Fork Mountain STARS reception

[KF4ZTO]

Hearing Fork Mountain STARS site from a considerable distance, Clifton, VA (Fairfax County) on an indoor antenna. All voice freqs just CW ID'ed (5:00 p.m.) in order by frequency, one would CW ID, then the next would follow with the same ID. Hearing "Richmond" traffic on here as well.

Control Channel (152.7125) coming in loud and clear...

sounds like the band's open

 

[freqhopping]

I have it too in Loudoun with my both my attic-mounted Radio Shack 800mhz antenna and a homemade one. Won't display a WACN though.

I also heard Fish & Game unit talking to Richmond on 159.435 PL 192.8

Haven't heard much activity. Just a few transmissions on TG 3. Surely there's more than that going on down there.

Around 2100 hours I'm getting some activity on Ch. 1 [TG 1].

 

[KF4ZTO]

Tomorrow I'll try and monitor it from my mobile, I have the the same VHF whip VSP is using for STARS (at least in Richmond) on my car. We'll see if that produces better results. I'll also try listening while I'm driving back down to Richmond tomorrow

 

[gdj47]

Fork Mountain seems to really get out. Two weeks ago I had to drive from Richmond to Monterey. I started picking up Fork Mountain, Div 1, transmissions at I64 and 15 (Zions X Roads) and was able to pretty much pick it up into Monterey except for the really low areas and some spots in the mountains.

 

[KF4ZTO]

I'm sure that tower must be in excess of 2000'...talk about line of sight range

 

[gcgrotz]

Fork Mtn is a hot spot. That's why they put their original systems there. There are some paging and 2-way there too I think, and the Shen Nat Park. There are also some ham repeaters on 145.410 and 444.40. I can work the UHF one with 5 watts handheld in C'ville.

 

[KF4ZTO]

do you know the elevation of that tower?

 

[freqhopping]

Ground Elevation: 1174
Height Structure: 10
Hgt Aat: 647

 

[gcgrotz]

Ground Elevation: 1174
Height Structure: 10
Hgt Aat: 647

That is in meters by the way.

Do a radius search on that in the FCC database and see what comes up, lots of microwave too.