155.505 MHz: Use By Commercial Fishermen

[iscanvnc2]

Here in Ventura I’ve been hearing what appears to be commercial fishing boat captains on 155.505 afternoons, which is when I begin listening for the day. From conversations it seems they are based in Ventura Harbor. One conversation involved the Channel Islands area just offshore from here & another of entering and/or being in harbor. Ventura Harbor has quite a commercial fishing fleet. Other conversations are on the “salty” side like I’ve heard on the VHF marine band. I’ll just say that if the two I heard this afternoon were married, I hope their wives weren’t listening!

I have 155.505 in one of my scanners as it was used by the CALFIRE camp in Camarillo; haven’t heard them on here in eons so was surprised when the above first popped up.

If you are in the Ventura area, give it a listen. Hopefully they’ll keep it up & not make me look like a fool!

 

[Outerdog]

There are still 48 active grants to the State of California for 155.505 within California. Of the 6 or 7 random licenses I clicked on, they were all associated with the Department of Corrections. (!)

 

[iscanvnc2]

As I said, for years I monitored the CALFIRE camp in Camarillo, KBP765, co-located with the California Youth Authority. Though that license won't expire until next April 1, it hasn't been active for years. When ducting along the coast was in I'd get U of CA campuses Irvine (WYU981) & San Diego (KBP565), both no longer listed in FCC records, before they went to 800 MHz as did most, if not all, UC locations.

In the here & now commercial fishing boats are heard on 155.505.

 

[mmckenna]

State of California holds the licenses for that frequency, and it's used at some of the UC's and some Dept. of Corrections sites. Thats the only licensed users in the state.

Likely what happened was one of the two following:
Someone sold/surplussed radios without wiping them and some one "got some cool CB radios!".
Cheap Chinese Radios could have been pre-programmed with these. I don't know...
Someone picked a random frequency and started using it.

 

[alcahuete]

Fishermen have been doing this for years...programming commercial frequencies, to keep their secret fishing spots off the marine radio when discussing with their buddies or other company fishermen. They just don't care.

 

[kj6psg]

Oh, I've heard them all over the place. I monitored them closely back in 2017. They used 148.465 MHz, 148.350 MHz, 145.900 MHz, 145.555 MHz (harmfully interfering with ARES/ACS), and something down in 137 MHz. I have a few other channels logged too, one was 5 kHz off from a MedNet channel (I'm pretty sure it was 155.350). I submitted my findings through several proper channels and was met with either a lack of jurisdiction or a lack of response. 148.465 seemed to be the hotspot back in 2017, with the possible 155.350 being used a lot in 2019. I developed a ridiculous VHF noise floor since then and can't hunt them down anymore. Local hams told me this has been a problem for decades, and they used to bootleg off local ham repeaters, using profanity and responding with profanity if confronted. Everything was CSQ, no 55 Hz Baofeng STE (they use Kenwoods with FPP). One user sent PL 88.5 and received CSQ.

Chances are they're actually on 155.500 MHz, they don't care about channel steps.

 

[ecps92]

I going to venture you are actually hearing 155.5000, which is a known "PRIVATE" out of band channel that could be enabled in some of the older VHF Marine equipment.

The ole ICOM M44 uses is as Ch.01L

Here in Ventura I’ve been hearing what appears to be commercial fishing boat captains on 155.505 afternoons, which is when I begin listening for the day. From conversations it seems they are based in Ventura Harbor. One conversation involved the Channel Islands area just offshore from here & another of entering and/or being in harbor. Ventura Harbor has quite a commercial fishing fleet. Other conversations are on the “salty” side like I’ve heard on the VHF marine band. I’ll just say that if the two I heard this afternoon were married, I hope their wives weren’t listening!

I have 155.505 in one of my scanners as it was used by the CALFIRE camp in Camarillo; haven’t heard them on here in eons so was surprised when the above first popped up.

If you are in the Ventura area, give it a listen. Hopefully they’ll keep it up & not make me look like a fool!

 

[iscanvnc2]

At 12:25 a couple of them were just breaking squelch on 155.505, not enough to get more than a few words at a time which were understandable. I was able to check 155.500 & 155.510, both which had noticeable but garbled audio. It appears to be centered on 155.505.

 

[kj6psg]

At 12:25 a couple of them were just breaking squelch on 155.505, not enough to get more than a few words at a time which were understandable. I was able to check 155.500 & 155.510, both which had noticeable but garbled audio. It appears to be centered on 155.505.

I came to that same conclusion. It's also being used by exactly the same crew I expected it to be.

 

[avascan522]

Even commercial shops have been known to program non-license frequencies. A local company I listen to uses 151.310 on DMR simplex for a few of their channels. The only ones licensed for 151.310 is State of CA/CALFire Air Attack 6. Knowing that company, I doubt they would ask the commercial outfitter to purposely input a freq they aren't licensed for - they probably just wanted a few channels to be simplex and the C/O just "picked something."

 

[kj6psg]

Even commercial shops have been known to program non-license frequencies. A local company I listen to uses 151.310 on DMR simplex for a few of their channels. The only ones licensed for 151.310 is State of CA/CALFire Air Attack 6. Knowing that company, I doubt they would ask the commercial outfitter to purposely input a freq they aren't licensed for - they probably just wanted a few channels to be simplex and the C/O just "picked something."

I've heard this particular group we're listening to give frequencies out over the air, and they pop up on those frequencies within a minute. They aren't pre-programming many of these channels and they move around quite a bit.

 

[kj6psg]

Here's another channel I'm hearing them on right now: 151.275 MHz, CSQ. Not aligned to the commercial channel step (151.265 - 151.2725 - 151.280). Plenty of profanity to go around.

These were the others I had them on back in 2017:
- 137.420
- 144.355
- 145.900
- 148.465
- 149.350
- 149.830
- 155.350

 

[iscanvnc2]

Not here. Listened 20 min.