NFM LINKS to Countie's AM TIS

[W4UVV]

Within the past few months Chesterfield Co., Goochland Co. and Hanover Co. have been licensed typically multiple 10 watt Travellers Information Service sites for the county Information such as weather disaster information, etc. Possibly monies for the equipment installation were provided by the state Office of Emergency Communications or Homeland Security. Look for more county TIS operations to become in the future.

Hanover Co. operates on 1700 khz. AM and ids as "AM 1700" with a voice tape loop providing basic county contact information.(WQGR416 & WQGT209)(Links WQGJ395 & WQGT217). When the NFM link county voice loop with good audio ends, briefly the NWS broadcast with a horrible audio hum activates and eventually is cut out by the county voice loop again. The two county sites are near the Courthouse and Ashland. A NFM link on 72.8000 mhz. of 10-15 watts transmits an excellent S6 signal into Prince George Co. with good audio. Another NFM link frequency on 75.8800 mhz. is licensed but I don't hear anything on that frequency.

Chesterfield Co. has I believe 5 county licensed TIS sites and ids as "Information Radio on 1630 khz." with a voice tape loop. Again an excellent NFM link signal at S+15 and good audio on 75.8400 mhz. Another NFM link frequency of 72.6600 mhz. is licensed but I don't hear anything on that frequency.(WQGW533 & WQGW534)(Links WQGJ215 & WQGJ516).

Nothing heard from Goochland Co.'s NFM links yet.

Too bad AM TIS 10 watt signals usually have such poor ground wave coverage.

 

[trainman111]

You know I think it's kind of funny becaise I was going to post something about this sometime soon because I've just discovered these TIS's when I went to the dump to get rid of some scrap metal. I was using close call and 72.66 came up. Then I did my research. Anyway, I can tell you where the 72.66 TIS is located. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Chesterfield County, but, that transmitter is located on a tower owned by Chesterfield County off of Warbro Road on the Transfer Station's property. You can see the tower behind WalMart on Hull Street. The transmitter broadcasting on 75.88 is located off of River Road on another tower owned by Chesterfield County. So are these TIS's something that has just started to operate within the area?

 

[gcgrotz]

Hi John:

What a long strange trip..

I used to maintain a paging link on 75.84 in Richmond. It controlled the old 43.60 paging system in Richmond, the transmitter was originally at Monroe Park Towers but was moved to the XL-102 tower in the west end. I think the Warbro Rd tower was built for the original chesterfield 800 system. I had one of the 43.60 stations at the APAC office near there. Most of the paging links have gone to satellite but I'm betting that Hello, Inc (or whoever operates it now) still has one in that range for their 454.500 system in Richmond.

I still have your lists in the truck but I'm not getting any more productive hits on most of the freqs. I'm going to put the LTR's in the scanner and concentrate on them for a while.

 

[W4UVV]

Good to know

You know I think it's kind of funny becaise I was going to post something about this sometime soon because I've just discovered these TIS's when I went to the dump to get rid of some scrap metal. I was using close call and 72.66 came up. Then I did my research. Anyway, I can tell you where the 72.66 TIS is located. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Chesterfield County, but, that transmitter is located on a tower owned by Chesterfield County off of Warbro Road on the Transfer Station's property. You can see the tower behind WalMart on Hull Street. The transmitter broadcasting on 75.88 is located off of River Road on another tower owned by Chesterfield County. So are these TIS's something that has just started to operate within the area?

That's good information to know when travelling through an area seeing strange antennas. When I initially checked the new TIS licenses the appropriate county transmitter sites were listed and can be pinpointed fairly accurately using a mapping program and coordinating their lat/lon values. I didn't commit any transmitter sites to memory or make notes. The first license I checked was for Goochland Co. I initially was confused as to why Goochland Co. would need 5 TIS transmitter sites. Only one site is close to I64 and I could not envision any county tourist attractions justifying that many TIS. I finally concluded it must be part of a state initiative probably involving the EOC. Additional recent other county TIS licensing appears to support that conclusion. Too bad the average TIS listener is constrained to AM. My guess is the NFM links provide superior countywide coverage compared to the spotty AM TIS broadcasts. For me there is a reception problem mobile as my car's radios and thousands of older car radios are not capable of tuning above 1600 khz. AM or obviously 72 or 75 mhz. So either way unless I program the scanners in my cars to the NFM link frequencies I wouldn't hear them mobile.

 

[ka3jjz]

These 70 mhz links would make a very interesting regional article for the wiki - it's so unique. 73s Mike

 

[W4UVV]

Hearing both Hanover & Chesterfield links

Within the past few months Chesterfield Co., Goochland Co. and Hanover Co. have been licensed typically multiple 10 watt Travellers Information Service sites for the county Information such as weather disaster information, etc. Possibly monies for the equipment installation were provided by the state Office of Emergency Communications or Homeland Security. Look for more county TIS operations to become in the future.

Hanover Co. operates on 1700 khz. AM and ids as "AM 1700" with a voice tape loop providing basic county contact information.(WQGR416 & WQGT209)(Links WQGJ395 & WQGT217). When the NFM link county voice loop with good audio ends, briefly the NWS broadcast with a horrible audio hum activates and eventually is cut out by the county voice loop again. The two county sites are near the Courthouse and Ashland. A NFM link on 72.8000 mhz. of 10-15 watts transmits an excellent S6 signal into Prince George Co. with good audio. Another NFM link frequency on 75.8800 mhz. is licensed but I don't hear anything on that frequency.

Chesterfield Co. has I believe 5 county licensed TIS sites and ids as "Information Radio on 1630 khz." with a voice tape loop. Again an excellent NFM link signal at S+15 and good audio on 75.8400 mhz. Another NFM link frequency of 72.6600 mhz. is licensed but I don't hear anything on that frequency.(WQGW533 & WQGW534)(Links WQGJ215 & WQGJ516).

Nothing heard from Goochland Co.'s NFM links yet.

Too bad AM TIS 10 watt signals usually have such poor ground wave coverage.

After reorienting my antenna arrays I now hear the 2 NFM 70 mhz. links each for Hanover Co. and Chesterfield Co.

 

[trainman111]

I can only get one from Hanover, but I can get the 2 from Chesterfield. I'll have to change my setup a little bit to see if I can pull in that other Hanover station. I haven't heard anything from Goochland, so maybe they just don't have theirs online yet.