ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
Eating my lunch this afternoon in my condo, I noticed a cherry picker with a couple of men working on the old antenna tower at the DMV. There's always been a pair of folded dipoles at the top, but some new antennas are being put there now.
Looking at it through a handscope, there are 2 cross beams, each sporting a new vertical antenna, which would appear to be for VHF (at least, the stinger at the end of each is about the right size for VHF). In addition, there's a new cross beam, with a boom coming out of it. Assuming that looking at the tower from my condo is zero degrees, the boom is pointed at roughly 130 degrees; that would take the signal away from Annapolis, but straight down a line toward the Harbor Tunnel and Ft. Mc Henry, or perhaps to the Inner Harbor. There is no beam on the boom as yet (I assume that is what will be mounted there) so I have no clue as to the frequency to be used. Of course, looking at the antennas with a scope it's difficult to be certain about the freq ranges on those verticals, but it seems likely.
The only thing I could think of - and this is very much a WAG - is some new VHF allocation, maybe narrowband; but for what? I did hear some whispers about MSP starting to use VHF narrowband in some places, and that MSP Glen Burnie would be closing shortly. Maybe it's for this?
Anyone have any ideas? I would try Close Call on my 396, but likely as not they'll be testing during the week while I'm at work, and I would expect it to pick up a lot of the other stuff in the area before it would pick this up.
73 Mike
Looking at it through a handscope, there are 2 cross beams, each sporting a new vertical antenna, which would appear to be for VHF (at least, the stinger at the end of each is about the right size for VHF). In addition, there's a new cross beam, with a boom coming out of it. Assuming that looking at the tower from my condo is zero degrees, the boom is pointed at roughly 130 degrees; that would take the signal away from Annapolis, but straight down a line toward the Harbor Tunnel and Ft. Mc Henry, or perhaps to the Inner Harbor. There is no beam on the boom as yet (I assume that is what will be mounted there) so I have no clue as to the frequency to be used. Of course, looking at the antennas with a scope it's difficult to be certain about the freq ranges on those verticals, but it seems likely.
The only thing I could think of - and this is very much a WAG - is some new VHF allocation, maybe narrowband; but for what? I did hear some whispers about MSP starting to use VHF narrowband in some places, and that MSP Glen Burnie would be closing shortly. Maybe it's for this?
Anyone have any ideas? I would try Close Call on my 396, but likely as not they'll be testing during the week while I'm at work, and I would expect it to pick up a lot of the other stuff in the area before it would pick this up.
73 Mike
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