mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
But isn't that how we all land in the telecommunications industry? And give up the huge paychecks, cushy jobs, bankers hours?
Mammoth Mtn. Ski Area Identifying Talkgroups
- Thread starter es93546
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But isn't that how we all land in the telecommunications industry? And give up the huge paychecks, cushy jobs, bankers hours?
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I agree with @kayn1n32008
I had an inkling to be a ranger when I was younger. Really wish I'd done it sometimes. I've spent quite a bit of time out in Inyo, but haven't been in a few years. Going to try to get back this year for a little bit. We'd often camp out between Mammoth and Mono Lakes. At least one night we'd clean ourselves up and go in Mammoth and have a 'real' dinner.
Your stories are fun to read. Thanks for sharing.
I have a high site that used to have a USGS link that shot across the Central Valley to a radio on Mammoth. Carried seismograph data out of there and eventually back to the USGS office in Palo Alto. VHF high band, good Yagi antenna, 144 mile path.
I like your stories of when you were younger and visited the Mammoth Lakes area. When I hear such stories it brings me much satisfaction to know that in my small way, I facilitated the management of the areas people visit. It was a tough and stressful job and I only lasted 10 years, which if anyone cares, was the record for someone in the position. I could have reduced my stress by not going to wildland fires in distant locations and was not what amounted to being an on call internal affairs investigator (but non-criminal, only administrative) in nature. People got days off and there was always the possibility of termination, but none of my reports resulted in that. That was a stressful job, even though I only had to do 1-2 per year.
That USGS net had voice as well. I used to program the frequency in my scanners, both at home, on the go and in my work truck. I used to have the home number and he mine, of the USGS lead geologist (I forget his actual title and name) to communicate any surface signs of any seismic activity in the area. Especially at Hot Creek where earthquakes might show the effects of things happening deep underground. He called me once at about 0400 with concerns about an earthquake swarm and wanted observations I had after working my shift. He usually waited until I got into the office to query me or at a reasonable hour the night before. I knew all of the permanent employees who worked for him in Mono County. They maintained all the myriad of instruments in and around the Long Valley Caldera. I would sometimes hear Menlo Park calling these employees.
The Parkfield, CA area had more instruments and that made Long Valley the second most instrumented area in the world, believe it or not!
I was the first to discover the CO2 emissions at Horseshoe Lake and I got to work closely with a bunch of USGS scientists. Great people, everyone of them. There is a lot more to this story, but I have digressed too far from the purpose of this thread already, which is about the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.
EDIT: I'll bet you have your share of stories as well. I thought of joining the Coast Guard when I was eligible for the draft. Anything to stay out of the Army at the time, with Vietnam at its height and all. Good thing I didn't join the Navy or Coast Guard as it turns out I have a congenital problem in one ear that ends up giving me air sickness and seasickness more than the average Joe.
Don't think you are the only person who lacked focus in high school and in my case, early college. Although I tried to get good grades in high school I really didn't have a realistic focus on life after high school. I didn't know what I wanted to do my first three semesters of college. But once I knew I wanted to be involved in public land management I really focused and wouldn't let anything distract me. It was challenging, but I seemed to meet that. Luck, combined with working as hard as I could, had a lot to do with eventually getting on permanent with the U.S. Forest Service.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
Hot Creek is an amazing area. My dog used to love swimming in the creek where it runs under Owens River Road where that white bridge is. Like a doggy hot tub, then he'd just lay in grass, happy as could be. Absolutely on my list of places to visit again, as well as some of those meadows along the Owens river south of Big Springs campground. Eastern Sierra is pretty high on my list of most beautiful places in the world. You picked a great place to retire.
I made a database submission today for talkgroup 1011. It is for the Telecommunications and Information Services Department. I had limited logging of this talkgroup for a couple of months, but never managed to be there to hear the audio. What I heard today confirmed what I submitted. This leaves 9 talkgroups logged, but not identified and 3 talkgroups not logged in a presumed list from talkgroups 1001-1040.
I will repeat a request I made a couple of weeks ago. I need someone with a laptop computer to run the DSD+ software on the two June Mtn. Ski Area sites to get us the LCN channel numbers. Without those my planned trip to June Lake to monitor their part of the system will not be effective so I'm not planning on taking until I know the channel numbers. I don't possess a laptop or a smart phone so I can't run the software myself.
I will repeat a request I made a couple of weeks ago. I need someone with a laptop computer to run the DSD+ software on the two June Mtn. Ski Area sites to get us the LCN channel numbers. Without those my planned trip to June Lake to monitor their part of the system will not be effective so I'm not planning on taking until I know the channel numbers. I don't possess a laptop or a smart phone so I can't run the software myself.
Here is a summary of what talkgroups haven't been figured out along with my speculation of what the talkgroup might be used for.
1001 Admin/Managers?? Logged once
1002 Admin/Managers?? Logged once
1005 Mountain Operations?? Garage Calling?? Not logged since November
1007 Staff Housing?? Only logged 1 or 2 times
1008 Only logged 1 or 2 times
1029 Lift Construction?? Not logged since early November
1030 Lift Construction 2?? Not logged since October
1034 Alternate for Sports Schools??
1037 Unbound 2??
1038
1039
1040 Never logged
2001 June Mtn Grooming??
2004 June Mtn??
2007 June Mtn??
9008 Logged 1 or 2 times
Functions without confirmed talkgroups: catering/restaurants, "544" garage, employee or staff housing and mountain operations (supervisors/managers).
I need inside information to nail this whole system down. I know two people who work for the mountain, but neither has any interest providing me information.
1001 Admin/Managers?? Logged once
1002 Admin/Managers?? Logged once
1005 Mountain Operations?? Garage Calling?? Not logged since November
1007 Staff Housing?? Only logged 1 or 2 times
1008 Only logged 1 or 2 times
1029 Lift Construction?? Not logged since early November
1030 Lift Construction 2?? Not logged since October
1034 Alternate for Sports Schools??
1037 Unbound 2??
1038
1039
1040 Never logged
2001 June Mtn Grooming??
2004 June Mtn??
2007 June Mtn??
9008 Logged 1 or 2 times
Functions without confirmed talkgroups: catering/restaurants, "544" garage, employee or staff housing and mountain operations (supervisors/managers).
I need inside information to nail this whole system down. I know two people who work for the mountain, but neither has any interest providing me information.
I picked up some traffic from Tamarack Lodge/Cross County Ski Center today. It reflected a recent change in the first two talkgroups. The Front Desk talkgroup now carries housekeeping traffic as well. With 35 cabins and 11 rooms in the lodge the amount of housekeeping traffic is minimal as compared with the other lodging properties owned by the ski area. As a result combining the front desk with housekeeping seems to work. This leaves the lodge's second talkgroup available for an exclusive one for grooming. When it is snowing grooming can occur during the day as well as overnight. This creates a conflict in the use of one talkgroup for both functions. This change in talkgroup use has occurred in the last couple of weeks, maybe even more recent. I will make the database submission tonight.
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I live nowhere near Mammoth mountain, but its cool to see this system become uncovered! Keep it up!
Thanks for showing some interest! The remaining talkgroups are logged infrequently and I have to sit at my desk for the better parts of days and evenings to notice what talkgroup is displayed and hope they use a ski area call sign or some other traffic that tells me what function I'm listening to. Only about half of the functions use callsigns, the remainder use first or last names. Most often they use 1st names and since I know only two people who work there first names don't provide much information. Rarely they identify what "channel" they are using.
I used to know a person who worked for the mountain in an office and was able to get me just a couple of documents showing the old system and what talkgroups the various departments used. I used to like to listen the old system on days with major snowstorms (big, big dumpers) and hear what they were going through. This along with the many other systems I listen to. It snows, annual average, 204" (17 feet) in my driveway, based on the ranger station records, located less than a 1/4 mile from me. So snowstorm listening is a favorite activity now that I'm retired and am no longer out in it, generating radio traffic myself.
The listening to this system is going to be interesting between now and Friday afternoon. We have a winter storm warning that predicts up to 44" of snow at my 7832 foot elevation home. I wouldn't be surprised if Mammoth Mountain gets up to twice of that. The slope maintenance (grooming) crew will probably have to work 3 full shifts. They normally work only swing and graveyard (dog) shifts. The snow placement (snow making and snow plowing) will be working hard on the plowing part of their duties. People who aren't used to powder skiing will have to follow the groomers. I think injuries will be down as visibility will be reduced and slow people down. However, skiing is a hazardous sport so I will be interested to see what happens. The real heavy pressure will be after the storm on this upcoming holiday weekend. News of a storm will fill up all the lodging in town. Listening to the PD, SO, fire, paramedics, etc. will be interesting as well. People can sure get themselves tied up in knots during snowstorms due to being out of their element.
I should go to bed early tomorrow night as ski patrol will have to shoot the howitzers at the highest elevations just as the sun first hits the slopes, use hand charges on some of the steep lower elevations and cut the slopes after the hand charges are thrown. Cutting consists of making full slope transverses on the runs or trails while jumping up and down to start any potential avalanches not triggered by the charges. Ski patrol always wear avalanche transceivers while working just in case of burial. Hopefully, however, all avalanches triggered in these circumstances run below them. On heavy snow days ski patrollers are up very early (0200 to 0300) and work some tricky and hazardous tasks. When you see them later in the day sitting in a chair at the top of a lift, realize what they did all morning. Give them a thumbs up or shout out a thanks.
All of this provides some interesting listening.
All of this provides some interesting listening.
WirelessMike
Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2003
- Messages
- 16
Have we heard how the two Ski Patrollers caught in the avalanche off of Lincoln Mountain on Friday are doing? I feel for them, as they have been keeping myelf, and all the other skier safe, for decades. Last I read on Friday, one was still in "extreme critical condition" at Mammoth Hospital.
I am a huge fan of the Eastside Avalanche Dogs!
It has been fascinating hearing about the mountain operations and long radio links.
I am a huge fan of the Eastside Avalanche Dogs!
It has been fascinating hearing about the mountain operations and long radio links.
Rumors are out of control and are not respectful to the family involved. I'm not willing to post anything until it comes from an official source. As soon as I hear of anything credible I will post.
WirelessMike
Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2003
- Messages
- 16
I agree about respecting the families, and not repeating rumors. I had hoped that local media might have reported something.
To correct what I posted earlier, the ski patroller was transfered to Reno, was the last official thing I saw.
Only wish them the best and complete recovery. Patrollers are risking their lives, so to keep the rest of us safe.
I will report anything official I hear on the California breaking news thread I started about this incident. I don't want to be replying to two different threads.
Going to head to June Mtn tomorrow and see what I can hear anything from that radio system. I have a weak signal right now in Mammoth so I am not sure if that is June or something else.
Are you able to run software to determine the logical channel numbers and color codes? Once that is done I can drive up there and start identifying talkgroups. I don't have a laptop and the software to be able to get this essential info to proceed with that step.
Yes,I am going to try a couple different programs. I might only be able to get the control channels and talk groups. I have not played around with the software outside of my house so it will be a test as to what I find. I will report back tomorrow
Just west of the parking lot turnout for June Mtn. Ski Area is the road that accesses the north side of the town of June Lake and the north side of June Lake itself. If you take the road from near the June Mtn. parking lot about 2-3 miles you will see a subdivision with a number of homes on the right. If you pull in there, you should have line of sight to both the Chalet and top of Chair 6 (Rainbow Ridge) repeater sites.
Here are the frequencies on the license:
Top of J6 (Rainbow)
854.1375
854.3375
854.5125
854.6625
861.0625
861.2375
861.3875
861.5625
861.7125
861.8625
Chalet
854.1875
854.4375
854..5875
854.7375
861.0125
861.1625
861.3375
861.5125
861.6625
861.8375
