Centerpoint Energy

[scollier]

Would be intresting if the person who had the Ike comms on, thanks for that! Could someone put a stream on for Centerpoint energy. Bill's ike site is down.

The San antonio feed is down as well. It sounded like P25 Moto.

Here is a page of Hurricane Tropical Storm feeds:
http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeu9f8b/index.html

Thanks again to everyone. Our thoughts go out to you all in TX. The UI stopped by to remove a street light and he said that they are slow because they sent down 5 trucks from Connecticut alone.

shawn

 

[motorola_otaku]

Coming from a lifelong year-round resident, the Centerpoint/HL&P 800 system is boring and tedious to listen to and not too terribly informative in regards to specific ops taking place in a given area (i.e. you're not going to hear guys say "we're going to get xxx neighborhood turned back on by xx:xx.") The phone patch frequencies can be occasionally amusing, however, as most Centerpoint employees tend to treat the PP function on their radios like a cell phone (despite the big yellow CONVERSATIONS ON THIS RADIO MAY BE MONITORED AND RECORDED warning stickers on the radios.)

Also, it's only being used in a limited capacity for out-of-area crews. Most of those guys are either using simplex on their home systems which run the gamut from lowband to 900 MHz, or Nextel.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, you're not missing a whole lot by not having it. ;p

 

[mfn002]

In Huntsville, I couldn't find anything. In fact, I don't think they were even using radios (I didn't see any). I was surprised at the lack of chatter on the Huntsville Entergy site. I got a few comms from Conroe, but that was about it. As for the different companies, I only saw Excel Energy from New Mexico, and several different private contractors (as well as Asplundh [pronounced "Asplund"] Tree Service). I am going to Houston on Thursday, so I'll see what I can find...

I would also suggest checking the LTR systems in the area, because it appears that several of them have channels reserved for rental radios (which the power companies might make use of).

 

[bpckty1]

Don't forget Nextel/Sprint direct connect.

 

[blantonl]

Coming from a lifelong year-round resident, the Centerpoint/HL&P 800 system is boring and tedious to listen to and not too terribly informative in regards to specific ops taking place in a given area (i.e. you're not going to hear guys say "we're going to get xxx neighborhood turned back on by xx:xx.") The phone patch frequencies can be occasionally amusing, however, as most Centerpoint employees tend to treat the PP function on their radios like a cell phone (despite the big yellow CONVERSATIONS ON THIS RADIO MAY BE MONITORED AND RECORDED warning stickers on the radios.)

Also, it's only being used in a limited capacity for out-of-area crews. Most of those guys are either using simplex on their home systems which run the gamut from lowband to 900 MHz, or Nextel.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, you're not missing a whole lot by not having it. ;p

I've read informative and good posts.. this takes the cake.

Thank Otaku Sans for keeping it informative and right on target.

 

[motorola_otaku]

I forget the name, but I saw some guys from Michigan working on the north side of Houston (I-45 @ West Rd. area) using Junktels.

Something else to consider is the new Direct Talk feature most of the new Nextel phones have, which allows for direct phone-phone communication. If any of y'all have used the Motorola DTR-series radios, they work like that where you have a channel and a "group code." It wouldn't hurt to park a DirectTalk-capable phone on Channel 1 in "open group" mode if you have a spare kicking around.

And on the way in to work this morning, I saw a convoy of trucks owned by a company called MasTec out of North Carolina.. all sporting lowband whips on ball mounts or lowband baseloads. Made me proud. Their supervisor truck (I guess it was a supervisor, he was bringing up the rear) was also sporting a UHF antenna, which made me think they might be vehicular-repeater equipped with UHF handhelds cross-banding back on to lowband. Entergy or one of the other local utilities did that back in the day IIRC.