Back To School

[PDXh0b0]

anyone else enjoying school district Mayhem? Bless those bus drivers, getting run ragged

 

[RoninJoliet]

Yup its good listening and sometimes they give out road reports of accidents and traffic jams , they sure put up with alot

 

[GB46]

anyone else enjoying school district Mayhem? Bless those bus drivers, getting run ragged

I'm just listening to them now. The local school district runs school buses, but our regular public transit system seems to transport most of the kids, and we have lots of schools in the district. The kids keep getting on the wrong buses, or miss their connections and no one knows where they're waiting. Meanwhile, there seems to be a communication problem between the parents and the schools, and likewise between the schools and the transit system. I've never heard so much activity among the bus drivers. It sounds like chaos today! But somehow the drivers manage to keep their cool. Not sure about the parents, though.

 

[PDXh0b0]

can't wait for tomorrow had to clear 3 memory banks (Airband) on the old pro-2044, tried the baofeng, but the delay sucks. Got a line on a whistler ws1010 on the cheap, that or i'll have to get another sdr dongle and piece together another pc. One day imma get me one of those fancy pants sds100/200's . My niece didn't get home till 5pm, walked in and said "did you hear all that, it was crazy, lost kids everywhere!"

 

[chrismol1]

God bless the people working the schools around the country. I have no idea how these transportation supervisors come in day after day and deal with the radio. I'd go insane. You can hear their tone change as the day goes on they get more annoyed

I've never listened to any radio freq as congested as a large school district in the morning. It's a feeding frenzy of who can get on the mic first. Multiple drivers calling in at the same time. Everyone talking over each other, the dispatcher yelling at them to stop. I'm not joking, from 7-9am it's non stop transmissions. District of 10,000+ students. 1 bus radio channel. Multiple double keying everyone has to repeat. Dispatch yelling into the radio.

 

[GB46]

God bless the people working the schools around the country. I have no idea how these transportation supervisors come in day after day and deal with the radio. I'd go insane. You can hear their tone change as the day goes on they get more annoyed

I've never listened to any radio freq as congested as a large school district in the morning. It's a feeding frenzy of who can get on the mic first. Multiple drivers calling in at the same time. Everyone talking over each other, the dispatcher yelling at them to stop. I'm not joking, from 7-9am it's non stop transmissions. District of 10,000+ students. 1 bus radio channel. Multiple double keying everyone has to repeat. Dispatch yelling into the radio.

We only have only one bus channel, as well. The district has its own, but separate from the transit system's. As for dispatchers or supervisors, they're seldom heard unless a driver calls them, and usually that's when there's a mechanical problem. The buses here are maintained under contract by a trucking firm. The drivers always work with one another, instead. Their teamwork is very impressive. Reports of road closures or accidents are common; I hear more details from bus drivers than from first responders, and on quiet days there's often friendly chit-chat on the bus channel.

Back in 2000, during extreme skip conditions, I used to hear school buses being dispatched somewhere on Long Island, NY, all the way from where I was living in Saskatchewan. This was on the low VHF band, between 30 and 40 mHz.

 

[GB46]

Heard a great exchange yesterday. The drivers were all asking one another about a boy who hadn't shown up on his usual school bus route. His mother was already in a panic. He hadn't boarded any of the buses, so one of the drivers, whose route the kid was supposed to be on, decided to go back to the school and see if the kid was still waiting there. He wasn't, so the driver left the bus and entered the school to ask the staff whether they knew where he was. The office was closed, however, and there were no teachers anywhere.

The driver had finished his run by then and was supposed to be headed back to the depot, but having the kid's description, he went driving around town looking for him. He finally spotted him walking home, having missed the bus. It must have been a very long walk, and the boy had gotten close to home by then, so the driver got him on the bus and drove him right to his house, which wasn't even on the bus route. Now that's what I call service, and dedication!

 

[PDXh0b0]

Heard a great exchange yesterday. The drivers were all asking one another about a boy who hadn't shown up on his usual school bus route. His mother was already in a panic. He hadn't boarded any of the buses, so one of the drivers, whose route the kid was supposed to be on, decided to go back to the school and see if the kid was still waiting there. He wasn't, so the driver left the bus and entered the school to ask the staff whether they knew where he was. The office was closed, however, and there were no teachers anywhere.

The driver had finished his run by then and was supposed to be headed back to the depot, but having the kid's description, he went driving around town looking for him. He finally spotted him walking home, having missed the bus. It must have been a very long walk, and the boy had gotten close to home by then, so the driver got him on the bus and drove him right to his house, which wasn't even on the bus route. Now that's what I call service, and dedication!

that is awesome

 

[chrismol1]

We only have only one bus channel, as well. The district has its own, but separate from the transit system's. As for dispatchers or supervisors, they're seldom heard unless a driver calls them, and usually that's when there's a mechanical problem. The buses here are maintained under contract by a trucking firm. The drivers always work with one another, instead. Their teamwork is very impressive. Reports of road closures or accidents are common; I hear more details from bus drivers than from first responders, and on quiet days there's often friendly chit-chat on the bus channel.

Back in 2000, during extreme skip conditions, I used to hear school buses being dispatched somewhere on Long Island, NY, all the way from where I was living in Saskatchewan. This was on the low VHF band, between 30 and 40 mHz.

Oh yea, winter is the best for road conditions, pointing out traffic accidents, etc. This district is insane, its own mini metro system, shuttle service between campuses, its own buses, a couple hundred, a dozen schools, their own mechanics who are also taking mechanical calls in between drivers coordinating between themselves chit chatting, and the district provides out of district transportation as well.

Lots of requests for phone calls, they're heavy on safety and many drivers have to ask for permission, let dispatch know what they're doing. Many questions to be answered and confirmations needed. In the mornings, easily a dozen plus transmissions a minute, easily 12+ calls/min for a few morning hours I have a separate radio just them. Non-stop transmissions. Some drivers don't even let another bus reply to dispatch, its questions on top of replies and replies on top of questions. Constant buzz of multiple transmissions at the same time. Chaos. I really do give props to the dispatchers in the office.

Theres 2 dispatchers in the same office, that have their own radios. All of this on 1 analog frequency. Theres simply no way they could do it with only 1 dispatcher, between making calls between schools and making calls to parents. Its amazing how much they handle. They're working the radio just a much as any major airport air traffic control freq I've heard, maybe even more

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Yes, school bus TG's/frequencies are quite interesting and entertaining. Now that these new radios have ID tags after each transmission, you won't hear the 4 letter words and the assorted childishness like fake screaming, singing, fart noises and general trash talk anymore but it still gets crazy when it comes to kids who don't speak or understand English let alone where they live and that's even when the people in charge of these kids actually get them in the right bus in the first place. Around here, drivers under no circumstances allowed to stop to let kids use a restroom so they often call in to say that someone wet themselves and that the bus will need to be cleaned later. The main administration building actually has a small playground since that's where they have to take the kids that either don't know where they live or nobody is home to accept them if they are too young. Some drivers stay longer to handle sick and stranded kids in the morning so I'll make a point to listen when I'm on vacation.

 

[GB46]

Yesterday it was really crazy, because of road construction going on at school closing time. It's common here for kids to be dropped off at a school closer to home, where they could either walk home or be picked up by their parents. However, the closure of a key traffic artery made that impossible, so it was necessary to drop kids off at another school a few blocks away from where they usually got off. According to dispatch, the road crew was supposed to have notified the transit office the day before the closures, but they didn't.

 

[GB46]

... And today that road construction is finished and the crew has left. There's no one around, but the road closed signs and safety cones are still in place. One of the drivers had to find a way to turn around. He was advised by another driver to simply remove the signs and run over the cones. What fun!

 

[wrockjm]

Sounds like I'm missing out on fun. I haven't been able to find my school district's bus frequencies. Knowing my luck, they went encrypted.

 

[GB46]

Sounds like I'm missing out on fun. I haven't been able to find my school district's bus frequencies. Knowing my luck, they went encrypted.

I found nearly all of our local VHF and UHF frequencies in Industry Canada's database, which is searchable by geographic location, licensee, etc. This produced a nice long list, which I printed to a PDF file for offline reference. Perhaps your FCC's website maintains something like that.

Our district hasn't gone encrypted, but it isn't nearly as active as the public transit system, which transports most of the school kids. Public transit doesn't use encryption, either, at least in my town. I think the only service here using encryption is the police, but I'm not interested in monitoring them.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

... And today that road construction is finished and the crew has left. There's no one around, but the road closed signs and safety cones are still in place. One of the drivers had to find a way to turn around. He was advised by another driver to simply remove the signs and run over the cones. What fun!

It cracks me up a bit that parents sit in the car with the kids waiting for the bus to come and pick them up and then wait for the bus to drop them off and then (the parents) take them home. With all of the time and using fuel idling the car engine, you would think that they would just drive them to school themselves.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Sounds like I'm missing out on fun. I haven't been able to find my school district's bus frequencies. Knowing my luck, they went encrypted.

There may be some that are fully encrypted but most are not. Now if you don't have a digital capable scanner, then you could be missing out on some.

 

[GB46]

It cracks me up a bit that parents sit in the car with the kids waiting for the bus to come and pick them up and then wait for the bus to drop them off and then (the parents) take them home. With all of the time and using fuel idling the car engine, you would think that they would just drive them to school themselves.

A lot has changed since I was a kid back in ancient history. There weren't nearly as many families where both parents worked, and often didn't know where their kids were, or what they were up to.

Our elementary school was right at the end of our block. The junior high was several blocks away, but directly across a large field from us. So I was always able to walk to school and back. Sometimes, if the weather was bad, my mom would drive over to the junior high and give me a lift home.

The high school was in the next town, however, so I was dropped off there on my dad's way to work. After school I caught a transit bus, and could get off close enough to home to walk it.

Of course, I was always happiest when schools were closed due to a heavy snowfall. On a winter morning I'd listen with bated breath to our local AM station for the latest school closures. There was a rumor at the time that our school principal would take a walk outside early in the morning before the school opened, and if he slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk, he'd limp back inside and close the school.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

The happiest day in my time at High School is when we had a bad snowstorm and the radio station we listened to at the time didn't have the announcements ready yet. So I left and as usual took the 25 or so minute transit bus ride to school. Got there and there was the sign posted that the school was closed. So that made me one happy young man. Then when I got back home, Mom said that they announced the closings about 5 minutes after I left. I had fun the rest of the day listening to the scanner. But I recall that with fond memories waiting to hear my school being closed after a blizzard or close to it. Now all you have to do is look on the school website and the radio announcers don't read the lists over and over again.

 

[wrockjm]

There may be some that are fully encrypted but most are not. Now if you don't have a digital capable scanner, then you could be missing out on some.

The school district I'm in, Shawnee Mission (Johnson County, Kansas), contracted DS Buslines for bus services. I haven't been able to find the frequency on RR or the FCC database. I've tried scanning through various frequencies using my BCD436HP and SDS200 with no luck which is why I suspect it is encrypted.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Sometimes they could pop up on MURS frequencies and/or itinerant types. 151.625, 154.570. 154.600, 464.500 464.550, 469.500, 469.550. Those can also be in the digital mode as well. 155.1600 is a very common school bus frequency. Chances are you are familiar with those but I threw them out there just in case since many business operations can and do pop up on those.