I can still hear Air/K9, Topanga, Van Nuys and West Valley
When I was down in the valley on Friday I heard Devonshire, Foothill and Mission just fine but the moment I came back over the hill into Newhall they were silent. Cant help but think they were moved off of Oat.
OK, that sounds like the "other" theory and practice they've used, where divisions on the north side of the Valley, which have areas tucked into northern canyons, use repeaters on the south side of the Valley (e.g. Mt Lee) which can shoot their signals straight up into those canyons. While closer, many of those areas are shadowed too much from Oat Mtn. which is up above them but less LOS.
Likewise, for the south side divisions - Topanga, WVal, VNys, NHwd - the Oat repeater may be preferred, as it can very often better beam the signals into those canyons south of Ventura Blvd up the hill to Mulholland Dr. Many of those locations are virtually dead to signals coming from Mt. Lee, which is practically due east but with lots of ridges in between.
Parts of Foothill are kind of an outlier for either of those sites, especially up on "the rock" (Sunland-Tujunga), but they've got the Verdugo Peak repeater, too. In fact, the "Rock" car, which appears to now be
16A59 - was 16A89 for a thousand years - is in a relatively remote (in LAPD terms, LOL) - area so they've generally been exempt from
being dispatched to priority 2 and 3 calls out of their patrol beat, though they can be sent on Priority 1 calls anywhere. That's the idea, anyway, except when things go nuts down the hill.
O/T PS: Good heavens, my long-term memory is obviously in much better shape than my short term (what did have for breakfast today?). My calendar is reminding me that it was 45 years ago this month that I first started working at Communications Division. Sometimes it seems way longer than that, but many memories are as fresh now as the day they happened.