I-15 California to Vegas

[Kirk]

My wife and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas later this year, and I'm trying to do my radio intel way in advance.

What do I need to monitor to be able to listen to Nevada Highway Patrol from the time I cross the state line until the time I pull up to the valet at my hotel?

It appears as though the NSRS EDACS system is the ticket for Vegas, but I'm not so clear on the Jean area. I see an NSRS radio site for Jean, but I've also heard that NHP is still using the VHF stuff (no longer trunked) in rural areas.

Any clues?

Also, if anyone has any talkgroup info for the Rio, I'd really appreciate that!

Thanks.

 

[Kirk]

Oh yeah... clues on which sites for the EDACS system would help as well. I'm not very familiar with which mountaintops/buildings cover which areas.

 

[dic]

Kirk

I agree.
For all of us who do not live in Clark County (or the State of Nevada), and don't know the names of all the mountains and towns, can't ANYONE simplify the enormous list of sites listed in the database?

The whole system is confusing enough, could we just have the NUMBERS of the sites one would need to monitor in Clark County?

Thank you

Dic

 

[BJ_NORTON]

For all of us who do not live in Clark County (or the State of Nevada), and don't know the names of all the mountains and towns, can't ANYONE simplify the enormous list of sites listed in the database?

I guess it is pretty hard to look at a map :wink: I have lived in Nevada since '88 and I don't know all the names either. I guess I personally don't understand what you asking for. If I am driving from point A to B I look at a map to see where I am going, and what towns I am going through to make sure I don't get lost and to track the progress of my Trip. I don't know how to describe where something is without calling it by the name of the town. In Nevada there is also a whole lot of nothing so the only way to describe it is by the actual geography (name of mountain). For those folks visiting in Vegas, site 9003 (sun rise mountain) is labeled as Las Vegas. This site has pretty good coverage of most of the valley.

The whole system is confusing enough, could we just have the NUMBERS of the sites one would need to monitor in Clark County?

Well, it is somewhat confusing for us too. :shock: Right now the system is so new, that changes are constantly being made to tweak and optimise the system. In just the last 3 or 4 months I know that major changes have taken place. Things like channels being added, LCNs changing, and sites being deactivated.

I'll take a look through my Atlas tonight and see what I can come up with for driving in from CA. I know you will probably want to add Jean and Sloan, but beyond that I am not sure. stay tuned...


BJ

 

[BJ_NORTON]

My wife and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas later this year, and I'm trying to do my radio intel way in advance.

Cool

What do I need to monitor to be able to listen to Nevada Highway Patrol from the time I cross the state line until the time I pull up to the valet at my hotel?

I haven't been to California since I moved to Vegas, so I can't say for sure, but it appears these should be the only sites you need:
9012 Jean
9051 Mount Potosi?
9081 Primm
and Sloan, but the data base is completly wrong for this site. I submitted som changes earlier this week, so hopefully it will be up to date soon.
9003 Las Vegas (sunrise Mountain)

After looking a bit more at the site it appears that sites that begin with 9 are unconfirmed as to frequencies/LCNs. I know there are a few people in the Reno are who have done a great job checking up on things in their bit of the state, looks like someone should do the same down here :!:

It appears as though the NSRS EDACS system is the ticket for Vegas, but I'm not so clear on the Jean area. I see an NSRS radio site for Jean, but I've also heard that NHP is still using the VHF stuff (no longer trunked) in rural areas.

EDACS is indeed what you will want. Remember there is a ton more to Nevada than the tiny bit you see from CA to vegas. When people here speak about the rural areas it refers mostly to everything but Clark County, Washoe County, and the Carson City area. If you look at the map of NHP commands, Northern and Central Commands have seen the roll out of EDACS, but the much bigger, and rural Central Command has been a little slower. Central command really had no legal need to switch freqs in a hurry, and many new sites have to be constructed to support 800Mhz.

Green = Northern
Pink = Southern
Yellow = Central

Also, if anyone has any talkgroup info for the Rio, I'd really appreciate that!

do you know how much later? I don't normally listen to any of the resorts, so I don't have much help for you. I'll let unitruner work on it overnight and see what I log. will that help?

Hope this helps! any more questions and I'll try to help some more

BJ

 

[Kirk]

I'm a pretty good researcher, so I did my homework and looked at maps before I posted. Unfortunately, I don't have Topo, so getting an idea of what mountains cover which areas is a bit tough.

I read through this board quite a bit, and it appears as though there were multiple sites (one on the Rio hotel, plus Potosi and maybe others?) that cover Vegas.

Jean and Primm seem pretty close together geographically speaking, but I guess I need to put both into the scanner.

As for Rio talkgroups, I'm not going until December. I'm a hard core enough geek that I start on stuff like this months in advance. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Pro-95]

I'm fairly sure I posted a GPS file for all the towers in Nevada. You may want to search in the Nevada section. If you don't find it I'll dig it up again and repost.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

I don't have Topo, so getting an idea of what mountains cover which areas is a bit tough.

I don't have a topo map either. I use an atlas, the name escapes me now, but there is one for each state. I think the one for nevada has 70+ pages and the book is like 18"X24" with a big red cover. I have one for the states I travel in most (NV, ID, UT). The best thing is the index; It lists all of the mountains streams, rivers, mines... and is very helpful for finding places I am not familiar with.

I read through this board quite a bit, and it appears as though there were multiple sites (one on the Rio hotel, plus Potosi and maybe others?) that cover Vegas.

The Rio seems to only carry NV power, NDOT, and UNLV comms right now, so that isn't a site I would recomend for exciting stuff. Also, the info for this site is out of date too. I have had a hard time nailing down LCN 6for this site, so I haven't submitted any changes.

Potosi is a fairly quiet site too. I think there are only 3 channels and it may or may not be needed.

Jean and Primm seem pretty close together geographically speaking, but I guess I need to put both into the scanner.

I just went off of the list in the DB and a map. Both sites would be on the way in from CA...

Also I wasn't able to hear a control channel for either of these sites, so I'm not sure if I am just too far away, or if the info is wrong for these as well.

 

[MikeyC]

From monitoring the Rio system for a few minutes when I was there a month ago,

939.2375 - control channel

Talkgroups
48 - "98 10-8 with one fill"
208 - Facilities ("PBX to Facilities")
400 - "261 copies"
464 - Housekeeping ("PBX to Housekeeping")
784 - Mainly Spanish language comms
1008 - Buses ("Departing Rio Hotel with 5")
1264 - "Inform the cashier she needs to have a lot of change next time"

Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to monitor and take notes for very long, but hopefully this helps a bit

- Mike

 

[BJ_NORTON]

The Rio is also a has a roof top site for the NSRS :wink:

 

[BJ_NORTON]

I was left all alone this weekend. My sister went to visit my parents, so I got a little bored. I decided to take a little road trip down to primm. I have never driven that far south on I-15. I took along my lap-top, a pro 2005 with a discriminator tap, a 780, and a large list of frequencies the NSRS is supposed to be using in Nevada. I found out all the LCNs and checked the coverage. You deffinantly will need both Primm and Jean. Jean started to get pretty choppy around mile marker 7. I was able to hear it OK on the way back to vegas, but Primm had better audio. Also, you probably won't need Potosi, but it was very strong in Jean. I submitted some updates to the DB, so the info should be current in a week or so. As I said before, Sloan and Sunrise (las vegas) will be must haves too!


BJ

PS, I find the chatter from the casino/resorts to be pretty boring, so I may work on that stuff when I get tired of watching the grass grow :wink:

 

[Pro-95]

With the exception of Las Vegas/Clark county I was able to program the bulk of the state with only 17 tower sites.

I imported the frequencies in LCN order for eah tower site into Excell then sorted the list. I came up with only 17 different freqs and LCN's. This is counting my local tower sites that could still be duplicated from other towers in the list.

Eagle Mtn
Eagle Ridge
Mc Clellan
Peavine
Dayton
Red Peak
Fallon
Toulon
Lovelock
Winnemucca
Alamo
Amaragosa Valley
Angel Peak
Austin
Baker
Battle Mtn East
Battle Mtn Central

Again to cover Clark county you would need to add the more than 3 freq tower sites.

EDIT: Bulk = most of the State except Clark County.

HTH

 

[Pro-95]

Here is the Excell file for those that are curious.

 

[Pro-95]

OK here is the sorted list with all the dups removed. Close to 40 unique tower sites covering the entire state.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

A couple of questions and other observations

How were you able to sort the tower sites like that? I imported all of the frequencies from any list I had, and then sorted them A-Z and removed the dupes. I have never been able to sort groups of information like that.

As an observation, the southern Nevada frequency guide that is published by cat-comm has the frequencies listed and labeled as set 14, set 28A etc.. which suggests to me that the state has done what you did. That there are groups of freq's that they use instead of 100 different sets. Something I noticed about the group numberings in the scanner directory is that if a set is labeled with a number and a letter it seems to have less freqs than the set without, but the LCNs for the freqs given is the same.

This grouping may just have been the early planning. Several sites here in Clark county have changed with more or less frequencies. I imagine some of the small sites in the middle of no where will stay the same, but I wonder how many others will change as time goes on

 

[TOUGHLIFE]

NSRS Sites

The lead writer for the local scanner book advised me that the NSRS has a total of 61 frequency sets plus eight more that are used for the Washoe County Regional Communications System. Some sets are in frequency order (low to high) as their LCN and some are mixed, low to high to low, etc. Recently some frequencies that were established on one site have been moved to others and a few sites were eliminated. More later.

 

[Pro-95]

How were you able to sort the tower sites like that? I imported all of the frequencies from any list I had, and then sorted them A-Z and removed the dupes. I have never been able to sort groups of information like that.

In excell I imported the frequencies then did some clean up on the list to make all the freqs on one row of information. I highlighted the entire freq list from column A to the end of Las Vegas freq list. I used Data - Sort and sorted the list using the column that has the first frequency in the LCN frequency list. I then scrolled through deleting the rows of duplicate information.

As an observation, the southern Nevada frequency guide that is published by cat-comm has the frequencies listed and labeled as set 14, set 28A etc.. which suggests to me that the state has done what you did. That there are groups of freq's that they use instead of 100 different sets.

Although from what I understand and have been told by those in the know, it doesn't matter if there is any sense or commonality from one tower to the next in regards to the freq list and LCN order as the radios are told what is what when they associate with the tower. However from a scanner standpoint or even from a paper shuffler standpoint why you would want to *confuse* the issue with 100's of different LCN's is beyond me.

Personally I think a logical design could utilize far fewer freqs and common LCN's providing a freq/LCN plan was though out before hand.

I imagine some of the small sites in the middle of no where will stay the same, but I wonder how many others will change as time goes on

It seems as though the system is in flux and I'd imagine that we will see growth as growth is required. So as demand grows so too would be the amount of freqs on a tower site.

 

[Pro-95]

Re: NSRS Sites

The lead writer for the local scanner book advised me that the NSRS has a total of 61 frequency sets plus eight more that are used for the Washoe County Regional Communications System. Some sets are in frequency order (low to high) as their LCN and some are mixed, low to high to low, etc. Recently some frequencies that were established on one site have been moved to others and a few sites were eliminated. More later.

Dang, we need to find those other tower sites then. I used what was in the DB so apprently there is far more to discover. Unless some of these groups are data groups.??????

 

[TOUGHLIFE]

NSRS Frequency Shuffle

We have not seen the end in frequency and LCN shifts as we must remember what will happen when the State negotiates with Nextel as to the mandatory rebanding where public safety will move to the lower 850 MHz area and will likely leave the 860-868 area. Nevada is included in the first group of states to be rebanded.

In other news about the NSRS many sites especially in the greater LV area are restricting public safety (DPS) traffic to the 866 to 868 MHz area and non-law enforcement like Nevada Power to the frequencies below 860 MHz. Those sites with a mixture of frequencies like Sloan have one control channel and the above restriction in effect.

 

[BJ_NORTON]

I'm fairly sure I posted a GPS file for all the towers in Nevada. You may want to search in the Nevada section. If you don't find it I'll dig it up again and repost.

I've done some looking at past posts here in the Nevada forum and didn't see anything that caught my eye. I would be interested in seeing it though (hint hint)

BJ