Interesting...159.350. The licensed frequency is 159.390...hope somebody notices the discrepancy.
ka3aaa
Member
The answer to the $100 million dollar question is 158.76.
Just to be clear...I decoded all of this info on th 158.76 CC. It isn't even listed as a CC in the DB but it appears to be primary as of now.
ekim223
Member
Recently I started picking up a very strong signal in Crawford County on 154.257500, with a NAC 941.
So far, I have heard no voice or data on this freq. just a strong carrier. I am close to the Warren county line.
So far, I have heard no voice or data on this freq. just a strong carrier. I am close to the Warren county line.
Testing up in Warren Co is supposed to start this coming week. Looks like somebody was fiddling with some radios today. Also looks like they were encrypted (note the P4 in the images) which indicates an encrypted transmission.
I happened to be in the Harrisburg area today, so this was off the Ellendale site. I will not be out there again for a few weeks, at least.
I happened to be in the Harrisburg area today, so this was off the Ellendale site. I will not be out there again for a few weeks, at least.
Attachments
I'm going to plead ignorance to how the latest scanners and software work, as my last scanner purchase was a 396XT quite a few years ago. However, I live in Erie and I want to be ready to monitor the testing this fall. I plan to buy a 436 and a 536 scanner. Could you explain a little bit about your post that shows your monitoring of the Warren County testing? Do I need software to follow the Erie testing, or can I just follow it on the scanner itself?
For what it's worth, I spend every other weekend at a friend's place in Marysville, literally straight across the river from Blue Mountain. Frequent entertainment in the summer is watching the transmitter sites take bolts in thunderstorms.
There's been crews up there quite a few times through this winter, far more than normal. Are they planning on putting the Harrisburg site up on Ellendale Forge on Sharp Mountain or over on Blue Mountain? Seems like the only place that would give Troop H and Newport Barracks coverage on that part of the West Shore.
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All I know is what is on the FCC license. Ellendale tower site is on Stony Mountain which is the third ridge north of Harrisburg on the east side of the river...the one that starts just NE of the town of Dauphin.
Blue Mtn
Second Mtn
Stony Mtn
Peters Mtn
Second and Peters match the ridges on the west side that make the Cove Mtn V shape between Marysville and Duncannon. Blue Mtn is the ridge at the Rockville Bridge.
My post contains screen captures of Unitrunker. I was running it with a PRO-106 plugged in to the computer. While the PRO-106 cannot decode Phase 2 audio, it works fine running with Unitrunker to decode the control channel data.
The screen caps in my post show radio ID's on the left ("Source ID"). The "Target ID" shows either the talkgroup ID or the radio ID depending on what is happening.For calls (PTT's) and joins (Channel affiliations) it shows the talkgroup. The "Source Label" and "Target Label" columns are blank because I have not tagged anything since i have no idea what is what, yet. I only collected data for a few hours on Saturday while I was in the Harrisburg area. The "SVC" column shows special codes that can tell you more about what is happening. In this case, the P4 code indicates "protected" or encrypted comms at priority level 4 (the default priority level on most systems).
The 65536 talkgroup is most likely a patch. Talkgroup 10136 is an unknown right now...may end up being what the radio techs use for testing. Sometimes they operate encrypted even if that won't be common on the system. Time will tell.
This data was decoded from the control channel on the Ellendale site near Harrisburg.
Admittedly I didn't even think to check the license. If it's Ellendale Radio Site then I'll have basically line of sight of it when I'm there. I'll let Unitrunker, etc run uninterrupted for the entire weekend when I'm out there next week.
jeffm77
Member
When is Allegheny County going to start seeing testing?
Four towers are online...one in Dauphin and three in Warren. Coverage will be expanded to the entire NW area later this year. From there, expansion will move into SW PA and then to SC PA. After that, SE PA, NE PA, and finally, NC PA. The rollout is a five year plan ending in 2022.
Anybody see/hear system traffic today? This is the week coverage testing starts in Warren Co. PennDOT, PSP, and DCNR should be heard in Warren Co at some point in the near future.
ka3aaa
Member
only encrypted communications for the past week and today
65536 is the where the system transmits the CWID
Continuous Wave Identification.
It is a Morse Code broadcast of the transmitter site's FCC Callsign (7 digit alpha numerical).
It is broadcast every 30 minutes usually on the last active channel in the trunk group for that tower.
Continuous Wave Identification.
It is a Morse Code broadcast of the transmitter site's FCC Callsign (7 digit alpha numerical).
It is broadcast every 30 minutes usually on the last active channel in the trunk group for that tower.
Firefighter6940
Member
I forgot all about this system coming online. a VHF P25 Phase 2 system too. sweet, can't wait til it comes over here in my area.
Thanks for the info. Would you consider Unitrunker to be the best software to monitor this system? Is it difficult to use?