AWIN Marion site (1.71) during Weather Emergency

[Airdorn]

I was eavesdropping on AWIN today during the big storm that passed through the area with tornadoes, etc.

I noticed the Marion site only has 3 voice channels, and they spent a lot of time in use and there was a whole lotta call rejection happening.

I'm wondering if Arkansas needs to rethink their frequency layout or is this kind of thing pretty normal and unavoidable?

 

[riccom]

Considering that the state police and nws and adema uses the system, it is not normal, but could happen!

 

[wbloss]

Couple of interesting points:
about half of the rejects were to TG 65533 which is not in the database and looks like a patch. WOnder if it was invalid?
Assuming you speak of site 1-77 W Memphis Marion there are other sites nearby, and I wonder of the subscriber radio just goes to another site.

 

[Airdorn]

Yes, a lot of those were patches. It was pretty chaotic out there and there were voices I've never heard before. There was some big emergency in Wynne, AR that had a lot of attention. Wynne used to have its own site I would listen to but it's not there anymore. At least, it's not listed here in the RR database anymore. I heard several people identify themselves to people running a couple of different command posts and some were from agencies far beyond my sphere of listening.

I watched the Channel activity window in DSD and all three voice frequencies stayed in use 99% of the time and that's when the call rejections were logging the most.

I sure hope their radios somehow hit a nearby site because if not, then for a while there had to be noticeable and frustrating problems with the radios for the first responders.

 

[kk4ioh]

Shell Lake is the other nearby site which has all of the same traffic basically as the Marion W.Mem site.

There are several MAC tg's in use for Search and Rescue operations happening in Wynne. Initially I heard the MAC tg's for Pulaski Co as well but eventually only TG's for this part of the state where all full bore with the action that came through. I live in W. Memphis was operating our regions NWS Skywarn net during the entire evening. I'm worn out today to say the least.

I am hearing following TGs on both sites.

MAC1 2603
MAC2 2605
MAC10 2621 Search and Rescue command
MAC11 2623
MAC 12 2625