Help needed to moniter Great Smoky Mountains Nat Park

[thing2]

Haven't used my scanners and years and now would love to get back in the game.

I have my trusty old pro-43 with me and found some frequencies for the national park service and programed them in but can't seem to pick up any communications. Every now the squelch breaks and I get "noise".

I live less than 9 miles as the crow flies from the Gatlinburg park headquarters and I have spent about 10 minutes in the park even driving by the park headquarters and still picked up nothing.

Have the radios gone digital and I need a new scanner or are I missing something?

# 167.150M - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - F-1
# 167.150R - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - F-2
# 168.200 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - F-3
# 168.750 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - F-4
# 415.125 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - Link
# 167.075 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park - Rangers
# 166.350 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park
# 169.950 - Great Smoky Mountain National Park

 

[KB1JHU]

From the what the DB shows, it looks like they have gone digital. You'll have to fork out some extra cash and stimulate the economy! Keep an eye on radioshack.com for the pro-106, it seems to go on sale fairly often. There also seems to be a lot of frequency changes with the feds, so check the rest of the fed VHF band.

 

[thing2]

Ouch! Wow my old desktop top end unit is outdated as well then.

Any suggestions for a heldheld that will get the few freqs I only need without blowing so much to stimulate the Chinese or Indonesian (or who actually make these units) economy?

 

[INDY72]

GSMNP, as well as BRP are now P-25, with a few analog usage for interop. The majority of USPS EAST of the Mississippi River are or have completed digital transition. Most of the comms are not encrypted with the noted exception of the Natchez Trace National Parkway.

Not sure when the big rollout to digital for the Forest Service will begin, but all agencies are to be P-25 capable by 2012.

 

[N8IAA]

If you had done a little searching in the radio reference data base. You would have clicked on Tennessee, clicked on Sevier County, clicked on retrieve under Federal, and found your answer. They have gone mostly P-25 and you will need a digital decoding scanner. Here is the link to the GSMNP:
Federal Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference.
Larry
And they sound better than they did in analog

 

[SOFA_KING]

Ouch! Wow my old desktop top end unit is outdated as well then.

Any suggestions for a heldheld that will get the few freqs I only need without blowing so much to stimulate the Chinese or Indonesian (or who actually make these units) economy?

And that there is the $1,000,000 question! What happened to all those "lower prices" they promised us by exporting our jobs out of the country? Oh, that's right...That was the BS they sold "US" to justify huge executive salaries, bonuses, and platinum parachute deals while plunging "US" into an enormous trade deficit!

Now we have no choice but to stimulate someone else's economy if we want to listen to digital.

Phil

 

[SCPD]

You can pick up the pro 96 reasonably for around $300 maybe less on ebay?... good radio, just been replaced by the pro 106

 

[C138NC]

Went on radioshack last night and heres something but its not a pro96, sorry if that doesnt help but its only 199

PRO-164 1000-Channel Handheld Scanner - RadioShack.com

I dont think it scans digital but its the thought that counts.

 

[zerg901]

Federal Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Am I reading this correctly - Great Smokey Natl Park has approx 20 different repeaters all tied together into one channel? Peter Sz

 

[INDY72]

Its almost like a quasi trunked system. The repeaters all are tied in for parkwide comms, but you will hear local traffic on each of them.