Fish and Wildlife

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allend

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Did Fish and Wildlife go encrypted over the past couple of days. Have not heard anything in the clear since.


151.43
 

allend

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I guess I spoke too soon. The only reason I was asking is because there has been so much static on their comms the past couple of days. Just heard BlackJack and Santiago Repeater in the clear.

Disregard
 

allend

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Sounds like its bleed over from another frequency. Wonder if anybody is hearing the same issue?
 

KK6UME

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Sounds like its bleed over from another frequency. Wonder if anybody is hearing the same issue?

I have been hearing that too every once in a while on the DFW frequency when I have my scanner in CSQ mode here in OC; Sounds like Spanish radio traffic with a Rodger tone, but sounds off frequency.
 

Teotwaki

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Necromancing an old thread....

I recently had a chance meeting with a CA F&W guy in the SBNF front country so I've added their channel to my lineup.

Yesterday I heard units in 151.430

5341, 5340, 4221, 6225

I think they called their dispatch "SerComm"? CA State Parks dispatch in Perris?

Jim
Orange County, CA
 

MikeyC

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Necromancing an old thread....
I think they called their dispatch "SerComm"? CA State Parks dispatch in Perris?

SURCOMM in Perris and NORCOMM in Rancho Cordova. They handle State Parks as well and I can only assume other agencies :)
 

Teotwaki

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SURCOMM in Perris and NORCOMM in Rancho Cordova. They handle State Parks as well and I can only assume other agencies :)


Another thread had some speculation that the "sur" in SurComm comes from the Spanish word for south. In California anything is possible.

Jim
Orange County, CA
 

kma371

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Necromancing an old thread....

I recently had a chance meeting with a CA F&W guy in the SBNF front country so I've added their channel to my lineup.

Yesterday I heard units in 151.430

5341, 5340, 4221, 6225

I think they called their dispatch "SerComm"? CA State Parks dispatch in Perris?

Jim
Orange County, CA

These were still analog correct?
 

kma371

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Yes, I've monitored for a few days and (thank goodness) there has been no hint of digital transmissions.

Jim
Orange County, CA

Ok, I know there is supposed to be some P25 mobile extenders, but haven't had anyone confirm their use yet. Thanks.
 

kma371

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All of Department of Fish and Wildlife is still Analog in the clear.

Yes, that is true. But they do have P25 extenders which can only be heard at close range. It's been difficult to confirm, but I believe they are in use after looking at fleet map.
 

krazybob

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All of Department of Fish and Wildlife is still Analog in the clear.

Not entirely. They have 700 megahertz mobile extenders P25 but are not currently using encryption. They have two primary frequencies that they use among the different mountain tops.

Here are the frequency that I have monitored. I can tell you that they run FM simulcast. Just a moment ago I could hear the Wawa Wawa sound when they're oscillators are off frequency. That's why we use GPS.

SOUTH COAST REGION

  • 151.43000 162.2 Blackjack
  • 151.43000 Boucher Hill (San Diego Co)
  • 151.43000 173.8 Hauser Mountain (Los Angeles Co)
  • 151.43000 127.3 Lyons Peak (San Diego
  • 151.43000 118.8 Monument Peak (San Diego Co)
  • 151.41500 100.0 Solomon (Santa Barbara Co)
  • 151.43000 167.9 Oat Mountain (Los Angeles Co)
  • 151.41500 127.3 Plowshare Peak (Santa Barbara Co)
  • 151.43000 192.8 Santa Ynez Peak (Santa Barbara Co)
  • 151.43000 179.9 Sisar Peak (Ventura Co)
  • 151.43000 162.2 Torrey Hill (Ventura Co) (FMN)
  • 770.71875 293 NAC Mobile Extender P25
  • 770.71875 F7E NAC Mobile Extender P25

DESERT AREAS (San Bernardino / Inyo / Riverside)

  • 151.43000 100.0 Black Metal Mountain (San Bernardino Co)
  • 151.43000 103.5 Black Mountain ( Imperial Co.)
  • 151.43000 103.5 Conway Summit (Inyo Co)
  • 151.43000 141.3 Heaps Peak (San Bernardino Co)
  • 151.43000 151.4 Onyx Peak (San Bernardino Co)
  • 151.43000 127.3 Rodman Mountain (San Bernardino Co)
  • 151.43000 114.8 Rogers Peak (Inyo Co)
  • 151.43000 156.7 Santiago Peak (Riverside Co)
  • 151.43000 107.2 Silver Peak (Inyo Co)
  • 151.43000 94.8 Spirit Peak (San Bernardino Co)
  • 151.43000 107.2 Toro Peak (Riverside Co)
  • 770.71875 293 NAC Mobile Extender P25
  • 770.71875 F7E NAC Mobile Extender P25

TACTICAL SIMPLEX CHANNELS

  • 151.41500 Tactical FMN
  • 151.42250 Tactical FMN
  • 151.43000 Tactical FMN
  • 159.42000 Tactical FMN
  • 159.42750 Tactical FMN
  • 159.43500 Tactical FMN
  • 770.71875 293 NAC Mobile Extender P25
  • 770.71875 F7E NAC Mobile Extender P25

I hope this helps, Allen. No encryption detected at all.
 

Teotwaki

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-----List Snipped for brevity------

Here are the frequency that I have monitored. I can tell you that they run FM simulcast. Just a moment ago I could hear the Wawa Wawa sound when they're oscillators are off frequency. That's why we use GPS.

SOUTH COAST REGION

DESERT AREAS (San Bernardino / Inyo / Riverside)

TACTICAL SIMPLEX CHANNELS.


That's a good list, especially since they were monitored.


Jim
Orange County, CA
 

krazybob

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I don't see the importance of which mountain top it's coming off of unless you'd like to correlate the mountain top with where you believe the unit is located. In my mind either you can hear them or you can't. But that's just me.

@allend - you asked if other people are hearing this. Yes.

Are you using an external antenna such as a discone? One problem when using scanners in a major metropolitan areas such as Southern California occurs when you connect an external antenna. What ultimately happens is that although the received signal strength improves and what you're trying to hear comes in better, it also shows the imperfections of the scanner. You end up with what is known as front end overload.

If you'd like to learn more, read on.

This occurs when the signal that you are listening to beats with other frequencies and creates a third or even more frequencies. Even the scanner circuitry itself creates spurious emissions that may mix with what you're trying to hear. Poor image rejection can also interfere. This is where the intermediate frequency, normally 10.7 MHz but not always, will mix a frequency 10.7 MHz away from the frequency you are trying to hear together and again create a third or more frequencies.

Some people refer to this as intermod, which is short for intermodulation. It actually isn't, it is front end overload that causes the mixer to go nonlinear and it creates artifacts. But it sounds like intermod.

Radio professionals are familiar with this. Even things as simple as a bad connector on your cable can cause problems especially when your neighborhood is serviced by a cable company. You get egress noise coming from their lines and distribution amplifiers and it is picked up by your antenna and it comes down the cable. Sometimes a bad or intermittent ground on the cable and the connector add to this.

Using a handheld scanner and a list of frequencies known to cause interference you can actually walk from telephone pole to telephone pole and pick up the egress noise. The cable company is legally responsible for correcting the egress noise so if you find that it is interfering with your scanning file a complaint.

Often times the culprits are paging transmitters at 153 and 159 MHz (since you are monitoring Fish and Game). They are often heard as bleeps and bloops and blahs. I guess it's now an official phrase. LOL. PAR Electronics sells intermod filters for both of these frequencies. Dale is a very nice man and will help you whenever he can.

Even though this is not true intermod the filters are very effective. The trick for you is to determine which paging frequency is causing you problem. This can be done by pulling up a list of common paging frequencies in the VHF band and testing them one by one for signal strength.

The bottom line is that by adding an intermod filter in front of your scanner where the antenna feed line comes in, you will knock down a lot of the garbage. You won't really take a hit on receive signal strength either. People often get twisted when they think of 0.25uV and simply cannot accept something that has 0.50uV. You won't hear the difference. Anyone with a service monitor can show you that. I can pop any number of radios I have on my service Monitor and duplicated.

Using CTCSS will often times mask this problem. Using the 20dB attenuator in the scanner will also help especially if you have a good signal on the repeater you are trying to hear. If you find that you are listening to things specifically on one band, such as VHF only, using a VHF only antenna will help because it will not emphasize out-of-band interference that makes its way in as well.

An exception to using an external amplifier is the aircraft band that for whatever reason scanner manufacturers set for a 2uV sensitivity. It's the same sensitivity that your car has on the AM broadcast band. That sucks and that's why over in the aircraft group I've asked what the best scanner people have come across is. As contrast an Icom a120 air band transceiver will run you $900 and give you 1uV sensitivity. But the front end is tuned for the specific band and you'll do okay. I prefer to use my Yaesu FT-8900. It screams on the air band!

Back to the issue of interference, this is why it's not usually a good idea to add an amplifier to your scanner. If you do you need to put it after the intermod filter. This just represents the contradiction of adding an external antenna for the best reception. It doesn't matter which band you are on either. If you refer back to the air band using an external antenna you will often times get intermod from the FM broadcast band.

To sum this up, this is why I prefer to use Motorola's and vertex commercial two-way radios. If you really dedicated you'll find that's a radio for VHF and a radio UHF / 800 will only set you back a few hundred dollars. That is unless they are P25. The use of analog is narrowing as we know. Fish and Game are used to being monitored. But they too monitor the same people that monitor them. Using scanners and directional antennas they will often times sniff out poachers and marijuana cultivators communicating using FRS/GMRSMURS radios.

I sincerely hope this helps you in some way if only as background information.
 

MikeyC

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I don't see the importance of which mountain top it's coming off of unless you'd like to correlate the mountain top with where you believe the unit is located. In my mind either you can hear them or you can't. But that's just me.
...

It helps to know which CTCSS codes to program in. If 151.43000 is anything like it was when I live in SoCal over a decade ago then it's definitely something you don't want to listen to CSQ on a scanner :)
 

krazybob

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I don't monitor Fish and Game often. But as I recall all of their repeaters, just like Cal Fire and the forest service, use the same output tone but use a different input tone to activate the repeater. I could be wrong on this one because like I said I don't monitor Fish and Game. Specific to the forest service they use a common output tone just like Cal Fire does. For that matter just like San Bernardino County Fire does. They have a default output tone so no matter which repeater you key up everybody still hears it that's within range of the particular repeater. My ham radio repeaters are set up the same way. Same output tone but a different input tone to key up the different area.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

iscanvnc2

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F&G does not use the same output tone for all repeaters. Each repeater transmits its input tone. By monitoring the tone I can tell the general area of the field unit in case I don’t recognize specific locations referenced
 
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