ORNGE in Sudbury?

[sudsyjkh]

Hi all. Hope you’re well.
I’m currently visiting Sudbury, and by the looks of the current Corona situation, will be here for at least a few weeks.
I’m staying extremely close to HSN (hospital) and hear multiple choppers per day coming and going, but other than a couple weather/staffing messages on 129.275, no radio coms as of yet; have been here since Monday.
I also have PCom 150.1, UHF repeater 413.6875 in my radio.
What gives?
Noticed the UHF repeater is no longer licensed to Sudbury on TAFL, which seems strange.
Thanks in advance guys.

 

[DaveH]

John, you might try listening on UHF downlink frequency 418.6875, may be out of range of a ground station
but could hear some aircraft in flight.

Dave

 

[mikewazowski]

If they're dispatched from the rooftop, then I don't think you'd hear anything until they get onscene.

Might want to watch flightradar24.com or something similar. Look for LF1-7 callsigns or C-GY callsigns.

 

[tayridge]

Hi in the North. You could try 150.100 I get more on there than 129.275 or the 413 #'s
Dave

 

[PriorMike]

John, you might try listening on UHF downlink frequency 418.6875, may be out of range of a ground station
but could hear some aircraft in flight.

Dave

Huh, that's not in the DB...

 

[slicerwizard]

Well, don't most UHF repeaters use standard splits? Why would all of the input frequencies need to be listed?

 

[mciupa]

Huh, that's not in the DB...

On my page, they are shown. In this link, just under the blue Ministry of Health banner there is a menu for Input frequencies. Also on that line are the green square for the last 24 hour updates and the yellow square for the last 7 day updates.

Ministry of Health (Ontario) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference

Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference for Ministry of Health (Ontario)

www.radioreference.com

You can opt for Shown or Hidden. Beside that is a Question mark that explains Inputs in the Wiki.

 

[DaveH]

Well, don't most UHF repeaters use standard splits? Why would all of the input frequencies need to be listed?

Yes; and for this it is +5.000MHz although bears repeating that for UHF, 4.9875, 5.0000, 5.0125 are used,
even -11.0000MHz for 420-421MHz. Plus, OPP VR's are none of those. UHF T Band in the U.S. uses +3.0000MHz.

Quite a while back I ran across aircraft radiotelephone down-links in the 459MHz range and some planes were several
hundred km away.

Could they be using sat-phones? This was discussed several years ago.

Dave


BTW: TAFL shows frequencies licensed to some aircraft such as C-GMOH:

TAFL Search Results

Use this online tool to search for frequencies, locations, or licensees. Infomation comes from Industry Canada's database of frequency allocations.

tafl.mckie.ca

But note TX ERP on 418MHz is only about 5W (7dBW).

 

[BC_Scan]

Quite a while back I ran across aircraft radiotelephone down-links in the 459MHz range and some planes were several
hundred km away.

We used to hear that back in the day, but since cell phones those licenses that local telco provided are gone, our BC Ferries used those for pay phones on the ship , there was an aircraft system telephone that telus had @ 894 mhz rx it is also gone. the good ol days...

 

[DaveH]

Hi all. Hope you’re well.
I’m currently visiting Sudbury, and by the looks of the current Corona situation, will be here for at least a few weeks.
I’m staying extremely close to HSN (hospital) and hear multiple choppers per day coming and going, but other than a couple weather/staffing messages on 129.275, no radio coms as of yet; have been here since Monday.
I also have PCom 150.1, UHF repeater 413.6875 in my radio.
What gives?
Noticed the UHF repeater is no longer licensed to Sudbury on TAFL, which seems strange.
Thanks in advance guys.

BTW I would check for activity on the other VHF frequencies (paired below) listed for the aircraft, which might be in use in the
Sudbury area, if you haven't already:

149.335 (ground), 151.130 (mobile/aero)
149.710, 150.590
150.755, 151.520

plus 149.800 and 150.830

Another aircraft is C-GIMT, probably more.


Dave

 

[ATCTech]

UHF AirFone (that's the trade name spelling) service was indeed in the 454-459 MHz range in the mid 1970s into the 1990s. It may have even been AM IIRC, but that's long time and a lot of radios ago for me.

More here: Air-ground radiotelephone service - Wikipedia

and Air-ground radiotelephone service

 

[ATCTech]

As for MOH-related aircraft, there a bunch of PC-12s flown as "Pulse" callsign flights as well.

 

[mikewazowski]

As for MOH-related aircraft, there a bunch of PC-12s flown as "Pulse" callsign flights as well.

They identify as PULxxx when airborne.

The helicopters tend to stand out on the flight radar maps. Right now I'm seeing YRPD's AIR2 and a Coast Guard chopper off of Ottawa.

 

[ATCTech]

They identify as PULxxx when airborne.

Sometimes. Other times they're under the civil reg of the aircraft on MODE-S. Watch for C-_RX_

 

[ATCTech]

Here's one departing CYTZ now. I believe you'll see them operating as PULSE with a patient on board and their civil registration when ferrying between locations empty.

 

[DaveH]

Any other aircraft registrations which could be searchable in TAFL? Other one I found is C-GIMT.

How about sat-phones...recall them being used in the "far" north...

Guess I'm just not a "plane" guy (or a "boat" guy, or "train" guy, or...)

Dave

 

[mikewazowski]

Was active a bit ago up near Timmins as PUL106.

Here's one departing CYTZ now. I believe you'll see them operating as PULSE with a patient on board and their civil registration when ferrying between locations empty.

 

[ATCTech]

This should save you using TAFL searches. Does this make me a "plane" guy or a "plain" guy?

The AW139 Rotary aircraft are:

C-GYNG
C-GYNH
C-GYNJ
C-GYNK
C-GYNL
C-GYNM
C-GYMN
C-GYMO
C-GYMP
C-GYMV
C-GYMZ

The Pilatus PC-12s (fixed wing) are:

C-GRXB
C-GRXD
C-GRXE
C-GRXH
C-GRXM
C-GRXN
C-GRXO
C-GRXR

 

[ATCTech]

RXM is southbound over Manitoulin right now using the civil reg in MODE-S. I'll watch where he goes and check the outbound to see if it's RXM or PUL ACID. That should help to confim the use of PUL only when on a patient transfer flight. (FWIW, ACID is short for 'aircraft identification' in the ATC radar data processing system.) My gut feeling (and over the shoulder of ATC time) says the MODE-S tag is arbitrary as it's not used in Canadian ATC at this point anyway. Our ATC ACID tags come from the correlating the filed flight plan against the MODE C transponder code. MODE-S (and optionally ADS-B) isn't mandatory in Canada yet.

 

[ATCTech]

Return flight to Timmins was also PUL106 as the callsign and CGRXM in the box for the MODE S.