MSHP Troop C Talking less or New Freq?

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KM5LZ

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Troop C

I have not noticed any slow down for troop C radio traffic. I mainly listen to the 42.14 and 42.26 frequencies.
 

mjthomas59

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2 reasons for low radio traffic at night. #1 many counties in Troop C don't have 24 hour coverage, and the usual time frame for no coverage is between 3am and 6am. The rural counties may have 1 trooper assigned to cover several counties at once (common in st. francois, perry, lincoln, pike, washington, and warren counties) or they may just have a trooper on call in the event a major accident occurs. #2 The Troopers that are on are almost always tied up with DWI's overnight. Neither scenario warrants much if any radio traffic.

It has been this way for years. Not sure if it is so much the lack of funding or that the need to have 24 hour coverage isn't there. Saint Louis County and St. Charles County are probably the only 2 counties where 24 hour coverage is needed. Also the typical grant funding is utilized between the hours of 7pm and 3am, so again even with grants there won't be anyone on between 3am and 6am.

Happy Scanning
 
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N2JDS

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St. Peters, Mo
Moved only a couple of miles, transmitter near hwy 64 (old Hwy 40) and hwy 94 in St. Charles county. They are coming in loud and clear, In a two day scan, here are the results I have. They don't talk too much. Nothing scientific about the results, just what my hit counter shows.

Law Enforcement 42.14000 Troop C - Dispatch 362 times
Law Enforcement 42.10000 Troop C - Main 100 13 times
Law Enforcement 42.26000 Troop C - Trp C Mob R 41 times
 

mjthomas59

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I haven't been by I-64 near Mason Rd in a while but to the best of my knowledge the transmit tower is still located there and that is still the primary tower in use.

The actual Troop Headquarters has moved, and moved some time ago to I-64 near Hwy 94 in St. Charles County. However, I don't believe anything beyond that has changed.

A large majority of things are done through the in-car computers so there really isn't a tremendous need for frequent radio use.

42.14 is still rural dispatch and rural car to car frequency. 42.26 is still the rural car to dispatch channel.

The metro dispatch channel and car to car is still 42.10 and the car to dispatch is 42.78. 42.12 is very rarely used, typically only when interference exists on one of the other frequencies.

These frequencies have been in use since I started scanning, which was approximately 10 years ago.
 

kruser

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I haven't been by I-64 near Mason Rd in a while but to the best of my knowledge the transmit tower is still located there and that is still the primary tower in use.

The actual Troop Headquarters has moved, and moved some time ago to I-64 near Hwy 94 in St. Charles County. However, I don't believe anything beyond that has changed.

A large majority of things are done through the in-car computers so there really isn't a tremendous need for frequent radio use.

42.14 is still rural dispatch and rural car to car frequency. 42.26 is still the rural car to dispatch channel.

The metro dispatch channel and car to car is still 42.10 and the car to dispatch is 42.78. 42.12 is very rarely used, typically only when interference exists on one of the other frequencies.

These frequencies have been in use since I started scanning, which was approximately 10 years ago.

The tower at I-64 and Mason was removed several months ago. The new tower is south of 64 along 94 near Francis Howell high school. I think they use a microwave link from the building to the new tower site.
The old 42.06, 42.22, 42.32 and 42.380 frequencies were retired around the end of 2004 early 2005 and the current 42.10, 42.14, 42.26 and 42.78 were put into service at that time for Troop C. 42.120 is the only frequency that remains from 2004 and prior and it was one of the two active dispatch channels back then but is now seldom used like you said. I live very near the old tower location and have been actively monitoring them for over 30 years.

I recall the skip I used too hear and enjoy mainly on 42.06 a few years back.
Now I'm in an apartment and no longer have the luxury of a tall tower and dedicated low band antenna so reception has been severly crippled for myself:(
 

talkpair

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The old 42.06, 42.22, 42.32 and 42.380 frequencies were retired around the end of 2004 early 2005...

The frequency 42.12 should be in that list as well.

You may find it interesting that each of the troop headquarters are still licensed for those original frequencies....except 42.22, and 42.32, which were the mobiles back then.
Perhaps they keep an old transmitter in a back room somewhere they can put back into service during special circumstances.

It appears that Springfield uses the original rural channel pair 42.06/42.22
 

kruser

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The frequency 42.12 should be in that list as well.

You may find it interesting that each of the troop headquarters are still licensed for those original frequencies....except 42.22, and 42.32, which were the mobiles back then.
Perhaps they keep an old transmitter in a back room somewhere they can put back into service during special circumstances.

It appears that Springfield uses the original rural channel pair 42.06/42.22

Funny as I did add 42.12 to the retired list at first. I removed it however when I recalled hearing a trooper calling another on 42.120 between one and two months back. He never reached the other trooper until he switched over to one of the two new base channels.
I first thought it was skip but when they came up on the new frequency, I then knew it was not skip plus I recognized the car numbers and voice's. You get to know the individual troopers from their voices after time! Especially the metro cars.
So, I put .120 back in to the current list but I'd bet I could park a radio on that frequency today and not get a single hit in a month if even. I wonder if some patrol cars were simply missed when they changed and that old freq was not removed or it is like you say and maybe some type of backup and that old freq is still in the radios just in case.
I also do not hear them much on the 42.00 and 42.02 frequencies. One of them is used here when they are doing aircraft operations but I'm usually working when they do that work so never get to listen much.
 

mjthomas59

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Thanks for the updated info on the tower location. I thought a while back, since the new Troop C opened, that they also added another link tower somewhere in the Florissant North County area. Not sure if that is true or not.

I have heard the 42.00 in use quite a bit in the Saint Louis Area over the past few years. I've only heard it in use for the speed traps they like to set up. Some of those involved aircraft while others just had 1 trooper on an overpass with a laser unit. I sat down at Chesterfield mall one day because they were set up on I-64 near Boones Crossing. That was pretty fun just sitting and listening to them all go back and forth. I bet they made 30 stops just in the short time I sat there.

I've also heard limited use of the SERT channels, don't recall the frequency off hand but it is VHF-HI. Again though it was only used car to car and was done so for the speed traps. That was another one of those "I probably don't need this" type frequencies, then 1 day I heard them using it and never deleted it again. Probably saved my butt on a speeding ticket lol

Just glancing at the callsign of KAA203, it shows it went active in 2002. Does anyone recall what the old license was? Or did they just somehow amend the existing license and change the frequencies?
 
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talkpair

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Just glancing at the call sign of KAA203, it shows it went active in 2002. Does anyone recall what the old license was?

I've been scanning since the mid 1970's........KAA203 was "Kirkwood" back when I first heard them........Back then, the entire state used 42.06/42.22 for rural, and 42.12/42.32 for Metro....and 42.38 was troop point-to-point.

Many of the relays were located near the troop lines, and the output was directed toward adjoining troop, as well as the troop headquarters where the relay was physically located.

Seems like KSR937 was also a callsign from that part of the state as well.........satellite @ Flat River ???

I know the KAA203 is older than 2002........perhaps that's when the additional frequencies were added.
 

kruser

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I've been scanning since the mid 1970's........KAA203 was "Kirkwood" back when I first heard them........Back then, the entire state used 42.06/42.22 for rural, and 42.12/42.32 for Metro....and 42.38 was troop point-to-point.

Many of the relays were located near the troop lines, and the output was directed toward adjoining troop, as well as the troop headquarters where the relay was physically located.

Seems like KSR937 was also a callsign from that part of the state as well.........satellite @ Flat River ???

I know the KAA203 is older than 2002........perhaps that's when the additional frequencies were added.

You are absolutely correct on all. I also know KAA203 has been around for a long long time. Early 70's here as well!
Looking at the history section for that call, it only goes back to 10/02/1997 and it shows a license modification for that date. I'd guess that is simply a limitation of available data from the FCC site. I seem to recall the history going back much further but that may have been for broadcast licenses that I'm thinking of.
I recall the Flat River site but the call is not ringing a bell.
I'd bet the 2002 date is when they first started thinking about changing the Troop C frequencies and that is when the license was modified.
Why did they change? I think I can recall it was to get away from common skip that occured pretty much daily in the late afternoon hours. I do remember the skip was almost always from the northeast regions like New York or Boston. I remember the accent well!

I was so close to the tower that I could see the warning light out my window and at work I could tell if it was foggy or hazy as the security cams could not see the tower lights through the haze.
They also wiped out or TV reception when they keyed up. Before we had cable, OTA TV signals were fine but when cable became popular, the signal would ingress back upon the cable lines from bad connections and Troop C's signal would wipe out several channels!
That was well before Charter's days and whoever it was did finally go around and clean everything up and we never had issues again.
 

scanman1958

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After the move from Mason and 64 (and the move of the tower) I have almost lost the entire signal from Troop C. It might just be my imagination but the signal "seems" weaker and fainter. I don't monitor them like I should anymore. I used to listen at night with one of my first programable scanners in the 80's and could hear Jeff City, Farmington??? and the one up north near Iowa from my house in southwest St Louis. I am showing my age here too but does anyone remember when the highway patrol used (I think) 42.12 as a point to point between troop dispatch centers?
 

stlouisx50

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Mountain Grove, MO (Texas County)
I found the problem. Radioreference had P25 on Troop C's Rural Dispatch Frequency so I fixed it and now everything is back to normal.

As far as hearing them far away, I too used to hear the different troops all over Missouri before their last frequency switch. I no longer am able to either.
 

talkpair

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Clinton County, MO
I am showing my age here too but does anyone remember when the highway patrol used (I think) 42.12 as a point to point between troop dispatch centers?

42.38 was the old troop point to point......As far as I know, there's no longer a frequency for troop-to-troop.

It might just be my imagination but the signal "seems" weaker and fainter.

I don't think it's your imagination......I don't pick up the entire state as well as I did years ago.....I think the problem is that there are no vendors that manufacture low band radios with the same power they used years ago.

This might explain the number of relays compared to prior years, as well as the lower-powered "fill-in" transmitters that most troops now have.

When I first started scanning in the 70's.......troop A only had 2 relays, and troop H only had 2 relays. Today, troop H has 4 UHF relays.

In the old days, I think a lot of small problems were overcome with the brute-force of a higher power radio. With lower power, it seems that simple things, like antenna radiation pattern matter more. For example, I've noticed that I've been able to get a good signal from a car southbound from a specific mile marker, but when I hear a car from the same location going northbound, it's almost unreadable.

If a car is traveling at a high rate of speed, the signal becomes unreadable.

I've also noticed that I am able to hear the Missouri park rangers (same low band as HP) at a greater distance than the troopers. Their antennas are base loaded, center mounted on the roof of their vehicles......(jeep cherokee, i think).
 

Spirit

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Mhp

Am going to be traveling to Bethany Missouri from Iowa border on I-35 and St. Joe. What are the MHP freq's and Bethany PD, Fire and Harrison County Sheriff freq's I would put in? St. Joe MHP, PD, SD, FD?
 
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