Possible Craney Island Fuel Depot

[hrspotter]

Hearing 152.725 analog voice, PL 173.8, good signal from Norfolk. Mentions of JP-5, tank levels, truck designations "Crossroads 103" etc and routing to Elizabeth City and Oceana. Besides a control station, most communications are using first names. Activity is pretty frequent on both weekends and weekdays until late at night. Nothing in the FCC database for this freq and no morse code ID heard over multiple hours of recording.

 

[richardbritt]

I am near Elizabeth City, I'll listen on my end

 

[richardbritt]

I checked the FCC database for both Virginia and North Carolina. Nothing in Southeast Virginia or Northeast NC found. I didn't look for anything that might have expired though, just active licenses

 

[sdabbey]

Virginia State Police has that entire frequency range under Part 22 rules. They use it for STARS. So odds are you’re hearing squatters/intinerants. I’m sure VSP will catch up to them eventually. I’ll give it a listen later this evening and see if I can hear them in Western Branch.

 

[richardbritt]

I am near Elizabeth City and listening for several hours with my 536 in record mode using an external antenna and antenna preamp. Nothing heard. BTW, I have a strong signal from the Suffolk and Chesapeake STARS sites

 

[LeSueurC]

Virginia State Police has that entire frequency range under Part 22 rules. They use it for STARS. So odds are you’re hearing squatters/intinerants. I’m sure VSP will catch up to them eventually. I’ll give it a listen later this evening and see if I can hear them in Western Branch.

I highly doubt he’s hearing STARS. STARS is all encrypted now and the transmission he was hearing was analog and not P25. And VSP wouldn’t have anything to do with JP-5 or any tanks involving it

 

[sdabbey]

I highly doubt he’s hearing STARS. STARS is all encrypted now and the transmission he was hearing was analog and not P25. And VSP wouldn’t have anything to do with JP-5 or any tanks involving it

I never said he was hearing STARS 😉 Read my message again. I said the frequency range was licensed to VSP and it’s used for STARS. What I said he was hearing was probably squatters or itinerants, ie, illegal users.

 

[vavolff]

Hearing 152.725 analog voice, PL 173.8, good signal from Norfolk. Mentions of JP-5, tank levels, truck designations "Crossroads 103" etc and routing to Elizabeth City and Oceana. Besides a control station, most communications are using first names. Activity is pretty frequent on both weekends and weekdays until late at night. Nothing in the FCC database for this freq and no morse code ID heard over multiple hours of recording.

I've solved your mystery, and what you heard is definitely not Craney Island. The designation sounded a bit familiar, and a quick internet search proved my hunch. I'm 99.9% certain it's Crossroads Fuel Service in Chesapeake, they're located off Centerville Turnpike, and here is their web page. Now FCC wise, a search on ULS turned up a record and a previous callsign of KEV831, which expired back in 2022. I might jump down the rabbithole deeper at a later time, I really should be alseep! I'm still going to throw the frequency in my scanner and see what happens.

All in all, I say this was a great catch! This is one I'd definitely would be proud of, for sure.

 

[richardbritt]

Crossroads also has offices in Hertford and Ahoskie NC which accounts for the locations like Elizabeth City that he heard mentioned where the trucks were going to.

 

[vavolff]

Crossroads also has offices in Hertford and Ahoskie NC which accounts for the locations like Elizabeth City that he heard mentioned where the trucks were going to.

Exactly! I forgot to mention that.

 

[richardbritt]

Craney Island used to be between 138.5 and 144, or 148-150.7 mhz a bunch of years ago. Don't know about now that a lot of the Navy stuff is on the 380 uhf trunk system these days. They never were big radio users. I believe they were on the same frequency as the NOB fuel farm. It was a simplex frequency.

 

[vavolff]

Gotcha! I vaguely remember that, I've really never monitored Craney Island in any length. I did monitor their fire ops, but never caught anything but silence. I checked DOD system 14C, and there's nothing pertaining to Craney Island. Since you mentioned the island shared a simplex frequency with NOB, I'll add NOB fueling talkgroup into the scanner and see what turns up. I'm going to add any frequencies I dig up for US Army CoE Norfolk District as well. I'll let you know if I turn up anything.

 

[richardbritt]

Keep in mind that only stuff people have found out and submitted to the database for the 14c trunking is what's posted. Back when I was the senior bench radio maintenance technician for the NOB fire and police, there were a ton of simplex frequencies used on the base, Cinclant, and Camp Elmore. Lots of squadrons also used vhf high band for use are their commands and in hangers. I bet a bunch don't use Elmer still. Might be worth while to search. There also was a bunch of misc users up around 163 and up. Plus the ships use portable radios and have different systems and frequencies. Some they can't use CONUS but they do anyway, a few are in the 2 meter ham band. Last time I checked one, it had 4 zones and like 8 frequencies per zone. But it was many years ago. MX360 radios