excelon commonwealth edison 900 system

[K0ATC]

Does anyone in the Ogle county area monitor this system? It says its a Motorola type II analog but I hear a lot of data, just woundering if anything recently changed? I'll be setting up my new 996T for this system when it comes, hopeing someone could give me some pointers. I'm looking to monitor Byron station in particular but i see no control frequency. Any pointers?

Scott

 

[N9JIG]

Go to http://www.carmachicago.com/profiles.html and retrieve the Comm Ed Profile from there. The full run down on both the Byron plant system and Com Ed's wide area system are in there.

That said, Com Ed has moved a whole bunch of thier communications off the 900 MHz. systems and onto Nextel and cell phones.

 

[K0ATC]

Great PDF

Thanks very much, you guys do a great job. One question I have about this system is how to monitor it. I'm in byron, so that is what i would be looking to monitor, or whatever else i can hear. I dont really see any of the byron frequecies being labled as control channels, but then when i look on a separate list on the same PDF of the control channels, 3 of the 5 byron station frequencies are on there. I'll be loading this into a 996t and just wanted to know what the best way was to go about it. Thanks again for the help.

Scott

 

[N9JIG]

The channels marked with a "d" after it are known to be control channels. For Byron the only active control channel I have heard there is 938.9125, but that doesn't mean there aren't others.

Motorola typically used the highest 4 channels in a system as Control Channels and the lowest freq as the CW ID channel. The data would rotate among the 4 Control Channels, and the other 3 control channels would be used for voice operations until it was time for it to be used as a control channel.

The 996 tracks 900 MHz Motorola systems like these by decoding the control data, so you only need to program in the control channels. It won't hurt to program in all of the channels at a site or in a system in case we missed one of the control channels.

You should program the systems as Motorola trunked and turn on Control Channel only trunking. Use Talkgroups Search in case there are more talkgroups than the ones we have listed in use.

 

[K0ATC]

Great thanks for your help again, i'll let you know how it works!

Scott

 

[RoninJoliet]

ComEd System

Here in Joliet i monitor the Orland Park System with a never changing data channel of 939.6875, receive it great. Also for Rich from CARMA, the freqys in the Will Co system for Citgo Refinery in Lemont on the Carma list are not correct, they are=SYS:562D-WQAU902-935.4625, 935.4875, 938.8875, 938.900, 938.9125, 939.450, 936.9125.....

 

[ILbandit]

I have heard a few conversations from the Exelon plant on 899.900, that might be one of the control channels, or maybe one of the trunk freqs.
Also, put in 153.410, and 464.500. You'll hear a bunch on them.

 

[N9JIG]

I have heard a few conversations from the Exelon plant on 899.900, that might be one of the control channels, or maybe one of the trunk freqs.
Also, put in 153.410, and 464.500. You'll hear a bunch on them.

899.9000 is a mobile input, the repeater output would be 39 MHz. up or 938.9000.

 

[N9JIG]

Here in Joliet i monitor the Orland Park System with a never changing data channel of 939.6875, receive it great. Also for Rich from CARMA, the freqys in the Will Co system for Citgo Refinery in Lemont on the Carma list are not correct, they are=SYS:562D-WQAU902-935.4625, 935.4875, 938.8875, 938.900, 938.9125, 939.450, 936.9125.....

I have found that true SmartZone systems tend to keep the data channel constant until there is a problem that forces it to rotate. Specific sites have been on the same control channel for months at a time.

I will save the Citgo info for the next update.

 

[ILbandit]

One of the operators at the plant is a ham, he used to have a repeator set up on top of one of the buildings there. I don't get out there anymore like I used to, but i was thinking it was 147.270? Have you heard anything about the repeater, or that freq?

 

[K0ATC]

Repeater

Yeah, its there but in poor condition, a new ham took it over and said he was going to fix it but that was several months ago. We'll see i guess. Thanks for the info, i'll check out those VHF freq's and let ya know. If anything is different i'll post it. Thanks again!

Scott

 

[K0ATC]

Byron station control channel

It seems that the control channel is now 938.8875. I programed all the frequencies in for Byron Station on my 996t, then set it to control channel only and it monitors this frequency. 4 id's that i have found are 656 "seems to be security" 688, 592, and 720. Have not heard anything on the Seward site yet, but have the control channel very clear so it my get intermitent use.

Scott

 

[whowey]

Yeah, its there but in poor condition, a new ham took it over and said he was going to fix it but that was several months ago. We'll see i guess. Thanks for the info, i'll check out those VHF freq's and let ya know. If anything is different i'll post it. Thanks again!

Scott

Last News was he hasn't been allowed to get to up to it. The way the story was related was: The old owner was an operator at Byron. The new owner either, isn't an Excelon employee, or is one but not at the actual station. The DHS rules current in force won't allow the new owner on the station property to access the repeater, and Excelon isn't helping him get the necessary permission. DHS specifies ONLY employees of the actual station allow on the property. Its one of the reasons, they built the training center outside the station's perimeter. But still on Excelon property. The training center is partially where the railstub was at.

At one time there was actually an radio club based at Byron. It had a few employees, and a handful of family members of employees in it. This would have been the early 80's when my family first moved to the area.

It's really too bad about the repeater though. I used to be able to hit it from Stevenson South Towers at Northern with 5 watts and a badly built Yagi.

 

[whowey]

It seems that the control channel is now 938.8875. I programed all the frequencies in for Byron Station on my 996t, then set it to control channel only and it monitors this frequency. 4 id's that i have found are 656 "seems to be security" 688, 592, and 720. Have not heard anything on the Seward site yet, but have the control channel very clear so it my get intermitent use.

Scott

Is the Seward site an actual site, or just a telemetry/switching control for the substation there? Before, Cherry Valley Switching Control closed, they used radio switching for alot of the remote sites.

 

[N9JIG]

Is the Seward site an actual site, or just a telemetry/switching control for the substation there? Before, Cherry Valley Switching Control closed, they used radio switching for alot of the remote sites.

I don't know if Comm Ed has a facility there other than the site for the Smart Zone system. The license says it is a 350 foot free standing tower at 14921 Murphy Road.

As far as I can tell from the images on Google Maps at http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...714,-89.327002&spn=0.052188,0.142822&t=h&om=1 there doesn't seem to be anything there.

 

[K0ATC]

Yeah Seward is a site, they have been dispatching trucks from there for repairs in the Rockford and other areas. There is a dispatch and the only two ID's i have heard are 32048, and 32624. If you live in the area check it out, it is a very good signal, better then the plant. I'll have to dig up the info on the guy's involved with the repeater, its in my email somewere.

Scott