Tuning Algonquin Park OMNR VHF Lo Frequencies

[andrewsfm]

I'm using an RTL-SDR with SDRTouch software and I took it on a recent trip to Algonquin Park armed with the frequency list from the OMNR wiki page and a cut to length wire antenna (1/2 wave center-fed L-Dipole / Tuned to 46.28MHz / 154.0 cm Vertical - 162.0cm Arm).

I saw that their Motorola CDM1550 radio was set to OMNR CH 9 and tried to tune into either the RX/TX frequencies (46.760/46.330), but didn't get anything.
What am I doing wrong?

Maybe I need to understand a bit more of following...
Are these even analog transmissions?
How do you determine what type of signal they use? AM? Narrow-band FM? LSB? USB? CW?
The filter width? My SDR software wants to default to 70kHz.

 

[IdleMonitor]

I'm using an RTL-SDR with SDRTouch software and I took it on a recent trip to Algonquin Park armed with the frequency list from the OMNR wiki page and a cut to length wire antenna (1/2 wave center-fed L-Dipole / Tuned to 46.28MHz / 154.0 cm Vertical - 162.0cm Arm).

I saw that their Motorola CDM1550 radio was set to OMNR CH 9 and tried to tune into either the RX/TX frequencies (46.760/46.330), but didn't get anything.
What am I doing wrong?

Maybe I need to understand a bit more of following...
Are these even analog transmissions?
How do you determine what type of signal they use? AM? Narrow-band FM? LSB? USB? CW?
The filter width? My SDR software wants to default to 70kHz.

You should be at about 5000 or 5 khz bandwidth FM mode setting I believe

Also search from 46-48 mhz. That's where most of MNR low band is.

46.760 pl 110.9 as maintenance/wardens etc

48.040 pl 110.9 also as Algonquin Park.

Is what I have in my radio.

Also depends on where in the park you are at.

I found Brent Access Point - Cedar Lake on 48.080 pl 110.9 last summer at the other side of the park on the east side.

 

[slicerwizard]

I'm using an RTL-SDR with SDRTouch software

Does your dongle tune to 46 MHz? Some don't.

 

[andrewsfm]

Does your dongle tune to 46 MHz? Some don't.

RTL-SDR Blog V3 R820T2 RTL2832U
It says it's capable of tuning down to 24MHz, which is why I bought this version, so I can also potentially tune CB radio frequencies.

 

[andrewsfm]

You should be at about 5000 or 5 khz bandwidth FM mode setting I believe

Also search from 46-48 mhz. That's where most of MNR low band is.

46.760 pl 110.9 as maintenance/wardens etc

48.040 pl 110.9 also as Algonquin Park.

Is what I have in my radio.

Also depends on where in the park you are at.

I found Brent Access Point - Cedar Lake on 48.080 pl 110.9 last summer at the other side of the park on the east side.

The phone I use for SDR allows visualization of up to 1Mhz of the spectrum at once, including approximately 30 seconds of history.
I was monitoring 46.2MHz to 47.2MHz mostly for any activity and occasionally 47.2Mhz to 48.2MHz, but found none.

 

[andrewsfm]

Does your dongle tune to 46 MHz? Some don't.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I was actually able to tune something down around 27MHz and originally thought it was CB chatter as someone was ranting on about something, but later on, I heard him say "the most powerful station on the east coast".
Looking back, it was probably a 10m broadcast.

 

[gary123]

No, it's one of those overpowered idiots from the States on Ch 6.

 

[andrewsfm]

You should be at about 5000 or 5 khz bandwidth FM mode setting I believe
Also search from 46-48 mhz. That's where most of MNR low band is.

46.760 pl 110.9 as maintenance/wardens etc
48.040 pl 110.9 also as Algonquin Park.

Is what I have in my radio.
Also depends on where in the park you are at.
I found Brent Access Point - Cedar Lake on 48.080 pl 110.9 last summer at the other side of the park on the east side.

This link:
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Ministry_of_Natural_Resources_(ON)
Shows this...

Channel Name RX TX Tone
OMNR CH 09 46.760 46.330 110.9
OMNR CH 18 46.760 46.760 110.9

Why is channel 18 the same frequencies for both RX/TX but channel 9 isn't, and the RX is shared?
The majority of the frequency pairs are the same, but for many others at random, it's different.
Is it a mistake on the page or is that actually correct?

 

[andrewsfm]

I'm currently in Algonquin and I've got to say that the majority of activity is on 46.760MHz along Highway 60 as noted in past posts

Most of the time it's someone asking for someone else to call them on the phone, but at the moment they're looking for a 11 year old boy that's missing somewhere on the bike trail. Generally it's pretty quiet though surprisingly.

Also Haliburton fire dispatch is easily heard on 46.700MHz regarding fires within Algonquin borders. Heard them discover a new fire the other day. It's fairly busy with chatter.