Asplundh Tree Experts / Storm Aftermath Tree Cleanup Service

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kevinparrish

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Q. Would anyone have current (confirmed) frequency information for Asplundh Tree Experts?

Asplundh is routinely working storm aftermath tree removals for power utilities on a nationwide basis. . . When there's a large vehicle convoy of orange tree trimmer trucks heading down the highway it's usually Asplundh. . . They were using low-band in years past and operated on 35.040 / 47.560 and 47.600 MHz. Curious to know if anyone in the servere weather / storm chaser / OEM / Skywarn communities might have current frequency info for Asplundh?

Kevin Parrish
 

reconrider8

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mostly what they run is cell phone and laptops. the supervisor from the power company will call the general foreman and tell them where they need them and they will call the available crew and tell them where to go. my brother was a general foreman for them for a couple years
 

popnokick

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After Hurricane Sandy in 2012 PPL's normally quiet low band freqs in PA buzzed with activity for weeks after the storm. (Yah.... PA has a couple trees and was affected by the storm.) To this day there are still CW IDs running at regular intervals on nearly all the low band freqs. Can't say if all the users on them after Sandy were PPL, Asplundh, or others. But there were many many Asplundh crews to be seen during those times. The freqs are licensed to PPL and sit idle.... just waiting should the need arise. PPL has many towers dedicated to supporting these freqs.
Regarding cellphones.... people and utilities in this area have learned that after a prolonged power outage the batteries and generators at cell sties are exahausted... and the cell sites go down until they can be serviced with fuel. Of course, if many go down at once, and most are unreachable due to trees blocking passage (or snow).... cellphones are useless.
 

Electromatic

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I just spoke to A Asplund worker, he told me that they use to have Radios in their Trucks but Duke Energy required them to be removed because they felt it was a driving distraction (really surprised) He said the have handheld radios when cell sites are down. He did not know if they used radios in other areas.
 

popnokick

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Someone in the Duke service area may be able to comment on whether they have a radio network on frequencies that would support passing out handheld radios to contractors. In this part of PA they rely on low band utility freqs.... and handheld radios at those freqs are simply not effective. The antennas would need to be many feet long... and they still don't work well. So truck mounted radios on the VHF low band freqs are the norm, typically running 50 to 100 watts or more.
 

Electromatic

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I am currently at the Duke Energy Florence Center Staging Area. Very familiar with Dukes operations and part of their Electrical Restoration Team. Duke does not hand out radios of any kind.
 

popnokick

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Thx for clarifying. When you wrote that an Asplundh worker said they had handheld radios I thought you meant to communicate with the utility company to which they were contracted, since that is the general theme of this thread (Asplundh freqs).
 

BigLebowski

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Most of the Asplundh trucks that I see (and I see alot) have no radios mounted. Occasionally I see one with the same Opensky antenna setup that Duke Energy runs.
 
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