If a major disaster near/in Wake happened (think bombing, riots, nature etc) which channels/TGs and why?

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Neo62381

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Title says it all.... Mainly interested in feedback from listeners that have been in this area for a long time. I am reasonably new to monitoring in the area and would like to learn from some of the more seasoned veteran enthusiasts in the area that would know where to go. Mainly interested because based on my experience where I ued to live, it took years of learning which mutual aid channels, etc....
 

KK4JUG

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Having been involved in the aftermath of hurricanes, tornados, floods, etc., I've found that, within a few days, whatever radio plans that might have been made went south. It seems to be the nature of the beast. That's why Al Gore invented the scanner.
 

GlobalNorth

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There are no effective plans that work for every instance and potential problem.

If someone blows up a tower, if the electrical lines are damaged by fire to a repeater vault, if an EQ takes down a transmission line; it's play it by ear. Some agencies have back up dispatch centers, mobile repeaters, telecomm techs on call, and other resources. Many have little to nothing in resources. It just depends on the size of the crisis.
 

RaleighGuy

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Title says it all.... Mainly interested in feedback from listeners that have been in this area for a long time..

Every incident is different, fire ops, mutual aid, LE Ops, Viper Statewide events are all used and change every time. There is no set list of talkgroups or systems used.
 

hvytrucker

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I know this is not a disaster but recently here in Philadelphia, PA during all the rioting & protesting the PD has been using a few talkgroups. The main one used for all the chaos was the "T" Band (traffic). The next busiest is the "M" Band (Administrative) & the "Special Events" talkgroups.
 

iMONITOR

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During the so called protest, aka riots in recent times I found scanners to be somewhat limited to isolated skirmishes and very little details. Michigan's MPSCS and especially the State Police have an insane number of talk-groups that are not predefined for their purpose. Instead they seem to randomly pick and choose TG's at that particular time and for that particular use with no consistent or predictable pattern.

They use Event, Special Event, Interop, Emergency, State-Wide, and other general categories. Hell one city has about a dozen different TG's for their DPW! There are 62 TG's for State-Wide Events! You almost have to program them all or run a TG Search rather than Scan to find some of them.

My goto radio for any major event is not a scanner but rather a C Crane CCradio 3B. It covers AM/FM and 2 Meter Amateur Radio. It runs up to 10 days on (4) "D" batteries! With a flip of a switch I can use it as a Bluetooth remote amplified speaker for Smartphones, scanners, T.V. ETC.
 

mmckenna

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Just curious, why AM, not FM?

I have several local and not so local AM news stations.
Almost all the FM stations are owned by large corporations, use DJ's located in another state, and have no news department. The few local FM stations that are not network owned are so small they don't have news departments.

In a wide area disaster, FM tends to get unreliable. I can get AM stations from well outside my area that may not be impacted by a local disaster.
 

KG4KHQ

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I can remember in years past that WPTF in Raleigh and WBT in Charlotte would carry a great deal of coverage during the Floyd and Hugo hurricanes in their respective areas.
 

iMONITOR

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You guys are right! I guess I didn't pay a lot of attention to FM. I usually listen to WJR News Talk 760 AM.
 

n5ims

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First off, remember that you have a SCANNER and should learn how to use it to scan the various frequencies (not just what's been programmed, but any your scanner can pick up) and for the talkgroups how to use it's wildcard (by any other name) to get any that's in use by that system. That's how you'll be able to pick up stuff when things go bad. The known frequencies/talkgroups may be overloaded during a large incident and/or the system(s) may be damaged beyond use and no longer available. In a real disaster, the FCC can quickly assign new temporary frequencies to be used and agencies that arrive to help out during that emergency may get permission to use their own frequencies or system(s) (think a mobile site type operation) for communications. These may not be formal authorizations, but simply letters granting temporary access and not listed in the database (and that assumes that during this major disaster you'll have internet available to search anyway).

One example of this happening was during the deepwater horizon oil rig disaster where several states banned together to provide communications. There were portable sites from Louisiana sent to Alabama and Florida and others from Texas sent around the Louisiana coast. This may sound a bit weird that the LA sites were sent out of state while Texas sites were set up in LA, but this was because communication was needed to the east early and the existing LA sites could handle the initial rush while the rest of the changes were made to link everything up. Systems from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida were linked together with many new talkgroups setup for those links to use. It was possible for an agency from one state to use a system from another state to talk to several command posts in other states to coordinate activity.
 

Flyham

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First off, remember that you have a SCANNER and should learn how to use it to scan the various frequencies (not just what's been programmed, but any your scanner can pick up) and for the talkgroups how to use it's wildcard (by any other name) to get any that's in use by that system. That's how you'll be able to pick up stuff when things go bad. The known frequencies/talkgroups may be overloaded during a large incident and/or the system(s) may be damaged beyond use and no longer available. In a real disaster, the FCC can quickly assign new temporary frequencies to be used and agencies that arrive to help out during that emergency may get permission to use their own frequencies or system(s) (think a mobile site type operation) for communications. These may not be formal authorizations, but simply letters granting temporary access and not listed in the database (and that assumes that during this major disaster you'll have internet available to search anyway).

One example of this happening was during the deepwater horizon oil rig disaster where several states banned together to provide communications. There were portable sites from Louisiana sent to Alabama and Florida and others from Texas sent around the Louisiana coast. This may sound a bit weird that the LA sites were sent out of state while Texas sites were set up in LA, but this was because communication was needed to the east early and the existing LA sites could handle the initial rush while the rest of the changes were made to link everything up. Systems from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida were linked together with many new talkgroups setup for those links to use. It was possible for an agency from one state to use a system from another state to talk to several command posts in other states to coordinate activity.

^^^^^ This here folks...........Location Location Location, know the area your in and learn what conventional and trunked sites are nearest to you...make the scanner work for you, not you for it!!!! ^^^^
 

KK4JUG

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A Raytheon ACU-1000 allows the integrating of different types of systems. For instance, we can tie 2m ham to aircraft.
 

N8IAA

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Title says it all.... Mainly interested in feedback from listeners that have been in this area for a long time. I am reasonably new to monitoring in the area and would like to learn from some of the more seasoned veteran enthusiasts in the area that would know where to go. Mainly interested because based on my experience where I ued to live, it took years of learning which mutual aid channels, etc....

Multiple scanners monitoring multiple modes, frequencies, trunk systems.

For trunk systems, have a list programmed with TAC TG's. Another for FRS/GMRS, ham, local VHF backup frequencies.

I know I'm not in NC, but it works anywhere one wants to monitor emergency comms.
 

Tobydog

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I can remember in years past that WPTF in Raleigh and WBT in Charlotte would carry a great deal of coverage during the Floyd and Hugo hurricanes in their respective areas.
For those who are as old as I am, WBT in Charlotte had a transmitter building that could double as a command room in a war time setting. Had all kinds of neat stuff for broadcasting. Power pattern and output would be changed at night to broadcast up and down the east coast. Same with several other AM stations over the years. We had folks who thought in advance should the need arise.
 
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