Brazos Valley Activity Thread

[mfn002]

2396 is still active, but MCSO DISP 1 is quiet. Now, HUNTSVILLE PD 1 (1128) is active. I also heard the techs mention something about equipment failures at one of the sites. Ok, now they mentioned that it is indeed the Bryan tower. One tech said that some circuit boards burnt up at the site.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Sounds like the link to the other sites is up.

 

[n5gqb]

The College Station analog system has towers there and where the new CS P25 site is.

Are you certain about this? I thought site 22 (the site currently operating) is on Switch Station Road just up from Academy, which is their primary site. CS has their backup analog system on Hensel and I assume their backup 700 will be on here too. No?

 

[n5gqb]

Too bad they don't leave the MCSO links up overnight. I heard some good calls on there today.
I was working out in Millican today and drove by the Millican site. Not too much to that thing, only about a 100' tower. I didn't see anyone out there working on it.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Are you certain about this? I thought site 22 (the site currently operating) is on Switch Station Road just up from Academy, which is their primary site. CS has their backup analog system on Hensel and I assume their backup 700 will be on here too. No?

Last I knew, the CS system was a two site simulcast with those two tower locations. That may have changed with the rebanding and lead up to 700 MHz, but I always used to get that distinct simulcast audio on the CS system, but not the Bryan system.

Aside to that, it looks like all the licensed frequencies at the four operational sites are in use, plus a few that must be using the State of Texas license. I am going to update the database as such.

 

[rattlerbb01]

The College Station site is showing neighbors 1-002, 1-021, 1-024, and the Brenham and Burton sites are linking to 1-020, which is supposed to be the Bleiberville site in Austin County.

 

[n5gqb]

Last I knew, the CS system was a two site simulcast with those two tower locations. That may have changed with the rebanding and lead up to 700 MHz, but I always used to get that distinct simulcast audio on the CS system, but not the Bryan system.

Aside to that, it looks like all the licensed frequencies at the four operational sites are in use, plus a few that must be using the State of Texas license. I am going to update the database as such.

I mean you could be right....I always thought it was the way i mentioned.

 

[mfn002]

The College Station site is showing neighbors 1-002...

Since 102 is in Walker County, that might explain why I keep getting Montgomery County SO and Huntsville PD. However, I am only getting partial traffic from those channels, with many missed transmissions. I don't know why that is. By the way, 121 is still down, and, due to what I heard yesterday, it might not be back up for a while.

 

[mfn002]

Heard Montgomery SO Dispatch Ch. 1 again last night. I suspect one of the radio techs working on the system might be from Conroe, and he could have brought his radio with him, and it affiliated with 122 every time he turned it on, and it so happened that the radio was set to monitor MCSO 1. No activity so far this morning, but I have my 396XT monitoring the system. Will update if something happens.

 

[rattlerbb01]

I'll be in Fairfield all week long, so happy scanning. Hopefully all the excitement waits...

 

[partyguy816]

Man, the radio tech guys are talking a lot today. I hardly ever hear them, but I'm usually at work this time of day.

Why is it that I or we can hear Huntsville and that area, but when I program them in using their frequency, I can't hear anything? Right now Walker Co. Fire is on the CS channels, but I'm picking up nothing on their's.

I have a discone up around 30 ft.

 

[Myles]

mfn002 said: I suspect one of the radio techs working on the system might be from Conroe, and he could have brought his radio with him, and it affiliated with 122 every time he turned it on, and it so happened that the radio was set to monitor MCSO 1.

They can also force any talkgroup to affiliate (transmit out) on any site without actually having a radio parked on that site on that talkgroup.
They do this a lot when testing to get traffic on the site which would otherwise be pretty quiet.

 

[mfn002]

mfn002 said: I suspect one of the radio techs working on the system might be from Conroe, and he could have brought his radio with him, and it affiliated with 122 every time he turned it on, and it so happened that the radio was set to monitor MCSO 1.

They can also force any talkgroup to affiliate (transmit out) on any site without actually having a radio parked on that site on that talkgroup.
They do this a lot when testing to get traffic on the site which would otherwise be pretty quiet.

Yeah. But I've been hearing them late in the evening and even on Sunday. I've also been hearing the TxDOT Radio channel (1424). However, it's encrypted. The system usually becomes active at around 230 pm or so on weekdays. Yesterday, one of the techs was demonstrating the system to the Brenham Fire Chief.

 

[rattlerbb01]

Man, the radio tech guys are talking a lot today. I hardly ever hear them, but I'm usually at work this time of day.

Why is it that I or we can hear Huntsville and that area, but when I program them in using their frequency, I can't hear anything? Right now Walker Co. Fire is on the CS channels, but I'm picking up nothing on their's.

I have a discone up around 30 ft.

Depending on which tower you are listening to in Walker County, there may not be any radios affiliated with that tower at that particular time. The radio techs may be forcing a talkgroup, as Myles pointed out, like Walker County Fire 1 to affiliate to the CS tower, and if the active incident is east of Huntsville, all the fire fighters in Walker County may be affiliated to the East tower, leaving the West tower silent. Remember that volunteer firemen may only have their VHF pagers turned on if they are not on a call.

 

[mfn002]

Walker County EMS (1124) just popped up. Site121 is still down.

 

[partyguy816]

Site 121 just came back online. There was some garbled speaking. Hope for another afternoon of good listening to the techs.

 

[n5gqb]

Site 121 just came back online. There was some garbled speaking. Hope for another afternoon of good listening to the techs.

Yea I just noticed too that the downtown Bryan is back up. The techs call that the Verizon site.
2396 is the main tech talkgroup and 125 is ch 2

 

[mfn002]

It's called the Verizon site because it's the tower on top of the Verizon building behind the courthouse (where Brazos County 911 is). So far, all of the traffic I have been hearing has been on 122.

 

[partyguy816]

No one may know anything about this, but I figured I'd try anyways. Since there is a lot of encryption on the Harris Co sites, does anyone think that Bryan or College Station will now start using encryption since they are joining?

 

[mfn002]

No one may know anything about this, but I figured I'd try anyways. Since there is a lot of encryption on the Harris Co sites, does anyone think that Bryan or College Station will now start using encryption since they are joining?

I don't think so. The ones that are encrypted on the P25 system are the narcotics channels. Everything else (with the exception of MCSO tactical channels and Conroe ISD PD) is unencrypted. I wouldn't worry about that too much.