Oddball frequencies

Status
Not open for further replies.

Darkstar350

Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
409
Location
Nassau County
Somewhat obscure question about some obscure frequencies...
I have looked around and even searched the forum about this but I didn't quite get a straight answer

I have 2 frequencies here that neither of my scanners seem to let me program
the scanners I use are a RadioShack "weather alert" Model Pro-82(its atleast 15 years old) and the other a Uniden BC355N(both of which as far as I know are non digital scanners)

the first one is 1.69000 call sign WPYB598 which is supposedly a village "travelers information station"
and the other one 72.66000 call sign WNMD629 which is a village public works department

I got these frequencies how I have been getting a lot of my frequencies lately off a site Scanner Frequencies - Phone Numbers - IP Addresses which seems to have accurate frequencies however I am skeptical about the 1.69 frequency is that possibly a mistake? literally 1.69.000? or 169.000 would sound more correct to me(I think I tried to program 169.000 and it was nothing)

anyhow I first tried to program them into the uniden which In order to program a frequency into it you have to select the band range first which goes 25 - 28 28 - 30 30 - 50 50 - 54 and then jumps to 108 - 137 so needless to say I could not even get a chance at trying to program the 72.66000 freq

and on the radioshack all you need to do is just enter the frequency by numbers and press a enter button but when I tried to program them it said "error"

are these frequencies only compatible with a certain kind of scanner? or is it something I am doing

thank you
 

nd5y

Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
11,226
Location
Wichita Falls, TX
Your scanner can't receive those because it wasn't designed to.
Travelers Information Stations are low power stations in the AM broadcast band. No scanner can receive them. 1.69 MHz = 1690 KHz.

Many scanners made for the US don't cover the 54-108 MHz because it is mostly TV channels 2-6 and the FM broadcast band. The 72-76 MHz band is not used much because it is between TV channels 5 and 5 and there are geographic and power restrictions to prevent interference to TV broadcasting.
 

K5MPH

Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2003
Messages
1,622
Location
Brownsville Texas,On The Border By The Sea.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

The 1.69000 is a shortwave freq.your scanners will not take that number at all,you would need a shortwave radio......
 

ecps92

Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2002
Messages
14,360
Location
Taxachusetts
As others have said the 1.690 is just above the am band.

As for the 72 Mhz, those are generally Telemetry, from Wireless Call Boxes [Highway] or [Fire Alarm] or some other remote telemetry for the DPW, not generally for Voice

Somewhat obscure question about some obscure frequencies...
I have looked around and even searched the forum about this but I didn't quite get a straight answer

I have 2 frequencies here that neither of my scanners seem to let me program
the scanners I use are a RadioShack "weather alert" Model Pro-82(its atleast 15 years old) and the other a Uniden BC355N(both of which as far as I know are non digital scanners)

the first one is 1.69000 call sign WPYB598 which is supposedly a village "travelers information station"
and the other one 72.66000 call sign WNMD629 which is a village public works department

I got these frequencies how I have been getting a lot of my frequencies lately off a site Scanner Frequencies - Phone Numbers - IP Addresses which seems to have accurate frequencies however I am skeptical about the 1.69 frequency is that possibly a mistake? literally 1.69.000? or 169.000 would sound more correct to me(I think I tried to program 169.000 and it was nothing)

anyhow I first tried to program them into the uniden which In order to program a frequency into it you have to select the band range first which goes 25 - 28 28 - 30 30 - 50 50 - 54 and then jumps to 108 - 137 so needless to say I could not even get a chance at trying to program the 72.66000 freq

and on the radioshack all you need to do is just enter the frequency by numbers and press a enter button but when I tried to program them it said "error"

are these frequencies only compatible with a certain kind of scanner? or is it something I am doing

thank you
 

Darkstar350

Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
409
Location
Nassau County
ah ok shortwave that makes sense...

because usually when theres a travelers info station you see a sign that says something like "travelers tune radio to xxx AM" however I never knew that particular frequency falls under that village

yeah I did see something somewhere about that 72 and the tv channels... so basically no scanner can receive that? or would that be something like a Nextel? probably would be a lot of interference in a residential area due to the whole tv channel thing... what I can say is when I look it up on the fcc site it says something about a "temporary antenna" or whatever...

anyways thanks again all
everyone has been very helpful and informative
 

K5MPH

Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2003
Messages
1,622
Location
Brownsville Texas,On The Border By The Sea.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

kb5zcs said:
The 1.69000 is a shortwave freq.your scanners will not take that number at all,you would need a shortwave radio......

Sorry wasn't paying attention to the decimal point you are right still the scanner won't take this freq.
 
Last edited:

Kirk

DB Admin
Database Admin
Joined
Dec 19, 2002
Messages
784
Some of the scanners can receive 70MHz stuff, and some of the 70MHz stuff is analog voice. But they're links for repeaters or remote bases. It's not a frequency that the end users are communicating on. They're likely on bands that your scanner will receive.
 

bpckty1

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2000
Messages
845
51.00-75.95 MHz are also military tactical frequencies. So, unless you are near a military base, they won't be heard. And, with today's spread spectrum radios, you won't hear anything anyway.
 

KB7MIB

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Messages
4,194
Location
Peoria, AZ.
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (BREW; Opera Mini/6.0.3/27.2354; U; en) Presto/2.8.119 320X240 LG VN530)

You will find a number of users in the 72.0-76.0 VHF Mid-band, and some Uniden scanners will cover this band.
Services include business/industrial, particularly inside warehouses (low-power handhelds); auditory assistance devices and wireless microphones, including for police dash cams with microphones worn by the officer; aeronautical navigation; radio remote control of vehicles/boats/aircraft, and things like garage door openers; and point-to-point links. Some of these obviously are voice, and can be monitored if you're within range. Unless you have a scanner that can receive this range, and give a listen somewhat regularly, you may not be aware if there is anything to listen to or not.
 

Darkstar350

Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
409
Location
Nassau County
yeah I actually just ordered another newer Uniden scanner(yeah its digital I had to cross over some time haha) so ill see if that picks up some of these "in between frequencies"...

This got me thinking about shortwave radios and such so something told me that I had one laying around somewhere and wouldn't ya know I found my old Grundig shortwave/midwave radio/cassette player I use to screw around with it hearing foreign countries or something...
needs a little TLC and some dusting off but I think it would pick up that traveler station because I don't think that frequency is quite AM Im thinking its shortwave...

anywho ill let yalls know the outcome
the new scanner should be here any day hopefully I can figure it out
chow
 

KB7MIB

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2003
Messages
4,194
Location
Peoria, AZ.
Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.80 (BREW; Opera Mini/6.0.3/27.2354; U; en) Presto/2.8.119 320X240 LG VN530)

The AM broadcast band runs from 530-1710 kHz now. It used to stop at 1610 kHz. 1690 kHz is within the AM broadcast band, and any AM radio bought since about 1993 when the expanded AM band became available should be able to receive it, including your car radio.
The AM broadcast band fits within the broader Mediumwave (MW) or Medium Frequency (MF) band, which runs from 300 kHz to 3 MHz. So, even the 160m Amateur band is, technically, mediumwave, and not a shortwave, or High Frequency (HF) band. HF of course, runs from 3-30 MHz.
 
Last edited:

bpckty1

Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2000
Messages
845
Many of the traveller info stations are low power stations. There is one near my home(5 miles) that has a range of about one mile, on a good day, thus is "invisible" at my house. And, for "traveller info", it retransmits the National Weather Service, and nothing about a major road construction project (and traffic delays) one mile away.
;^>
 

KevinC

Big Dog...celebrating 10 years of abuse!
Super Moderator
Joined
Jan 7, 2001
Messages
11,339
Location
Home
Many of the traveller info stations are low power stations. There is one near my home(5 miles) that has a range of about one mile, on a good day, thus is "invisible" at my house. And, for "traveller info", it retransmits the National Weather Service, and nothing about a major road construction project (and traffic delays) one mile away.
;^>

And if you've ever wondered, those TIS sites get the NWS via 72.980 MHz (this is specific to the ones you are talking about and not nationwide).
 

jdavida10

Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2009
Messages
11
Location
Garden Grove, Ca.
Just for discussion, up until the late 1960's, Los Angeles Police used radios in that band. I used to detune AM car radios to receive them, and was able to do that with some portable transistor radios. When they had the Watts Riots, it was easy to hear all of the police communications, and it was a mess. They had no idea of what was happening, or what to do. My family was going out of town that weekend, and we were able to listen to it well past Bakersfield.
 

Darkstar350

Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
409
Location
Nassau County
So I got the new scanner up and running - Uniden BCD996XT and I am nothing short of amazed what this scanner can do probably a lot of the features I wont even use but nonetheless it is very well made also not as complicated to program as I was thinking It would be(my county uses a countywide trunked system for lots of different services and I seem to have programmed it correctly maybe just a bit of tweaking with it will do)

anyway it did let me program the 72mhz frequency - it was late in the day Friday so I didn't hear anything yet
next week will tell
 

Darkstar350

Member
Joined
May 19, 2014
Messages
409
Location
Nassau County
The manual will have a list of ALL the freqs. the scanner can receive.

Yeah it basically gets anything from 25mhz all the way to 1.3GHz(actually was printed on back of the box) but like I said I will see if I hear anything on the 72mhz during the work week

whats interesting is that It didn't really come with a "manual"(hopefully it wasn't missing something) it came with a CD that didn't apply exclusively to the exact model but it applied to a variety of uniden scanners
I was thinking maybe it was too new for them to have a manual specifically for the model but I think it says "copyright 2009" on the screen when I start it so I suppose it isn't the newest model then again I have no idea if that even means anything

either way it is a amazing scanner im actually a bit surprised how much I like it because a lot of the time digital things and myself don't always agree

anyways hope you all have a great memorial day
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top