Global helicopter Calgary / Edmonton

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I have been searching for frequencies for Global one helicopter for Calgary and Edmonton
with no positive results. Does anyone know the freqs that is being used?
Also, the Medical Examiner office (Quincy's office) in Calgary is this freq used
frequently been monitoring the database freq provided for the last two weeks and have not heard
any radio traffic.
Thanks!!
 

SCPD

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Try the following .. 450.3000, 450.5625 tone 114.8, 450.6625, 450.9625, 455.3000, 455.9375 tone 114.8, 460.1625 tone 114.8

These are mostly frequencies that they use to talk to the studio when they are in the air. You will hear most if not all of the action during the time when the news is actually on. Hope this helps.
 
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harryshute

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I think you will find the Caltronics air traffic talk groups have been abandoned in Calgary. A Canada wide corporate decision was made over a year ago to abandon the expensive 800 MHz multi grouped trunked systems due to cost. So the similar E-D Electronics Motorola Type II trunked 800 MHz multi talk group system in Edmonton is also silent.

In the archives check CHED 1 uplinks for the poop on this. They are down to the one UHF Global IFB frequency 460.1625 Tone 114.8. You hear program audio then the director telling the helicopter a count down to their report. CHED and QR 77 are both owned by Corus so I would look for UHF licenses for both Global and Corus in Calgary.

In Edmonton CHED uses two of the simplex frequencies listed by EdmScan as a downlink/uplink. The braodcaster listen's for his or her ques using a set of AM/FM headphones tuned to the station in question. Here in Edmonton there are four Corus radio stations using the service.

Re the Medical Examiner many people mistake the silver vans used by Capital Removal Services as being staff from the medical examiner's office. It is their job to transport bodies to the ME's office and funeral homes after sudden deaths. Here in Edmonton EPS pages the ME and he or her calls in on a direct line to the police dispatcher and requests a file number. Dispatch then gives the requesting car the ETA of the ME. The ME uses just pagers and cell phones. Removal services used to be on a UHF RCC channel up here and used call signs Silver 1 ect. They had a very complicated code system so only numbers were used to designate locations for drop off. Every hospital, nursing home ect had a number dedicated to them. I have heard they are now on MIKE but I haven't been able to confirm that.


Professional Body Removal, Body Transfer Services Alberta, Canada
 
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robertmac

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800 still in use in Calgary

OK, I don't know the radio station, but there is still one using the Caltronics freqs. as posted by Jay911. That is why I don't know the radio station, because I hear it on 800 mHz every 10 minutes. But I cannot comment on Global or other TV frequencies. Have never heard the ME in Calgary. But then again I really haven't tried to find them.
 

Jay911

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The Caltronics talkgroups are still very much in use. I only listen to QR so I know that one's in use, but if you sit through the entire traffic report, odds are high you'll hear "traffic for $station_name from Traffic 1" etc etc etc.
 
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Thanks everyone I heard Cpt. Kirk in Calgary the other day on freq
450.300 MHz he was reporting an accident on Deerfoot (shocking)!!
 

harryshute

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Makes sense and is consistent with the changes made up here, Many of the reports you hear every 10 mins during the day, on the oid system, are simulated reports with dubbed in helicopter sounds. The chopper is usually in the air from about 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Don't know why they waste trunked radio spectrum on that. I suppose since they are on the ground they need to hit the repeater to make it to air.

What surprises me is the actual chopper use for the Global morning news on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Is Captain Kirk with QR 77, Global or one of the other Corus stations?
 

harryshute

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Yes I see that is Rogers Broadcasting. It has two helicopters licensed. It is on the identical 450.300 Corus Edmonton frequency that EdmScan pointed out.
 

Jay911

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Yup - I thought so, but I didn't want to say something I wasn't 100% sure on. I was thinking I might have confused him with the guy in the Rogers web who convinced them that fixed-wing is the way to go. Darryl Dahmer has been flying over Toronto in a fixed-wing for 680News for over 30 years - I remember hearing him when I was a kid listening to 680CFTR, when it was a top-40 station.
There used to be a clip on Youtube of him explaining why he figured fixed-wing was better for traffic coverage, but I can't find it right now.
I do wish that Calgary traffic reporters would do a little better job, though. I don't know if it's the same in Edmonton as it is here, but here, they go on about how "there's construction at 17th and Stoney" ... what?! no ****, there's a ring road being built there for the next 3 years! Give us information about dynamic changes in traffic flow, not regurgitated press releases about lanes that are going to be blocked for the next 17 months.

This bit is pretty off-topic, but they tested a system either last year or two years ago in Calgary which would be immensely useful, if they would actually deploy it full-time (and if they can get it past the "privacy" panickers). Basically you set up a device in the median of a road with a small computer and a Bluetooth "sniffer". It reads the MAC address of every Bluetooth device that comes in range (tests on the US east coast have seen 6000+/sec inputs with no loss of data). A fixed distance down the road (say, at the next interchange), another device again reads all the MAC addresses that pass by. So if your iPhone in your pocket takes 14 minutes to get from Deerfoot x 32 to Deerfoot x Memorial, they can average that with everyone else and determine/publish exactly how fast/slow traffic is going. Apparently there are dozens of these devices deployed all over the US NE on major interstates (I think I heard that all of NJ's controlled access highways are covered).
 

harryshute

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Hi Jay. Years ago in Edmonton both CHQT and CJCA radio flew fixed wing planes. Recently Skywords did the same thing but quickly packed it in. An EPS traffic Sgt. used to go up in the CJCA plane which was called the "Flying Tiger". The station's mascot was a tiger. You could always tell a new scanner user when they would ask "What is the Flying tiger" as they did not use a call sign.

I agree with Jay about the quality of the reports. They read alot of city news releases about construction ect. What drives me nuts is they will report an accident at Highway 216 (Anthony Henday) and the Whitemud. They do not seem to relize Whitemud and 216 intyersect both in east and west Edmonton.

The best is ex EPS Detective Chris Hayden who goes up in the Global helicopter. He was the first Sgt in Edmonton's Air 1 flight ops unit and was a spotter in the fixed wing plane. He gets lots of good in progress stuff from the air. It is a smaller chopper and is often grounded by weather or mechanical problems. He was the one who told me they had abandoned the E-D Electronics trunked system and moved back to simplex.

Re the Calgary info I'll have to go back and look at the vitual license. It did give the call letters of two aircraft. Now I can't remember if it did say choppers or I assumed that.

I think CTV Edmonton has moved to the new system you describe. I always wondered how they could tell when traffic was bogging down on major roads and how long it takes to drive to the airport. Now those snakey graphics make sense.
 

smason

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I do wish that Calgary traffic reporters would do a little better job, though. I don't know if it's the same in Edmonton as it is here, but here, they go on about how "there's construction at 17th and Stoney" ... what?! no ****, there's a ring road being built there for the next 3 years! Give us information about dynamic changes in traffic flow, not regurgitated press releases about lanes that are going to be blocked for the next 17 months.

Yeah traffic reporting here is not overly helpful. Plus half the time it's delayed, and played when the station "gets around to it" Many times I've been at the site of an accident, and all you can see it a clean spot where the CFD has swept up the debris. On the radio they're saying " a 3 car pileup, just waiting for tow trucks" Wow, that was so 30 minutes ago.
One or 2 of them used to be live, I recall hearing the same transmission on the Trunked system at the same time as on FM. Might have been 96.9

As for the automated system, that was great, though I think it used Cellphone ESN data, not bluetooth.
Unfortunately it'll never fly with all the privacy paranoia. Not when you get Global News stating that people can skim your chipped credit cards with an RFID reader.. Really? The non RFID chip in my Visa, the one that needs a PHYSICAL connection to it, can be read while it's in my pocket. Riiiight.

Don't get me started....
 

ahp309

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Hi Jay. Years ago in Edmonton both CHQT and CJCA radio flew fixed wing planes. Recently Skywords did the same thing but quickly packed it in. An EPS traffic Sgt. used to go up in the CJCA plane which was called the "Flying Tiger". The station's mascot was a tiger. You could always tell a new scanner user when they would ask "What is the Flying tiger" as they did not use a call sign.

I agree with Jay about the quality of the reports. They read alot of city news releases about construction ect. What drives me nuts is they will report an accident at Highway 216 (Anthony Henday) and the Whitemud. They do not seem to relize Whitemud and 216 intyersect both in east and west Edmonton.

The best is ex EPS Detective Chris Hayden who goes up in the Global helicopter. He was the first Sgt in Edmonton's Air 1 flight ops unit and was a spotter in the fixed wing plane. He gets lots of good in progress stuff from the air. It is a smaller chopper and is often grounded by weather or mechanical problems. He was the one who told me they had abandoned the E-D Electronics trunked system and moved back to simplex.

Re the Calgary info I'll have to go back and look at the vitual license. It did give the call letters of two aircraft. Now I can't remember if it did say choppers or I assumed that.

I think CTV Edmonton has moved to the new system you describe. I always wondered how they could tell when traffic was bogging down on major roads and how long it takes to drive to the airport. Now those snakey graphics make sense.

You also probably remember how the "Flying Tiger" used to do traffic reports on long weekends in the summer covering the major highways around Edmonton. "it's bumper to bumper traffic coming in on 16 from Lake Wabamun"
 

harryshute

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Yep good ole Murray Blakely working the long weekend drive in the Flying Tiger. I used to work at CJCA then and they used a 172 MHz frequency. I used to take out the lunch box type portable which worked pretty well on simplex city wide. I often wonder if Shane Blakely who is doing traffic reports now is his son.

I forget who was the regular up in the CHQT Skyhawk also on a 172 MHz frequency. Not sure if it was a news guy or a disk jocket type.
 
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