Caltrans on Angeles Crest

[xilix]

I've had to travel up Angeles Crest for work for the last week or so. Today was a fun time with the rain and some minor rocks slides.
Found Caltrans using simplex on 856.5625. I didn't get a chance to glance at the PL cause driving.

The DB shows this as a repeater freq., but the traffic I close-called was definitely simplex. I can't imagine 800 Mhz would work that well in the mountains, but I am still able to catch a little simplex traffic from my home QTH in Pasadena.

 

[LAflyer]

Simplex seems to be common unit-unit. I hear simplex traffic all the time in LA basin for things like the sweeper trains.

 

[f40ph]

While 800mhz may not be the best for line-of-sight in mountain areas, CT uses it all the time because it's built into their 800mhz radios. I have a relative who works for CT and much of their unit-to-unit traffic is in the same local area so he says the car-to-car channels work fine.

 

[xilix]

Flash forward 9 months:

I was driving on Angeles Crest again today and Caltrans was clearing a minor rock slide.
The traffic flag people were using this same 856.5625 freq simplex with a PL of 100.0

 

[AM909]

According to the database, 856.5625 is one of the repeater freqs used in District 7, so it makes some sense that it is used as a direct channel. 100.0 is not one of the six tones used for the repeaters.

Department of Transportation (Caltrans) (California) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Department of Transportation (Caltrans) (California)

www.radioreference.com

 

[AM909]

I'll note they do license the mobiles for talk-around on some of the channels, though not this particular place and freq, but there have been other license vs. DB vs. reality with this large complicated system in the past.

 

[prcguy]

856.5625 is now in my XG-100M mobile, will report if I hear anything.

 

[xilix]

Today I caught a Caltrans sweeper train on 856.5625 PL 100.0 so it must be common in LA.