PA FED Freqs

[dparana]

Just wondering if someone could help me with tracking down some freqs that I may be able to get in my area of North Westen/Central PA. There is a prison, FCI McKean that is about 10 miles away as the crow flys and the Forest Service for the Allegheny National Forest. I did some searches in the Fed Freq range this weekend and picked up on the following:

171.525 - I believe this is the Forest Service. This was the only clear comm.

The other hits I got sounded like what you get when you pick up a pager system, I don't know if it was intermod or what.

164.3625, 164.4000, 164.9375, 165.6875, 169.2500, 171.275, 171.425, 172.175, 172.225, 172.800, 174.475.

406.6125, 408.2125, 410.525, 415.24375 (PL 177.3, 179.9)

I got pretty excited when I picked up some activity on 173.75 and it sounded like some kind of broadcast about polygraph tests. The PL tone kept switching to different numbers and then at the top of the hour it switched to something on wolves....it turned out to be the Discovery Channel, I have no idea what the he|| was going on there.

Are these signals I'm picking up intermod or some kind of P25 system? If it is a P25 can the Pro-96 or Uniden 396 be used to pick them up? If someone can help me with freqs, system trunk type (if applicable), and anything else it would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks for your help,
Dave

 

[HM1529]

Just wondering if someone could help me with tracking down some freqs that I may be able to get in my area of North Westen/Central PA. There is a prison, FCI McKean that is about 10 miles away as the crow flys and the Forest Service for the Allegheny National Forest. I did some searches in the Fed Freq range this weekend and picked up on the following:

171.525 - I believe this is the Forest Service. This was the only clear comm.

The other hits I got sounded like what you get when you pick up a pager system, I don't know if it was intermod or what.

164.3625, 164.4000, 164.9375, 165.6875, 169.2500, 171.275, 171.425, 172.175, 172.225, 172.800, 174.475.

406.6125, 408.2125, 410.525, 415.24375 (PL 177.3, 179.9)

I got pretty excited when I picked up some activity on 173.75 and it sounded like some kind of broadcast about polygraph tests. The PL tone kept switching to different numbers and then at the top of the hour it switched to something on wolves....it turned out to be the Discovery Channel, I have no idea what the he|| was going on there.

Are these signals I'm picking up intermod or some kind of P25 system? If it is a P25 can the Pro-96 or Uniden 396 be used to pick them up? If someone can help me with freqs, system trunk type (if applicable), and anything else it would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks for your help,
Dave

Dave,

My first guess is that you were getting intermod and/or cable TV interference from some leaky coaxial cable. The intermod would explain "pager system" noise. The CATV interference might explain the Discovery Channel audio.

If you hear a P25 signal on an analog scanner, it will just sound like a constant buzzing noise as long as the digital radio is transmitting. In PA, BATFE, DEA, and some FBI traffic is digital. Many NPS sites are also now P25. I'll check my list when I am at home to see if I have any freqs for the Allegheny National Forest. There shouldn't be too many different freqs for the national forest area. At many national forests, there are multiple repeaters, but they operate with the same output freq (which you may have already found). BATFE and DEA frequencies are listed various places around the web, but they're more than likely going to be digital. I have some ACOE Pittsburgh District freqs at home that I can send you, too. The Corps controls several reservoirs in the NW PA area.

 

[dparana]

Ben,
Thanks for the reply. I'm sure you are right about the pager causing intermod. For the heck of it I had one scanner on a pager signal and my 2055 on the 164.3625 Freq, sure enough they were identical. I didn't even think about the ACOE, Kinzua and East Branch reservoirs are in my neck of the woods. In the end the Fed radio traffic is probably not very exciting up here in the middle of nowhere PA, I just wanted to try and learn a little bit more. I enjoy searching and trying to find frequencies, this particular scanning area of interest has stumped me so far. I appreciate any help you might be able to provide.

Thanks Again,
Dave

 

[dparana]

After messing around with my BR330T I have the following for FCI McKean:
System ID: 7449h
Control Frequencies: 406.6125, 407.0125, 408.2125, 409.4125, 410.2375
These freqs seem to rotate daily.
Base Freq: 406 (Based on output frequencies)
Step Freq: 380
Offset: 25 mHz (Based on output frequencies)
TGID's: 0016, 0240, 0048, 0336, 080, 0144 (May be more, those are the one's that showed up).
System must be digital or encrypted because I cannot make out the transmissions with my BR330T or PRO-2055.

Determination of Base & Offset
Ouput Freqs: 406.225, 407.025, 409.425, 414.05
Base & Offset Frequency Calculations from Determining Base and Offset Frequencies for the BC245xlt
by John C. located at http://www.scanningusa.com/trunked_info/tipsandtricks.html .

OFFSET (in kHz)= 1000* ((F1-F2)/(DEC1-DEC2))
BASE = F1-(( DEC1-380 )*OFFSET(in MHz)) or
BASE = F2-(( DEC2-380 )*OFFSET (in MHz)) which should give you the same answer.

F1 = 406.225 and DEC1 = 389
F2 = 407.025 and DEC2 = 421

OFFSET (in kHz) = 1000 * ((406.225-407.025)/(421-389)) = 1000 * ((-0.8)/(-32)) = 25 kHz
BASE = 406.225 - ((389-380)*.025 = 406.000
BASE = 407.025 - ((421-380)*.025 = 406.000

Dave