2016 VHF Low Band Logs
- Thread starter kkn50
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Darkstar350
Member
I see you have
33.0800 136.5 American Ambulette Corp, Grandview NY
Are you sure this isnt Garden City School District Buses? ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - WPMT599 - GARDEN CITY UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT
My sources tell me that freq and tone is the GC School buses - but i suppose they could be using the same tone coincidentally...
33.0800 136.5 American Ambulette Corp, Grandview NY
Are you sure this isnt Garden City School District Buses? ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - WPMT599 - GARDEN CITY UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT
My sources tell me that freq and tone is the GC School buses - but i suppose they could be using the same tone coincidentally...
kb4cvn
Silent Key
another Van Pool
Another Van Pool ?????
I am on the same frequency. I am SO GLAD that I picked a different CTCSS tone to use when I got my license on 29.790 MHz back in 2001. If I put my radios in to carrier squelch mode, I can hear them every morning until about 9 AM (ET).
If you hear traffic on the freq with a 192.8 Hz tone, that is me.
When Inland-Rome Paper Company (Rome Georgia) migrated from 29.790 MHz to to HexedfromHell....err....Nextel, they sold off their entire fleet of radio equipment.
One of my ham buddies (KD4EKZ) purchased the entire lot of equipment from them.
Hundreds of GE Mastr2 mobiles on 25-30 MHz bandsplit, portables, bases, etc. Even a few pieces of Motorola stuff too. I picked up about a dozen mobiles, a base and all the HT's. All were set for 100.0 Hz! I had the forethought to change the tone.
ecps92
Member
And folks in other regions of the country claim Low-Band is Dead :roll:
kb4cvn
Silent Key
Marketing Psychobabble to coerce customers into purchasing high-dollar equipment in the upper frequency bands.
902
Member
There's a history to that.
Low band was king, but what it is, is that the manufacturers have learned back in the 80s that products like Motracs and MASTR Pros wouldn't die. On low band especially, they didn't need a whole lot of infrastructure, either. If you're a radio salesman, you can cross that agency off your list for the next 25 - 30 years (or more). True, there are problems with "skip," but most VHF high band and UHF users also have that experience, possibly on a more frequent basis because of ducting, particularly if they're using a more common CTCSS tone or are on a trunked system that monitors carrier squelch and will lock out the channel based on sustained interference on the input.
So, back in the early 90s, one of the big manufacturers ended its production of low band base stations and elected to drop-ship any orders for them with a lower-tier manufacturer's product. I recall having to refurbish a moused-up base station at the time, pulling the tube PA and high voltage power supply, and installing a custom-made Henry Radio solid state PA, with an Astron high current DC power supply to run it. Worked well, but that was probably the last time that base was ever going to get a reprieve from the dumpster.
At the same time, that manufacturer I worked for stopped making their high tier mobile radios. They were super (the ones that could also do 29.6 and 52.525), and then they were no more. What replaced them were mid-tier radios with less agility. Absent a real base station product, these things served as bases with tone and DC remote termination panels, external power supplies, and outboard amplifiers. That worked okay most of the time.
And, concurrently, that manufacturer began heavily marketing 900 MHz business systems. Some conventional, some trunked, some on leased talkgroups on commercial SMRs. Very few of those 900 systems survived, but I do recall servicing them in high-end department stores, computer manufacturers' campuses, factories, cement mixer fleets, and even newspapers. It was the "in thing" and most of those users were either from low band.
Low band began to become occupied by "car services" in New York City. Often catering to ethnic neighborhoods, these services leased cars to drivers, or would charge for the privilege of dispatching them to pick up passengers in the neighborhood. Each service, sometimes several per community, used their own channel (sometimes in semi-duplex on a talk-out and talk-back channel), and soon, the entire band was occupied on legitimately licensed business channels, and sometimes not. The driver who had the most powerful signal could override the other drivers when bidding for fares, so these cars had ball-and-spring antennas on the trunk, along with big amplifiers.
Then, everyone got computers.
RFI was everywhere microprocessors were. A veteran Missouri State Highway Patrol radioman was telling me about a legendary incident where their 42 MHz system blanked out in a certain area. They are grandfathered to run kilowatts there, and brute force could not overcome the hole. It was traced to an unshielded microprocessor assembly in a tortilla chip machine in a Mexican restaurant.
So, here we are, about 25 years after this deprecation of equipment I outlined above. Search ULS in some states and you'll get very few low band entries. Wireless companies don't want it because they cannot build antennas into devices, and they'd be too big. We also learned from the paging days on 35 and 43 MHz that saturation paging meant a transmitter literally every mile apart, or one on top of a very high structure, like the Empire State Building (which had 4 , 3 element low band yagis, one in each corner, above the observation deck for KEA860 up until the early 90s past the sale of NYNEX Paging Company).
This is all fresh on my mind because I passed by the local Red Cross office yesterday. There are no antennas on their vehicles anymore. Guess no more Maratracs. Asplundh, the national tree trimmer for utilities have no antennas on their vehicles anymore. The convoys of linemen travelling in preparation for a storm don't seem to create chatter on low band anymore.
The demand is high for VHF frequencies, and they are crowded in most markets. UHF is nearly exhausted, as well. T-Band is due to go away because of politics. Not even 700 is safe because the broadband people want to snatch the 700 narrowband channels to create a bigger block of broadband at some future time.
I expect low band will come again. It may lack the convenience of the upper bands, in terms of carrying elegant equipment, but it will be resilient and reliable. That bulletproofing that marketers hate and the manufacturers can't shore up a recurrent revenue stream from is the band's best selling point.
Low band was king, but what it is, is that the manufacturers have learned back in the 80s that products like Motracs and MASTR Pros wouldn't die. On low band especially, they didn't need a whole lot of infrastructure, either. If you're a radio salesman, you can cross that agency off your list for the next 25 - 30 years (or more). True, there are problems with "skip," but most VHF high band and UHF users also have that experience, possibly on a more frequent basis because of ducting, particularly if they're using a more common CTCSS tone or are on a trunked system that monitors carrier squelch and will lock out the channel based on sustained interference on the input.
So, back in the early 90s, one of the big manufacturers ended its production of low band base stations and elected to drop-ship any orders for them with a lower-tier manufacturer's product. I recall having to refurbish a moused-up base station at the time, pulling the tube PA and high voltage power supply, and installing a custom-made Henry Radio solid state PA, with an Astron high current DC power supply to run it. Worked well, but that was probably the last time that base was ever going to get a reprieve from the dumpster.
At the same time, that manufacturer I worked for stopped making their high tier mobile radios. They were super (the ones that could also do 29.6 and 52.525), and then they were no more. What replaced them were mid-tier radios with less agility. Absent a real base station product, these things served as bases with tone and DC remote termination panels, external power supplies, and outboard amplifiers. That worked okay most of the time.
And, concurrently, that manufacturer began heavily marketing 900 MHz business systems. Some conventional, some trunked, some on leased talkgroups on commercial SMRs. Very few of those 900 systems survived, but I do recall servicing them in high-end department stores, computer manufacturers' campuses, factories, cement mixer fleets, and even newspapers. It was the "in thing" and most of those users were either from low band.
Low band began to become occupied by "car services" in New York City. Often catering to ethnic neighborhoods, these services leased cars to drivers, or would charge for the privilege of dispatching them to pick up passengers in the neighborhood. Each service, sometimes several per community, used their own channel (sometimes in semi-duplex on a talk-out and talk-back channel), and soon, the entire band was occupied on legitimately licensed business channels, and sometimes not. The driver who had the most powerful signal could override the other drivers when bidding for fares, so these cars had ball-and-spring antennas on the trunk, along with big amplifiers.
Then, everyone got computers.
RFI was everywhere microprocessors were. A veteran Missouri State Highway Patrol radioman was telling me about a legendary incident where their 42 MHz system blanked out in a certain area. They are grandfathered to run kilowatts there, and brute force could not overcome the hole. It was traced to an unshielded microprocessor assembly in a tortilla chip machine in a Mexican restaurant.
So, here we are, about 25 years after this deprecation of equipment I outlined above. Search ULS in some states and you'll get very few low band entries. Wireless companies don't want it because they cannot build antennas into devices, and they'd be too big. We also learned from the paging days on 35 and 43 MHz that saturation paging meant a transmitter literally every mile apart, or one on top of a very high structure, like the Empire State Building (which had 4 , 3 element low band yagis, one in each corner, above the observation deck for KEA860 up until the early 90s past the sale of NYNEX Paging Company).
This is all fresh on my mind because I passed by the local Red Cross office yesterday. There are no antennas on their vehicles anymore. Guess no more Maratracs. Asplundh, the national tree trimmer for utilities have no antennas on their vehicles anymore. The convoys of linemen travelling in preparation for a storm don't seem to create chatter on low band anymore.
The demand is high for VHF frequencies, and they are crowded in most markets. UHF is nearly exhausted, as well. T-Band is due to go away because of politics. Not even 700 is safe because the broadband people want to snatch the 700 narrowband channels to create a bigger block of broadband at some future time.
I expect low band will come again. It may lack the convenience of the upper bands, in terms of carrying elegant equipment, but it will be resilient and reliable. That bulletproofing that marketers hate and the manufacturers can't shore up a recurrent revenue stream from is the band's best selling point.
kb4cvn
Silent Key
"Friends of the Mountain" belongs to "Skip" Cranshaw, KA4DCS. He lives up on Bull Run Mountain, and has that frequency licensed for homeowner maintenance use for the property owners. He has a bunch of GE MLS mobile radios that are loaned out to contract crews and drivers when the (owner maintained) roads up/down the mountain are being maintained several times a year. Being on a Part-90 27 MHz business frequency, all the driver has to do is disconnect their CB radio, connect the coax to the MLS and plug the power into a cigarette lighter socket. No SWR issues!
Having a unique sense of humor, Skip runs the CW ID'er to keep the CB's off his frequency. You can imagine what a 5 kHz deviation FM signal with a CW tone on it sounds like on SSB. Simple and effective.
(...very evil grin)Ole Skip has tons of LB stuff on the air. Monster 10m and 6m repeater systems, all coordinated but mostly unlisted in the directories in both the SERA and T-MARC regions. He is also part of the 12 Meter FM crowd here in Virginia.
kb4cvn
Silent Key
Sad, but very true. I dx'ed lowband all through the late 60's, 70's and 80's. Worked in two-way radio for 34 years before finally retiring in 2012, working four more years as a consultant. Only now in 2017, I am getting back into the fun side of radio and ham again.
Started out as a 'trunk monkey' doing mobile installs in 1983. Ended up at the factory in Lynchburg as a P-25 systems design engineer installing new P-25 systems for public safety and DoD.
Saw lots of changes. Some NOT for the better.
My humble motto became: THE STATE OF THE ART HAS EXCEEDED THE STATE OF THE NEED.
The sales drones did not like me much....
kb4cvn
Silent Key
Here is what I have on Pike Electric for lowband:
WPAS602
49.42000
49.46000
49.48000
49.50000
49.52000
They are currently a few miles from me doing contract work for American Electric Power (AEP), I will give a listen later this afternoon.
ULS License - Industrial/Business Pool, Conventional License - WPAS602 - Pike Electric, LLC
Another big utility contractor I often see is: DAVIS H. ELLIOT COMPANY INC. WQTG999
Usually white trucks with a RED colored logo on the doors.
30.5800
31.2800
31.3600
35.0400
902
Member
*SIGH* Yeah, Mark, we're dinosaurs. I started out as an apprentice technician at a local shop. My job was to drive the real technician around because he lost his license due to his drinking. I learned this-and-that about video cameras and security stuff there, even though they were the Motorola dealer at the time. After I got laid off, I went across the parking lot to the RCA dealer, who, also had a similar predicament - their installer also lost his license to drinking. I would drive him around in the shop's Ford Custom 500, along with his "hardware kit" (box of rusty nuts and bolts). In exchange, I got minimum wage and bench training with a WWII radioman who was the master technician. He had me "fixing" stuff, but at the time, I was breaking more things than I would fix. He was very patient and, between him and another person in the shop who is still a good friend today, I eventually learned how to not only fix things, but eventually put them back together again. It got better and eventually worked for your former competitor for a few years, but these days, I drive a desk and look at frequencies all day. The only hands-on I do anymore is for my ham stuff and for an extremely large volunteer organization.
As you can imagine, I grew up with radio and still enjoy it tremendously. To the chagrin of most who know me in person, I continue to wave the flag for LMR while they've jumped into the FishNet. Once upon a time, I began low band DXing with a Lafayette Guardian tunable radio and a car whip antenna on top of my garage. I heard everything there was to hear, from 35/43 MHz MTS telephone to the 33 and 46 MHz fire departments. Next was a Bearcat 210 with a cut-down CB antenna and an Ameco preamp. Magic times! I think the most fun I ever had was a Syntor-X with 33, 37, and 46 MHz frequencies in it. I could drive through Pennsylvania and hear just about anything - and if there was a band opening, I could hear a sheriff's channel from Louisiana or Mississippi that sounded like something out of a movie. Not anymore.
I serve on a committee with a couple of people from Lynchburg and Rochester. They've showed me some really neat stuff, but nothing like the old days.
I need to remember your saying. I might use that at some point (with attribution).
Last edited:
kb4cvn
Silent Key
902, tried to send you a PM, but your mailbox is full.
902
Member
My apologies. I'm not very good at cleaning it out - I have a lot of stuff in there to remember a few conversations I've had with people I know. I sent you a direct email with mine to your yahoo account.
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