I'm familiar with Bolt Mountain and its a radio hotbed. "Raleigh Control" regularly blasted out EMS dispatches on 155.175 MHz back in the day that were heard in Athens, Ohio. I'd be willing to bet an out of state agency was licensed for a repeater output on the same frequency that the Bolt Mountain repeater uses as an input. Check 155.64 MHz and 156.21 MHz (the two repeater input frequencies listed on the WPEQ-578 license) for a repeater output in Virginia. That agency probably has the same PL tone and when someone talks through their repeater, it triggers a rebroadcast in Beckley.
This isn't that uncommon in the VHF high band frequencies. Years ago, Portsmouth Ohio's garbage trucks and snow plows operated on 158.76 MHz using a 127.3 hZ PL tone ... which would occasionally retransmit on the Charleston WV EMS repeater on 154.04 MHz that used 158.76 MHz as the input channel. The Wapakoneta (Ohio) Police Department secured a new base station frequency of 158.88 MHz and they chose 136.5 hZ as a PL tone ... causing the Delaware County Fire and EMS dispatch simulcast system (80 miles away) on 154.19 MHz to lock up with license plate checks and other law enforcement traffic. With non-standard pairing of input and output frequencies, all it takes is to choose the right (wrong!?) PL tone and you are rebroadcasting yourself a hundred miles away on someone else's radio system and you probably don't realize it!
The cure, of course, is for the offending agency to change PL tones.
Rick, W8UU
