City and Business Frequencies
- Thread starter jiml850
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af5rn
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Not sure where "Golden Gate Transit" is located. Nor do I know ALL of the taxi companies in Santa Rosa. But is everything else you need not on the Santa Rosa County page in the database?
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=231
I see at least three or four cab companies there, as well as Sonoma County Transit.
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?ctid=231
I see at least three or four cab companies there, as well as Sonoma County Transit.
Golden Gate Transit = The Golden Gate Bridge Highway & Transportation District, which runs bus service in San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma Counties, and runs the Larkspur Ferry to downtown SF.
I submitted this database entry for them a while ago thanks to some information from another list:
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=3660
Channel D is the security force known as the Bridge Patrol for the Golden Gate Bridge.
Channel F was a mystery to me for a long time because I thought it was supposed to be ferry to GGT dispatch in San Rafael, and repeated. I finally investigated this channel on the Larkspur Ferry recently and realized it's actually a simplex frequency used by the ferry crew on portables to talk to the captain in the pilot house. Each ferry has its own PL tone, so the crews on one boat won't hear crews on another. There are two high speed catamarans (the Del Norte and the Mendocino) and three more traditional looking Nickum & Spaulding ferries (the Sonoma, the Marin and the San Francisco) so I suspect there are at least 5 PL tones to be figured out for this channel. I've misplaced my notes from that day but I believe the M.S. Sonoma was on 146.2 PL, and also heard a 110.9 PL at the Larkspur Ferry terminal but wasn't able to identify which vessel it belonged to. More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Ferry
I have one quick question for you regarding taxi communications. I haven't had a chance to listen to any cab companies up in Santa Rosa, but have spent quite a bit of time trying to identify different taxi companies that use several commercial LTR trunking systems here in Marin. I noticed something really interesting, which is that one night a taxi company would be on one talkgroup on one LTR trunked system (say San Pedro Ridge), and the next night I'd find that same company on a completely different talkgroup on a completely different LTR system on a different mountain top (say Big Rock Ridge). So far I've only noticed this with these two trunked systems which I suspect are owned by the same company, and it would be very easy to just program one channel in the radio to be "SAN PEDRO" and one to be "BIG ROCK." I've also heard Petaluma A1 taxi on the Novato Big Rock system once or twice at night when they're normally on a system on Sonoma Mtn.
I was just curious why a cab company would switch all its drivers and dispatcher from one mountain-top trunked system to another on a day by day basis. My best guess is that since the company is leasing its airtime from a commercial radio shop, the systems maybe go down a lot for maintenance. Or, maybe the cab company is saving money by splitting its airtime to different providers on different days. I've just always been intrigued by this because these are big companies with a lot of drivers on the same channel at once, so to get them all to switch to a new channel must be kind of like herding cats. Worse, they never talk about it on the radio, so its a bit weird.
I understand this may be totally different than what you experienced but I just thought I'd ask. As a tip for finding Santa Rosa taxi companies not in the database, try band-scanning from 150 MHz to 154 MHz for conventional users or 450 MHz to 470 MHz, as that's where most of the commercial LTR systems are. Also, you can use the FCC licenses tab in the database for Sonoma County and search for taxi company names there in the Business Conventional category (IG).
Good luck!
Inigo
I submitted this database entry for them a while ago thanks to some information from another list:
http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?aid=3660
Channel D is the security force known as the Bridge Patrol for the Golden Gate Bridge.
Channel F was a mystery to me for a long time because I thought it was supposed to be ferry to GGT dispatch in San Rafael, and repeated. I finally investigated this channel on the Larkspur Ferry recently and realized it's actually a simplex frequency used by the ferry crew on portables to talk to the captain in the pilot house. Each ferry has its own PL tone, so the crews on one boat won't hear crews on another. There are two high speed catamarans (the Del Norte and the Mendocino) and three more traditional looking Nickum & Spaulding ferries (the Sonoma, the Marin and the San Francisco) so I suspect there are at least 5 PL tones to be figured out for this channel. I've misplaced my notes from that day but I believe the M.S. Sonoma was on 146.2 PL, and also heard a 110.9 PL at the Larkspur Ferry terminal but wasn't able to identify which vessel it belonged to. More info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Ferry
I have one quick question for you regarding taxi communications. I haven't had a chance to listen to any cab companies up in Santa Rosa, but have spent quite a bit of time trying to identify different taxi companies that use several commercial LTR trunking systems here in Marin. I noticed something really interesting, which is that one night a taxi company would be on one talkgroup on one LTR trunked system (say San Pedro Ridge), and the next night I'd find that same company on a completely different talkgroup on a completely different LTR system on a different mountain top (say Big Rock Ridge). So far I've only noticed this with these two trunked systems which I suspect are owned by the same company, and it would be very easy to just program one channel in the radio to be "SAN PEDRO" and one to be "BIG ROCK." I've also heard Petaluma A1 taxi on the Novato Big Rock system once or twice at night when they're normally on a system on Sonoma Mtn.
I was just curious why a cab company would switch all its drivers and dispatcher from one mountain-top trunked system to another on a day by day basis. My best guess is that since the company is leasing its airtime from a commercial radio shop, the systems maybe go down a lot for maintenance. Or, maybe the cab company is saving money by splitting its airtime to different providers on different days. I've just always been intrigued by this because these are big companies with a lot of drivers on the same channel at once, so to get them all to switch to a new channel must be kind of like herding cats. Worse, they never talk about it on the radio, so its a bit weird.
I understand this may be totally different than what you experienced but I just thought I'd ask. As a tip for finding Santa Rosa taxi companies not in the database, try band-scanning from 150 MHz to 154 MHz for conventional users or 450 MHz to 470 MHz, as that's where most of the commercial LTR systems are. Also, you can use the FCC licenses tab in the database for Sonoma County and search for taxi company names there in the Business Conventional category (IG).
Good luck!
Inigo
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