CHP statewide pl tones

[jcrwzr]

I live in Ventura Co, and do a lot of driving. I currently use the RadioShack pro-106 and I have almost all the chp frequencies for the areas I drive through.

Not too long ago I found this website:
http://www.socalscanner.com/CHP_2009.pdf
There are a lot of mistakes and depreciated frequencies, i thought this was a good resource, since it included pl tones.

Before finding that website, when I plugged in all the statewide blue, lime and UHFs, all my scanner would do is stop on those stations and all I'd hear is static. the signal strength meter will display a strong Rx, but it was all static. I was always locking-out.

After finding that website listed above, I noticed that those most of those statewide blue, lime, and UHFs have PL tones! I plugged them in my scanner, and my scanner no longer stops on those frequencies.

Since inputing those PL tones (where listed), I haven't picked up a lime lima blue or statewide transmission. I live in Ventura County, I drive all over Ventura Co, San Fernando Valley, Newhall Santa Clarita. Am I not going to get those stations where I live? Does the CHP out here use those channels? I've tried different antennas, is it just bad luck on my end?

Maybe the PL tones are wrong?

I revamped those statewide blue, lime and UHFs channels on my scanner to do auto search for pl tones. I get static again.

I'm assuming the pl tone is flat out wrong.

The channels I do recieve are 154.905 no pl
and statewide blue


Right now it's raining cats and dogs. I can hear the chp out and about keeping the wet highways safe. My scanner picks up Tac1,2,6 at full strength, but it's all static.


Any advice?

 

[n8zcc]

Scan with out PL or let the radio search for the tone for you.

 

[Hooligan]

What I had found, living in the SF Bay area for several years, was that comms on the statewide Tac channels didn't have a statewide tone, but instead would use the CTCSS tone for the region that they were in.

For example, in the Golden Gate region, the CTCSS used on the regular road-patrol channels was 131.8Hz, so any Tac channel use inside that region would also use 131.8Hz. However, sometimes I did hear CHP Tac channel comms that didn't use any tone, thus I had to leave those channels in open-squelch mode in my scanner.

It does seem kinda stupid that they didn't/don't use a statewide common CTCSS, especially these days when there aren't a huge number of other states still using VHF low-band, but California is a big enough state to where NorCal could get skip coming from SoCal on a statewide Tac. But regional CTCSS doesn't make that problem go-away, it just means that users don't know that it's skip traffic that's causing them communications problems.


Sounds like you may have some sort of localized interference if you have a real high noise-floor on VHF Low Band. Resolving that, and having a good antenna for VHF low would be a better resolution than programming in CTCSS on the CHP Tac channels.

 

[markclark]

jcrwzr:

Regarding the Lima frequencies, I have never heard any traffic on those channels here in the L.A. Basin, except for those that were used for the local Tac channels. I have never heard any Tac channel referred to as a Lime channel in the Southern Zone.

Tac 1, 45.02 is now assigned as the Orange channel, which is Baldwin Park office.

Tac 2 through 6 have PL tone of 136.5 in Southern Zone, which is most of L.A. County.

Southern Yellow, White, Teal, Gold, etc., all use PL tone 186.2. 460.375, CHP Metro-1 and 460.45, CHP Metro-2 are very active in L.A. county with a PL tone of 127.3. Southern Blue is 45.42Mhz.

Coastal Zone, which covers Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are using PL tone 167.9 until the switch over when Coastal will go to PL 151.4. At that time, a new Lime channel is expected to be activated on 45.28.

That frequency list is outdated and contains many errors, I would disregard it.

I hope this helps.

 

[WayneH]

Scan with out PL or let the radio search for the tone for you.

Per the OP:

Before finding that website, when I plugged in all the statewide blue, lime and UHFs, all my scanner would do is stop on those stations and all I'd hear is static. the signal strength meter will display a strong Rx, but it was all static. I was always locking-out.