hey, i used to live in the okanagan. the reason that the oliver repeater may be silent alot of the time is due to it being used for a small town, as well if a user is not talking or dispatch is not talking the frequency will be quiet.
plug in all of the north and southeast district repeaters that others have indicated for the okanagan in this link:
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Scanner Frequencies and Radio Frequency Reference
if you are scanning these frecuencies i garuentee you should hear something. from that area with a decent outdoor antenna you should be able to hear RCMP action from the canada/us boarder to kelowna, possibly even RPTR H located on a high mountian near falkland, and some stuff towards princeton and maybe even some of the hiway patrol on 97c, i would even throw in 156.800mhz (marine vhf ch 16) and even BC ambulance, and bc forest service freqs. there is LOTS of analoug/conventional stuff in the okanagan to listen to. i cant really remember what the kelowna city rcmp repeater is, but i think that it is either 139.560, or 139.590, do a search from 150.00 to 174.000, most stuff in the okanagan is vhf, there is some uhf, mostly commercial stuff in the 450-470. i think silver star ski patrol is on 452.6375, if you have a good view north you may hear that repeater too, and lots of ham stuff to:
NORAC is centered in Vernon in , in the okanagan repeater listing they have most of the repeaters in the okanagan listed. if you have any questions please pm me, it has been a few years since i lived there but i know i always had lots to listen with no more than a Vhf radio
if you need help with an outdoor antenna go to:
omega communications, PENTICTON
2384 Government St.
Penticton, B.C. V2A 4W6
Phone 250-492-7272
Fax 250-490-9516
or find a ham radio dealer, like comwest in vancouver