Questions Re: What to listen to in SCW (MilAir, Police, Fire, Forestry) and Travelling from LA to AZ

[Mountain343]

Hey there! I'll be heading back to Sun City West soon and bringing my radios with and would love some advice on what/how to listen in the area.

Driving from Los Angeles to SCW -

I'll have AZWINS programmed in, but can anyone recommend which tower through Yuma?

- Clicking them shows most of the towers cover the southern part of the county except Stone Cabin. Is that right?

- Are White Tank and Shaw best for Maricopa?

- Which talkgroups are the best for I10/303? Would that be 1102?

- Also is 156.1200 ADOT Enforce worth listening to?

- I'll also have DPS District 4, 14, and West tac from the DPS page in a bank. Should I have anything else while driving?



In SCW:

* I have a BCD396xt and two SDR dongles, along with multiple older conventional/trunked radios.

- The main things I like to listen to are Police and Fire like everyone else, from what I can gather, most of the interesting police stuff is encrypted though, and fireground traffic is simplex/not readable. Is that right?

- Sheriff
-- I know they're P25 II so I'll be only able to listen to them on my SDR's with SDRtrunk or other software. Last time I was there, I had some trouble figuring it out though and noticed that a lot of the talkgroups seemed patched? Like Southwest and Northwest would be dispatched together it seemed. Is that right?

-- I know the SCW posse is on here too.

-- Do all of the sites carry all of the traffic or is it spread out? Some say simulcast, some don't, which is why I'm wondering which ones I should try and listen to if I can receive multiple. Just the strongest/best or ?

- RWC
--- This thing is a tricky sucker to monitor. It's amazing how moving an antenna just a few inches affects reception so much, and almost no rhyme or reason to it. I can receive Simulcast A PD with a magmount 800mhz antenna on a pie plate on the floor, but not Simulcast B Fire. If I lift the pie plate up a few feet onto the table, B comes in, but A goes out. I know in some areas, people are bombarded by signals, but I'm pretty much surrounded by desert and would think I'd be out of the worst of that.

---- Any antenna recommendations? 800mhz? Or is a deaf dummy load one better? A directional yagi? One of those window HDTV antennas? A discone?

---- I can pick up quite a few different sites with various degrees of success.

------ Is there any tips for getting the errors down on a 396xt? I know that after a while it settles down to #6 on the decode, but I can't seem to manually set it there instead of the usual 8-11 even using freescan

------ I know not every TG is carried on every site normally, is there a cheat sheet for which site carries which? especially for the smaller agencies and VMRail, which seem to be on the smaller sites.

-- What are the FUN talkgroups to listen to? Any depts more interesting than others like Peoria or Glendale? Is 200 usually more interesting to listen to than 600? I stumbled onto a PSAP channel that had some pretty interesting stuff on it, and I remember the G deck was busy during NFL season games.

- FIRE/EMS
-- I'm really going to miss fireground monitoring. Is there really no way to pickup the A-Deck unless right on top of the incident?

-- Also are the K deck channels worth listening to? I haven't been around enough to hear any calls on 10-13.

-- Do you ever hear anything on the other misc K deck channels?

-- I can pick up Mesa B1 from SCW which is surprising! Not sure if I can hear any others. I think I can also hear a TOPAZ site.

-- I can hear Rural Metro Ch2 Alarm pretty well but sometimes it seems like there is an open mic on that channel for hours, even when I'm in other locations. I've noticed that on multiple radios. Is that common? Also what happened to channel 1?

-- AMR West and East comes in loud and clear

-- Circle City Morristown Volunteer FD came in once and took me by surprise.

-- I cut my teeth in the forests though, and with fire season starting already, can someone get me up to speed on monitoring brush and forest fires in the area?

--- Does PHX have a set comm plan? Out here we use national VFIRE channels for a lot of our work.

--- How are your air assets dispatched, like the phoenix pd helo with the bambi bucket? Is it on a specific PD freq?

--- Can I hear anything on the AZ Dept of Forestry and Fire channels? It seems like they don't have any stations of their own but they mention an Arizona Interagency Dispatch Center... is that something monitorable and is there a map of what areas are state forestry lands?

--- I was able to hear some traffic on BLM-WF-C Wildfire Repeater 172.572 and on a Tonto NF Mt Ord frequency. Are there any other forestry/brush channels I should have?

- Federal stuff
-- I'm guessing it's all encrypted... FBI, DEA and stuff... In LA I get lucky and hear some fun stuff like FPS now and then, but I doubt anything will be in the SCW area. Right?

- MilAir
-- I've never monitored military air/airports but I guess I'm right in the flight path of Luke AFB. I see jets overhead a lot. Is there a time of day/week they fly more often than others? I tried listening in and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm listening to, any websites or tips/tricks?

--- Is it better to listen to the tower or the RAPCON?

--- Should I just search the whole band for random stuff?

--- Should I devote one of my SDR's to 1090 since it seems ADSBexchange doesn't always have all of the jets as they fly over my place, and sometimes they show up, sometimes they disappear?

--- Is the Luke trunked system interesting to listen to? I sometimes get it clear, sometimes I don't.

- Misc
-- Is there anything else I'm missing that might be fun to listen to? I'm game for anything new because it seems like the best stuff is encrypted.


I won't lie, I miss LA when I'm there. I miss monitoring a fire with multiple radios set up on command and tacs, I miss monitoring a police perimeter with one radio on the SWAT/Crisis Negotiating team and the other on the Air Unit directing K9, I miss police pursuits and hearing units call out when they're about to do the PIT and having the air unit direct spike strip deployment, I miss hearing fire units go on scene and give their size ups and reports on conditions....

I know some people suggest getting an SDS100 but... I'm not really sure there is anything out there I want to listen to that I can't already, that'd be worth the money more than another SDR dongle or 2. So far I seem to just leave the radios on Fire A1, and Sheriff Northwest but I know there's gotta be better listening than that!

Thanks for reading and any tips/tricks/advice!

 

[GlobalNorth]

ADOT Enforcement? If you are a commercial vehicle driver, yes. If you aren't, it depends on if you like obscure agencies.

It's Arizona in the summer, so much of the state is burning - New River has its' own fire working right now; the Bush fire is the largest in the State; there is another fire burning out by WIttmann and Circle City, etc.

SCW has very few Federal facilities. The VA police are about the only thing.

LAFB is the training center for the F-35 and for foreign forces learning the F-16. If you like aviation, it's worth listening to, but it doesn't have the allure of a ACC facility. The frequencies are listed here in the database and are up to date.

The USFS forest fire stuff is best asked of Paysonscanner. She's the expert in wildland fires, since her husband used to work for the Feds doing that work. She posts a lot in this group.

I worked in LE for a time andI don't listen to it. Lots of the interesting stuff is on the MDC and I don't find police calls, surveillances, or barricades very interesting. So, I can't help there.

 

[KB7MIB]

AZWINS:
Sites in West-to-East travel order:
Yuma 1 & Yuma 2
Telegraph Pass
Tacna
Oatman Mountain
South Mountain & White Tanks

(I have White Tanks, South Mtn, Shaw Butte, and Thompson Peak for listening around the Valley.)

Talkgroups:
542 DPS District 4
540 DPS? (Was active during Trumps recent visit there. District 4 Tac?)
1014 DPS CI South
1115 ADOT Yuma
1116 ADOT Yuma 2?
1059 DPS Metro West
1017 DPS Metro West Tac
1013 DPS CI Central
1101 ADOT Phoenix Roadway (Valleywide)
1102 ADOT Phoenix Traffic Operations Center/Incident Response Unit (Valleywide)
1109 ADOT Enforcement Main
1108 ADOT Enforcement Tac

The DPS talkgroups may or may not be simulcasted with the UHF channels at any given time. You may want both.

I don't know if ADOT Enforcement still simulcasts between VHF-High and AZWINS, or if they're exclusively on AZWINS now. It won't hurt to have both.

You may or may not hear anything, but DPS Statewide and State Tac (both on 460.2250, 100.0 Hz Statewide & 151.4 Hz State Tac respectively) should also be included.

460.2750 (151.4 Hz) is CI 3/South and 460.5000 (100.0 Hz) is CI 2/Central.

If you're interested in FD's along the route. Yuma City FD, Wellton FD, and Tacna FD are all on AZWINS. I don't know if any of them, or if Rural-Metro, are still active in their conventional VHF-High and UHF channels. They can be found on the Yuma County page of the RRDB.

Gila Bend FD is on 155.0550.

If you're coming up 85 from Gila Bend, the Buckeye Valley Fire District and the City of Buckeye Fire Department are dispatched by Phoenix FD's RDC on 154.1900. Fire Tac will usually be on A-9, 155.6700, but could be assigned another channel if A-9 is already in use. A-6 will be the main channel once you cross Northern Ave going north. The A-deck simplex channels can be monitored. You just have to be within range of the incident to hear the on-scene communications, especially from the portable radios. Mobile radios can be heard further out. The higher your antenna, the greater your range will be.

Rural-Metro channel 1 is simplex, and channel 2 is the repeater. Both are 154.3700. You'll also want channel 9, 155.3850 which is their primary West Valley Ops channel. It's also a repeater.

VFire-21, 154.2800, is known as Fire Mutual-aid 4 here in the Valley, (it's in the channel 4 slot on most radios) and is used for multi-agency mutual-aid assignments, particularly on brush fires where state and federal assets may be found working with municipal departments.

Sun City West FD changed its name to North County Fire & Medical. Wittmann FD was absorbed by North County Fire & Medical. North County entered into an agreement with Sun Lakes FD and they became Arizona Fire & Medical Authority, AFMA. Tonopah FD is now also a part of the AFMA. They all fall under Phoenix FD's RDC.

K10-K13 may have the most exciting comms on the K-decks, but the others can sometimes be interesting as well. Sometimes, you can catch comms from a good (or bad, depending upon your point of view) accident on K6-K9. K14-K15 should be in your list as well. I've heard training on K15.

The miscellaneous K-deck talkgroups sometimes have activity. Sun City West, when it still was SCW, could occasionally be heard on their K-2. Hydrant checks, IIRC. Surprise is frequently active on there's, usually by the apparatus mechanics. (The individual department & district K2-K5 talkgroups may be getting re-labeled E2-E5, since that is apparently where they're actually at in the radios. Only the main Phoenix FD K2-K5's are in the K-deck.) Also, be sure to have A-15 active. I've heard inspectors/investigators on it, as well as training.
By the way, K5 is *supposed to be* encrypted, but I've heard it in the clear. So, K4 is the only for sure encrypted K-deck TG.

Yes, Circle City-Morristown FD can easily be heard in the Northwest Valley. I listen to them regularly. You may also be able to hear Wickenburg FD. I can barely hear them when the wind is blowing in the right direction.

AzDFFM (State Fire) is quite active, especially now with all of the brush fires. You definitely want them. The Bureau of Land Management fire as well, as they also frequently assist the municipal FD's with brush fires.

MCSO:

Yes, due to not having enough dispatchers to put one on every district channel, you will find the districts frequently multi-selected. So Southwest District 2 and Northwest District 3 will be handled simultaneously by the same dispatcher.
The White Tanks site should be the only one you'll need, although the Anthem/New River simulcast should be recieveable in SCW.

I frequently hear deputies on VTAC-12, using it as a car-to-car channel. Be sure to have all of the interoperability channels, VHF-Low/VHF-High/UHF/700 MHz/800 MHz, in your list. You never know what you'll hear.

The MCDOT REACT TG may be of interest. They assist MCSO and several PD's with roadway closures, just like ADOT's IRU does for DPS. The IRU and REACT also work together at times. (IRU used to be ALERT.)

The RWC and Municipal PD's:

Surprise PD is right next door. As is El Mirage PD. You may want them. Peoria PD and Glendale PD are a little farther out. All four can be heard on RWC Simulcast G. (Peoria PD and Surprise PD can be heard on the White Tanks site with no simulcast issues.) Along with Avondale PD, Tolleson PD, the Tohono O'Odham PD at Desert Diamond Casino West Valley (91st Ave and Northern Ave), and Phoenix PD's Black Mtn 200 Precinct, Maryvale/Estrella 800 Precinct, and Cactus Park 900 Precinct.

And of course most of the FD K-decks can be heard on Simulcast G. You don't need Simulcast B for most of them, except maybe K7. The Towers Mtn site usually (not necessarily full time) carries K1 and K6 with no simulcast issues.

For Phoenix PD other than 200/800/900, you will need Simulcast A. I don't know which precincts are busiest.

If you want the Light Rail, South Mountain and Thompson Peak (maybe Shaw Butte? I don't quite recall) carry those TG's, and you should be able to get at least one of them.

That's all for now.

John
Peoria

 

[Paysonscanner]

The USFS forest fire stuff is best asked of Paysonscanner. She's the expert in wildland fires, since her husband used to work for the Feds doing that work. She posts a lot in this group.

My late Hubby was a civil engineer for a county in California located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. He was also a volunteer firefighter for over 35 years. He went to some small, medium and large wildland fires when a mutual aid structural protection strike team of engines was sent from our town and others in our county. We lived in Cal Fire country. We had friends and neighbors who worked for Cal Fire, Cal Fish and Wildlife, the NPS and a couple USFS employees who lived in town, but worked stations out of town. My Daddy was a civil engineer for the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona, spent a couple of years as a seasonal survey aid and then got on permanent in 1951. As he says fire was every employee's responsibility when he started and he enjoyed bring involved to the last day of his career in 1987. I'm not an expert, I just pass on what Hubby taught me and what Daddy taught this Forest Service brat. Daddy is also very well read in natural resources management, he wanted to understand all the other agency functions and didn't confine his interests to engineering/surveying only. Hubby and I were also avid hikers, river runners and connoisseurs of the remote. We were very interested in public land issues. My expertise and career was in nursing, all of that in rural areas.

 

[GlobalNorth]

My late Hubby was a civil engineer for a county in California located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. He was also a volunteer firefighter for over 35 years. He went to some small, medium and large wildland fires when a mutual aid structural protection strike team of engines was sent from our town and others in our county. We lived in Cal Fire country. We had friends and neighbors who worked for Cal Fire, Cal Fish and Wildlife, the NPS and a couple USFS employees who lived in town, but worked stations out of town. My Daddy was a civil engineer for the U.S. Forest Service in Arizona, spent a couple of years as a seasonal survey aid and then got on permanent in 1951. As he says fire was every employee's responsibility when he started and he enjoyed bring involved to the last day of his career in 1987. I'm not an expert, I just pass on what Hubby taught me and what Daddy taught this Forest Service brat. Daddy is also very well read in natural resources management, he wanted to understand all the other agency functions and didn't confine his interests to engineering/surveying only. Hubby and I were also avid hikers, river runners and connoisseurs of the remote. We were very interested in public land issues. My expertise and career was in nursing, all of that in rural areas.

My apologies. I stand corrected.

 

[Mountain343]

ADOT Enforcement? If you are a commercial vehicle driver, yes. If you aren't, it depends on if you like obscure agencies.

Nope, did have a uhaul van though but was mostly looking for stuff on where accidents might be!

LAFB is the training center for the F-35 and for foreign forces learning the F-16. If you like aviation, it's worth listening to, but it doesn't have the allure of a ACC facility. The frequencies are listed here in the database and are up to date.

Great! Is the RAPCON worth listening to or is mostly just the Tower and other freqs? I've had my ears on the RAPCON and I mostly hear civilian stuff transiting around the base if I'm listening to it right.

AZWINS:
Sites in West-to-East travel order:
Yuma 1 & Yuma 2
Telegraph Pass
Tacna
Oatman Mountain
South Mountain & White Tanks

PERFECT Thanks!!! This really helped coming through.

AZWINS:
(I have White Tanks, South Mtn, Shaw Butte, and Thompson Peak for listening around the Valley.)

I'm guessing all sites are needed to be monitored or some tg's will be missed?

460.2750 (151.4 Hz) is CI 3/South and 460.5000 (100.0 Hz) is CI 2/Central.

Thx for the list! I tried googling/searching the forums, but couldn't really find any info on what the CI channels are though. Are these just tac's or are they used in some other way? The naming/info isn't really informative

The A-deck simplex channels can be monitored. You just have to be within range of the incident to hear the on-scene communications, especially from the portable radios. Mobile radios can be heard further out. The higher your antenna, the greater your range will be.

I think this is the one thing I'm going to miss the most. I spent most of my life in turnouts and brush gear and I guess I was just really spoiled by SoCal's repeaterized fireground traffic. Even living in Chicago, where dispatch wasn't available but FG was, still gave me a lot of joy listening. We did happen to be near Avondale and I was able to pick up traffic on A4 and A9 but it was definitely a matter of "ya gotta be LOS & Close!"

Rural-Metro channel 1 is simplex, and channel 2 is the repeater. Both are 154.3700. You'll also want channel 9, 155.3850 which is their primary West Valley Ops channel. It's also a repeater.

OH! So that's where Ch1 went... that was bugging me in the weirdest way.

VFire-21, 154.2800, is known as Fire Mutual-aid 4 here in the Valley, (it's in the channel 4 slot on most radios) and is used for multi-agency mutual-aid assignments, particularly on brush fires where state and federal assets may be found working with municipal departments.

Do you guys make alert notifications on VFIRE 21? In LA whenever a brush fire is dispatched in a mutual aid threat zone, an alert will go out over VFIRE21 "to all monitoring and cooperating agencies" to let them know and ask if they are also sending any resources. Often you can have LA City, County, and USFS and Verdugo agencies respond to the same 50x50 patch of grass so these alerts help a lot. Having almost everyone on Phx Alarm probably helps cut down on a lot of that though.

K10-K13 may have the most exciting comms on the K-decks, but the others can sometimes be interesting as well. Sometimes, you can catch comms from a good (or bad, depending upon your point of view) accident on K6-K9. K14-K15 should be in your list as well. I've heard training on K15.

The miscellaneous K-deck talkgroups sometimes have activity. Sun City West, when it still was SCW, could occasionally be heard on their K-2. Hydrant checks, IIRC. Surprise is frequently active on there's, usually by the apparatus mechanics. (The individual department & district K2-K5 talkgroups may be getting re-labeled E2-E5, since that is apparently where they're actually at in the radios. Only the main Phoenix FD K2-K5's are in the K-deck.) Also, be sure to have A-15 active. I've heard inspectors/investigators on it, as well as training.
By the way, K5 is *supposed to be* encrypted, but I've heard it in the clear. So, K4 is the only for sure encrypted K-deck TG.

i'll make sure to add K5 and listen in to the K's and E's then.

I frequently hear deputies on VTAC-12, using it as a car-to-car channel. Be sure to have all of the interoperability channels, VHF-Low/VHF-High/UHF/700 MHz/800 MHz, in your list. You never know what you'll hear.

Good to know! I'll add all of the NIFOG ones in as well as the ones listed on the Arizona Common/Shared and the AZ Spc Ops ones

The MCDOT REACT TG may be of interest. They assist MCSO and several PD's with roadway closures, just like ADOT's IRU does for DPS. The IRU and REACT also work together at times. (IRU used to be ALERT.)

Does MCDOT ALERT only handle unincorporated areas, or anywhere non-freeway? I noticed them in Avondale at the fire but the MCDOT website says MCDOT just deals with planning and stuff for unincorporated county area, so ... I'm a little unsure of the boundary/response area.

Surprise PD is right next door. As is El Mirage PD. You may want them. Peoria PD and Glendale PD are a little farther out. All four can be heard on RWC Simulcast G. (Peoria PD and Surprise PD can be heard on the White Tanks site with no simulcast issues.) Along with Avondale PD, Tolleson PD, the Tohono O'Odham PD at Desert Diamond Casino West Valley (91st Ave and Northern Ave), and Phoenix PD's Black Mtn 200 Precinct, Maryvale/Estrella 800 Precinct, and Cactus Park 900 Precinct.

And of course most of the FD K-decks can be heard on Simulcast G. You don't need Simulcast B for most of them, except maybe K7. The Towers Mtn site usually (not necessarily full time) carries K1 and K6 with no simulcast issues.

For Phoenix PD other than 200/800/900, you will need Simulcast A. I don't know which precincts are busiest.

If you want the Light Rail, South Mountain and Thompson Peak (maybe Shaw Butte? I don't quite recall) carry those TG's, and you should be able to get at least one of them.

I've made a cheat sheet with this info! Thanks. Seems like as I go around this area, ElM, Surprise, Glendale, and MCSo are going to be the main ones I come across.

The big question I have is, is it better to avoid Simulcast G due to the simulcast issues and try and listen to White Tanks and Towers as much as possible?

Appreciate the help!

 

[KB7MIB]

My replies are mixed in with your questions.

I'm guessing all sites are needed to be monitored or some tg's will be missed?

No, you don't need all of the sites. I have them all so I can hear them wherever I happen to be in the Valley.

~~~~

Thx for the list! I tried googling/searching the forums, but couldn't really find any info on what the CI channels are though. Are these just tac's or are they used in some other way? The naming/info isn't really informative

CI is Criminal Investigations. The UHF channels and their simulcast TG's are in the clear, but there are several more encrypted TG's on AZWINS. You may hear GIITEM troopers who use Zebra callsigns. They're the Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission. Tac troopers are SWAT trained. David are general investigations I believe. I think there's one or two others you may hear.

~~~~

I think this is the one thing I'm going to miss the most. I spent most of my life in turnouts and brush gear and I guess I was just really spoiled by SoCal's repeaterized fireground traffic. Even living in Chicago, where dispatch wasn't available but FG was, still gave me a lot of joy listening. We did happen to be near Avondale and I was able to pick up traffic on A4 and A9 but it was definitely a matter of "ya gotta be LOS & Close!"

I believe that Phoenix FD determined that simplex was the safest and most reliable method of a firefighter being heard by a command officer at a hazard scene (anywhere turnouts and/or SCBA are required), because their radio signal only had to travel the 10's of feet between them, rather than 10's of miles from the scene to a repeater, then back to the IC.

~~~~

Do you guys make alert notifications on VFIRE 21? In LA whenever a brush fire is dispatched in a mutual aid threat zone, an alert will go out over VFIRE21 "to all monitoring and cooperating agencies" to let them know and ask if they are also sending any resources. Often you can have LA City, County, and USFS and Verdugo agencies respond to the same 50x50 patch of grass so these alerts help a lot. Having almost everyone on Phx Alarm probably helps cut down on a lot of that though.

No, they don't do that here. They have telephones, or the PSAP East and West TG's on the RWC for that. (I don't think it matters whether you listen to East or West. Both carry the same transmissions.) Every PD and a few others each also have another PSAP-to-PSAP TG. I've rarely heard them in use, but I think those are used when a dispatcher wants to give regular updates to every other interested agency, without tying up the main Valley-wide PSAP TG's. (For example, if a pursuit remains in one city, they may use their own "agency to all Valley agencies" TG to give turn-by-turn updates on the suspect vehicle location to just the neighboring agencies who may want to be prepared if the suspect drives into their city. But agency's on the other side of the Valley don't necessarily need to hear it, and they can just monitor the main PSAP TG.)

By the way, I'm not in the public safety field. I'm just a fire buff and scanner hobbyist. (My dad was a fire police officer, providing crowd and traffic control at fire and accident scenes with a volunteer fire company back in PA, when I was a kid.) I'm also a Skywarn spotter, but I don't rank that up with actual first responders. So I'm not a part of the "you guys"

~~~~

i'll make sure to add K5 and listen in to the K's and E's then.

Right.

~~~~

Good to know! I'll add all of the NIFOG ones in as well as the ones listed on the Arizona Common/Shared and the AZ Spc Ops ones

Right again. On the RWC, G-deck and Ocean-deck are the clear interoperability talkgroups. H-deck is encrypted. L-deck is clear and is nominally for PFDRDC special events (such as the Waste Management Phoenix Open golf event each year) but I've heard LEA interoperability operations as well once every third blue moon.

~~~~

Does MCDOT ALERT only handle unincorporated areas, or anywhere non-freeway? I noticed them in Avondale at the fire but the MCDOT website says MCDOT just deals with planning and stuff for unincorporated county area, so ... I'm a little unsure of the boundary/response area.

MCDOT maintains roadways in unincorporated areas, as well as coordinates planning with ADOT and municipal streets departments. REACT (Regional Emergency Action Coordination Team) contracts with MCSO and many municipalities around the Valley to provide traffic control, as well as to perform road closures at major incidents, helping to free up deputies and officers. I think all but Phoenix, actually, contract to MCDOT REACT for this. REACT covers the surface streets, while ADOT IRU covers the state, US, and interstate highways. (To include Grand Ave, which is US 60.) (Scottsdale may have its own REACT unit in their streets department. They seem to use Ocean deck for their operations. I've heard them especially when ADOT has to close the 101 Pima freeway anywhere in Scottsdale.) MCDOT REACT (and Scottsdale REACT) will coordinate with ADOT IRU when necessary to facilitate a smooth transition of traffic from an ADOT roadway to city surface streets and back again.

~~~~

I've made a cheat sheet with this info! Thanks. Seems like as I go around this area, ElM, Surprise, Glendale, and MCSo are going to be the main ones I come across.

And Peoria.

~~~~

The big question I have is, is it better to avoid Simulcast G due to the simulcast issues and try and listen to White Tanks and Towers as much as possible?

No, only a few specific talkgroups will be heard on the White Tanks and Towers Mtn sites. PFDRDC K1 is sometimes on Towers Mtn, K2 is on the White Tanks as well as Thompson Peak full time I believe, and K6 is sometimes heard on Towers Mtn. Peoria PD A1 is on the White Tanks full time, and sometimes on Towers Mtn, and Surprise PD A1 is on the White Tanks full time. Those would be the main ones you would hear. You would miss Glendale PD, Tohono O'Odham PD, El Mirage PD, Avondale PD, and Tolleson PD in their entirety. Also, most of the other K-decks. I think only Interoperability G-1 would be heard on White Tanks. You'd miss the other 14 G-deck TG's. I think the 16 Ocean deck TG's may be more likely to be heard on White Tanks and South Mtn than on the simulcasts sites. I keep the interoperability and PSAP talkgroups in a separate list for this reason, using Simulcast G as well as the White Tanks and South Mtn IR High sites.

Appreciate the help!

You're welcome.

John
Peoria