San Antonio News Media all go silient together in Jan 2012 - Why?

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Michael-SATX

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Does anybody find it odd that in the month of Jan 2012 we no longer hear our 3 remaining news media crews?
They used to all key up covering breaking stories and to cue up "live shots" during daily nightly news casts.
It's very strange these 3 all go silient all in the same month ~ hmm, ha it must be a conspiracy theory ... lol

KENS-TV Sky-5 on 455.0500/146.2 fired their news director and dumped their leased helicopter I heard for their reason.

KSAT-TV Sky-12 on 450.6125/151.4 just went pQQf in Jan too ... hope their not using LTR PP like WOAI Sky-4

KABB-TV 29 News Crew also went pQQf in Jan 2012 on APC LTR TRS TG # 0-04-040 HR4 of 860.6125 .

WOAI Highway Traffic Reports went silient almost a year ago on Ind.Comm SSA LTR TRS TG=0-02-166 HR=451.8625 .

WOAI-TV Sky-4 is on Ind.Comm LTR Passport LTR - During the day forget it to many service companies with non-stop yapping ... during flight while they are covering a news story you can try scanning HR's of 463.6625 & 452.9750 w/no delay to lessen the obnoxious and rapid LTR Passport data bursts. I leave them locked out and have manually sat on them with success later at night when several service companies are not constantly transmiting like they are during the daytime monday thru friday,etc.

ps~Lets us use our collective resources and find what these valuable groups now use !
With hardly any SAPD Fleetwide Code3 calls (E-tones) in analog since using the new call center at Brooks,
and now the news media all silient we just might all have to actually watch the news to get the scoop ?
So do we have any voluteers to troll LTR Passport systems and run some agressive close-call campaigns ?
 
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Michael-SATX

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Update: After weeks of silence I finally hear some traffic Monday evenning and later before the 10pm news
for KSAT-TV Sky-12 on 450.6125 /PL=151.4 ... OK now it would be GREat to also hear CH-5 & 29 again
and most likely a big breaking story will the telling tale if KENS-5 and KABB-29 will show up where they were
or somewhere new ? example: KENS-TV Sky-5 went from 455.5500 when they owned their helo, however,
when they switched to leasing their helo their transmissions switched to 455.0500. Stay tunned as they say :)
 

Michael-SATX

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Hey Scrotumola they may have either the same helo or a different helocopter
which is good info, however, I wonder why their 455.0500 repeater has been silent
for about 3 weeks now ? Hmm, could their repeater perhaps have been knocked out
by a thunder storm and or lightning and just simply awaiting parts to be repaired ?

btw ~ All I heard Mon and again Tue night was KSAT-TV Sky-12 news and their usual traffic.
I've got 2 scanners at 2 different locations with counters lQQking for activity from CH5 & CH29 !
And so far no hits from KENS-5 & KABB-29 News Crews since very early Jan 2012.
Does anybody in high or better yet low places know the scoop to help solve the mystery ?
Please send me a PM if you wish to remain anonymous by not having to post here in the forum ;)
 
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scrotumola

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I've heard them operating simplex in the past to avoid interference with other broadcast pick-up operations.
When I did radio traffic reports back in the 80's and 90's, we often had to turn our repeaters off or monitor reverse only and operate simplex to avoid Marti interference. In extreme cases, we had Marti's from the Hou and/or DFW market overriding some of our feeds!.

~S~
 

mongoose

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Hearing KSAT working camera shots at what sounded like an accident w/ their helo. Base said we'll see you back at 10pm.
 

Michael-SATX

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Mongoose thanks, that is KSAT's typical traffic. ps~ How did you manage only 5 posts in 10 years on RR ?
Scrotumola, I will also try programming KENS-TV Sky -5's repeater input freq of 450.0500 and monitor it.
If by chance they are only operating in simplex mode now, I may hear them but random or weak at best.
 

Michael-SATX

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Update: after approximately more than a month of silence, today low and behold what do I hear this afternoon
but our gool old KABB-TV 29 News Crew on the APC LTR standard TRS TG # 0-04-040 HR4 of 860.6125.

Also,last week, I had noticed a solid key WAS going on for several days recently like a bad controller or something.
When tunning to HR4 860.6125 in analyz mode is would instantly read HR4, no blips, just a dead key carrier, etc

Summary, 2 News stations back, 1 (KENS-TV Sky5) still AWOL on their last know freq on 455.0500 w/ PL=146.2.
 
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Michael-SATX

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Update: Yesterday, I finally heard KENS TV Sky-5 Helo on 455.5500 w/146.2 PL during the 6:00 Newscast.

note: This was their old freq used until about 3 years ago before they switched to 455.0500 w/146.2 PL tone.
The 455.0500 freq went silient back about the first week in Jan 2012, it's GREat to see them
surface again ... well that is until they read this thread ... lol
 

Michael-SATX

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Update on Media Monitoring in San Antonio:
A company called "News1" or "NewsOne" seems to have struck a deal with both KENS-5 and KSAT-12
news departments to supply "Sky News Feeds" of breaking news stories and even "beauty shots" & more.
One side of the leased helicopter the logo says "Sky-5 News" and on the other side it says "Sky-12 News".
So the pilot can flip around his choppers facing depending on the needs of KENS-5 TV or KSAT-12 TV etc.
I have been meaning to report that the "News1" news media reporting contractor recently surfaced using
the older KENS-5 freq of 455.5500 w/ 146.2 PL that has not been used in approx 3+ years and not 455.0500
w 146.2 PL that had been previously used for the last 3 years since they went silent back in early Jan 2012.
So just a few weeks ago "News1" switched from using the older KENS-5 freq of 455.5500 w/ 146.2 PL
to the KSAT-12 News repeater of 450.6125 w/ 151.4 PL for whatever reason ~ maybe better coverage ?

Anyway, that's my update on the saga of the News Media monitoring in SATX, and yes KABB-29 Fox News
has still not been heard from since mid Feb 2012 on their old TG # 0-04-040 on the APC 800 Mhz LTR TRS.
Amazingly bazar is that their old Home Repeater freq of 860.61250 still has a 24 hr a day solid dead key
from the repeater controller that has been going on for 5 months straight now. Are the APC company radio techs
on the ball or what ? If it was a Fox-29 News radio malfunction, then you would see their TG # 0-04-040 displayed
instead of just "HR4" in TSYS Analyz Mode. LTR Analyzer reports only a constant system function of 0-04-255 .
I was thinking since rebanding and freq re-allocating that their old HR freq of 860.6125 is now not allowed
to be valid as it is above 860.xxxx. All the other 860.xxxx freqs were dropped as being LCN's for this TRS
So I even lQQked for Fox News to show as either a different talkgroup and or a new or other home repeater
freq, however, so far there is no sign of them and the other freqs still say that LCN # 4 is valid and free, etc.
What a laugh that is, my guess it's either a bad controller that is the cause of this dead key or APC made a move
to purposely "busy up" this reapeater perhaps to deny Fox News usage or some other strange unknown reason ?
However, one would think that if Fox News Crews keyed up and HR4 was busy, the system would simply direct
their talkgroup / traffic to another available channel ... so that kind of blows one of my theories ... Got any guesses ?
 
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Michael-SATX

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kkn50, Here is what I have personally captured which I have in it's own scanlist in my Pro-106 scanner .

News1-Sky5+Sky12 450.612500 FM CTCSS 151.4 (This is the only one that's active for 1/mo. was 455.5500 )
News1-Sky5+Sky12 455.550000 FM CTCSS 146.2 (This was active, but News1 moved to 450.6125 1/mo ago )
KENS-5 News-Sky5 455.050000 FM CTCSS 146.2 (This went silient by KENS-Sky5 in Jan 2012)
WOAI-4 Sky4 LTRP 463.662500 FM LTR-Passport (Hard to RX Sky4 due to others and LTR-PP)
WOAI-4 News Feed 455.212500 FM None-CSQ (rare use in WFM/CSQ early AM&PM news)
WOAI-AM LiveFeed 455.150000 FM None-CSQ (a pretty strong feed from WOAI-1200 AM)
KABB-29 NewsRoom 169.505000 FM None-CSQ (low pwr mics need to be near L410 studio)
760-AM RemoteMic 151.422500 FM None-CSQ (remote live broadcasting going to van uplink )
KABB-29 NewsCrew 860.612500 LTR-HR4* (stuck LTR HR4, no news crews since Feb.2012)
WOAI Traffic Reports 451.862500 LTR-HR2* (This TG#0-02-166 went silient 3-4 ish yrs ago )
MetroSky Traffic Old 455.087500 PL=71.9 (King Castleberry Cesna guy-ha, silient 5+ yrs)

ps ~ How is that for a list ? ( I even tossed in some blasts from the past ~ some will say " Oh yeah .... etc" )

btw ~ I trust that you have these active, used daily, car to car VHF PD Tac freqs programmed in your unit ?

HCVillage PD Tac 159.465000 FM CTCSS= 203.5
Hollywood PD Tac 155.760000 FM DCS = 114
 
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