Unknown Motorola EF32 in central Texas

[Unitrunker2]

I'm getting a scratchy signal at Austin-Bergstrom Airport.



Connect tone is 138.46

 

[Markef]

What program are you using?

 

[Unitrunker2]

Unitrunker 2.1

 

[blantonl]

It's almost certainly a federal correctional facility - maybe Bastrop?

 

[Unitrunker2]

I caught a voice channel in SDR# and ran the math in a spreadsheet.

Here's my best guess for a band plan.

Base = 406.0 Mhz
Spacing = 12.5 khz.
Offset = 380

The four channels work out to be ...

Mhz​	LCN​
406.4125​	413​
406.8125​	445​
408.25​	560​
409.4125​	653​

 

[hiegtx]

That's a frequency normally used by federal agencies & facilities.

There are several identified locations in the database that are linked to 409.4125.

It's almost certainly a federal correctional facility - maybe Bastrop?

That's my thought as well, and appears to be the closest federal correctional institute to Austin.

Bastrop County, Texas (TX) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Bastrop County, Texas (TX)

www.radioreference.com

Federal Correctional Institution Bastrop (Old) Trunking System, Bastrop, Texas

Federal Correctional Institution Bastrop (Old) Trunking System Profile

www.radioreference.com

That trunked system, in the database, shows as the last update was made back in 2012. Maybe they have upgraded the system, and/or added that frequency,

 

[Unitrunker2]

It would be weird for Bastrop to upgrade their system to more-or-less the same thing instead of P25.

Identical bandplan. Everything else is different.

 

[GTR8000]

Maybe not that odd after all. Check out all of these BOP SmartNet systems with some of the most recent SysIDs on the list.

 

[Unitrunker2]

Confirmed. It's the the Bastrop FCI on highway 95 between Elgin and Bastop.

 

[GTR8000]

 

[Unitrunker2]

They don't call 'em bat wings for nothin' ...

 

[Russell]

Rick, you are the **** Dude.

 

[rattlerbb01]

I heard this parked at Bucees in Bastrop the other day scanning through the federal uhf but didn’t have my laptop handy. The control freq wasn’t in the database for that system so I figured they had changed a bit in 10 years 😂

 

[Unitrunker2]

The control channel moved.

 

[Unitrunker2]

Submitted what I have to the DB.

 

[Unitrunker2]

408.25 was the active control channel today. I suspect all four channels are valid alternates.

 

[maus92]

EFJohnson?

 

[GTR8000]

EFJohnson?

Huh? It's an old Motorola SmartNet system.

 

[maus92]

Huh? It's an old Motorola SmartNet system.

Naw, I just saw the EF in the sysid - no Smartnet systems around here start with that sequence.

 

[GTR8000]

Naw, I just saw the EF in the sysid - no Smartnet systems around here start with that sequence.

Ah okay, you had me confused. Check out the screenshot I posted a few days ago, shows a couple of these SmartNet BOP systems with SysID's that start with E.