Had a great time over the weekend at the cabin. I took my SDS100 and TRX-1 and Yaesu FT2dr for radio fun, and I also took my inside window mount antenna to compare with the Remtronix duck. The inside window mount is an HG PVC antenna (sold on eBay for $25) about a foot long with suction cup mounts on it that I put up high on an inside window, and it has a BNC coax feed. I have found that this antenna actually performs slightly better than a radio-mounted RS800. I used this with the TRX-1 for Close Sweep and switched back and forth. Other than picking up MARCS on distant towers, I focused on local vhf frequency searches and boy did we get a surprise. Vhf was entertaining to say the least. Lots of local stuff on 150s which I listed below -
154.212 911 comms medical? heard call ins to a a hospital with patient enroute
33.16 heard people ordering fast food for dispatcher, someone asking if dogs were ok? Another com reading mileage to dispatch. Addresses given. Pushy dispatch constantly asking for ETAs. Towing company? Taxi? Not sure.
155.340 Ambulance and medical?
160.065 Animal Rescue??? German Shep loose, listened to female searching for dog. Complaints about dogs running loose, etc
151.700 Propane delivery? Trucks delivering 'tanks' gave quantity and address. Could have been medical oxygen delivery too, I don't know, but they were close.
FRS channels now and then, too. Kids playing around. Heard someone else on FRS in a convoy remarking how great the pancakes were lol
Dot radios now and then sounded like maintenance and housekeeping, security, etc.
But the most interesting of all - 151.505 (500-505)
People whispering (and they were close) and relaying information about how many cars were in driveway and if it looked like someone was there. They were reading license plate numbers to someone. Two different people on this itinerant freq conducting some kind of surveillance late at night (Saturday) Sounded kind of spooky. At one point com was heard 'He is not there, car is not there, I repeat, vehicle not on property'. Then it all ended. This went on for about 20 minutes. Cops? Could have been repo guys? Hit men? lol I don't know for sure, but hearing this had us double check the locks around the cabin and checking loads. Very eerie, knowing they had to be close, and interesting. Not very trusting, we packed all of our electronics with us the next morning rather than leave everything at the cabin.
That next morning we drove by the house just west of us on our way to breakfast and I noted that the license plates on a Tahoe in the driveway matched the one I heard being checked the night before. They were only about a football field away. Probably in the woods between our addresses. No coms heard the next night on that frequency. It was weird hearing all that!
The TRX-1 with the HG antenna on the window was great for the Sweep feature. The vhf worked great on the SDS too, when the TRX-1 locked onto the 'weird' coms on 151.500-505- I did a custom search with the SDS and it quickly found the frequency and I held it there so both scanners would copy. SDS was quieter and clearer, but the TRX-1 was better on 151.500 and the SDS was better on 151.505. Why the drift I wonder?
Anyhow, that is the highlight of our monitoring efforts over the weekend. I am hoping someone can explain what we heard on the 151.5 itinerant. Very odd to hear late at night in a rental and hoping you are the only one with keys lol. I am inclined to think repo guys. Thoughts?
JD
kf4anc
