Is there any light anybody can shed on the sur cal radio set up? I have been listening to the freqs in the database and never hear anything. Any info would be appreciated.
From Santa Clarita you won't hear much, or not at all, on State Park frequencies. One member here posted that he was hearing the Hungry Valley OHV park on 700 MHz from there.
Other than that the only repeater you might be able to hear is on Castro Peak in the Santa Monica Mountains. Given the 800 MHz frequencies that are involved, topographical features between you and the repeater probably eliminate any chance of receiving Castro. I believe that the ridge with all the electronic sites on it is called "Oat Mountain," and would block signals from Castro. There is another repeater somewhere n the Santa Susana mountains, but is closer to Oat than Castro so it would be blocked. Most of the state parks in southern California are on the beach so it can be hard to pick up much traffic from inland locations. There is a lot of traffic on repeaters located on Catalina island. My mother used to live in the LAX area and I could not pick up Catalina or Castro Peak from there so imagine how much harder it is from Santa Clarita/
Santa Clarita looks to me that receiving anything distant from you would be tough. Mt. Pinos and Frazier may provide you with some good listening that may involve Ventura, Kern and L.A. County. In addition all the Oat Mountain repeaters must boom into your location.