Around the year 2002 give or take the dispatch center was moved from Rancho Cordova,Ca to Arizona and comms were being dispatched on portable tablet like devices using cell phone systems and very rarely the voice radio is used any more.
I would assume that the only voice comms your going to find is on the shop radio frequencies and every tow company i worked for had shop radios on anything from Vhf Low/High, Uhf, 800 and 900 Mhz trunked systems and these were non AAA owned radios using commercial business band frequencies.
The last place i worked at abandoned there VHF radios for text dispatching using iden radio/phone around 2005 and iden is no longer in existence as far as i know.
 

gvranchosbill

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Im in Vegas. Ive sweeped 150-160, 219-222, 450-470, 850-870, and 935-940 MHz including the trunked radio systems. When I had to be towed a couple months back, the tow truck drivers AAA radio had non-stop traffic and I still cant find them.

Did he have more than one radio? If so most likely it was the company shop radio and i worked for some AAA companies that did lots of commercial business as well as AAA and the shop radio was always busy mostly with passing AAA calls around and dispatching of commercial account/cash and law enforcement contract calls.
If it was the AAA radio its possible it was being used as back up if normal dispatching was down and i say that because the trucks still have radios they just are not used unless the non voice system is down and i noticed the radios in place about a year ago.
Rural companies that handle AAA calls up in northern nevada and eastern sierra california never had AAA radios do to terrain and the VHF AAA radio didnt have coverage and i know this as fact example Mikes Towing AAA Walker,Ca, Woodfords Auto Towing AAA Woodfords,Ca, Crown Auto Body Towing AAA Yerington,Nv, Woodys Towing AAA Hawthorne,Nv are some i know as fact
 
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Hooligan

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Here are some finds from my database. They would have been active within the past couple years, though I'm not checking them to see if they're still active.

150.950/DCS411 – Cal-State Common AAA-affiliated Tow truck company frequency. Guardian Towing in LV area, using base at 3550 Post Rd & remote base on Mt Potosi.

157.485/156.7 -- KBR685 Ewing Brothers Towing, remote base on Apex Peak
 

gvranchosbill

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I worked for Lakeside Tow (Now Auto Guardian) in Truckee, Ca Pro-Tow South North Shore (Now is Welcomes tow) Lk Tahoe,Ca/Nv C.O.D.Garage Co (Now Silverstate Tow) Minden,Nv All-Points Tow Reno,Nv and they all still have Vhf radios on 150.9050, 150.9500, 150.9650 and 452.5250 but all dispatching of AAA member calls come over a tablet and i saw driver use it in truck at Silver State Tow Gardnerville, Nv and i ask him about it and the AAA Tow contractor in Yerington,Nv was using a cell phone and had no two way radio of any kind. I have heard radio traffic lately but thats only when out cell ph range or cell ph impractical for use in some situations.
About 2 or 3 years ago all radio traffic i was hearing up here for AAA suddenly stopped and it may b days before you hear anything.
The latest traffic i heard was to remote tow trucks like hannemans in fernley,nv and they cover over a hundred miles north and east and i had a tow from burning man at the time i was working and soon as you past empire nv and go thru gerlach cell ph and radio signals were gone and i was on 150.9050/103.5 using 100 watt motorola micor with 5/8th wave antenna to bad they hardly use it anymore the coverage from mcclellan pk in carson city stretched for at least a hundred miles north south and east also mammoth lakes/bridgeport ca.
CSAA has license on 900 MHz freqs on Mcclellan pk and i have never heard anything on them.
Woodfords Auto AAA in Woodfords Ca used their own license on to dispatch AAA calls from their house/dispatch on150.8450 and they were CSQ but license expired and they are not there anymore and AAA radio xmtrs wouldnt work due to terrain alpine Co is ther area very remote and i have no idea what their using for comms all agencies in Alpine Co have had coverage problems for years and Woodfords is using something and they need to talk unit to unit and cell coverage is real bad and this is a mystery to me and i only live 5 miles from them they still have ancient double side by side yagis pointed up at 45 degree angle to west over granite mtns some 10.000 ft high and its mounted on telephone pole at about 7,000 ft directly west is woodfords canyon and they run up on hwy 4 and hwy 88 over the passes i find the VHF coverage amazing but they dont use anymore as of maybe a year ago.
Southern Ca AAA Contractors eastern sierras have no radios at all and a guy i knew worked for Southern Ca AAA and he said they only have MDT's with microphone for use if needed i never saw one of these only what he told me.
 
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com501

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AAA is now all tablets/MDTs except for some remote areas. Cmpanies have their own radios for internal comms.
 
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