SBC Tac 15 (Santa Barbara County) 155.9700

[KK6ZTE]

I've been hearing activity on SBC Tac 15 intermittently on Santa Barbara County Tac 15 from Arroyo Grande. The tone is correct, and the only licensed user I can find in SLO and SB counties is Santa Barbara County.

On license KJP462, location 7 is in Cuyama valley and has an FX1 for SBC Command 1 (dispatch), a fixed base (FB) and a mobile relay (FB2) on "Tac 15" 155.9700. In all the official documentation I can find, 155.9700 simplex is Tac 15 with a tone of 100.0.

Does anyone in the Cuyama valley have any experience with Tac 15 actually being a repeater or remote base? The traffic I hear is sporadic but has the audio processing "feel" associated with a repeater or remote base. This particular license doesn't have any MO stations on it, just base stations and control stations. The address associated with the transmitters is Cuyama Elementary / School District.

I've got feelers into Santa Barbara county comms but I can't find anything documented. All my inside info shows this as just a simplex frequency but it's not adding up

EDIT: This license also has a mobile relay licensed on the input of Command 4 (156.135). I'm wondering if this is all some scheme to get better coverage into the Cuyama valley on SBC's decrepit system.

 

[ko6jw_2]

If you dig down in the FCC admin. logs you will find an entry from 12/02/2019 which says :

"Base operation on a mobile only channel is authorized to operate on a secondary basis pursuant to rule 90.173(h)."

Apparently there is a base station at Fire Station 27 (ex 41) on 155.970MHz.

KJP462 is only one of many licenses and it seems to be a miscellaneous catch all group. Not the main license.

There will be some improvements to the SB County system over the next couple of years. They are trying to improve frequency stability to reduce phase distortion.

Command 3 is the main frequency used in North County. Coverage in Cuyama is much better that it used to be from Plowshare Peak.

About 40 years ago I was asked by a battalion chief what could be done to improve radio coverage in the back country. I suggested that they look at grabbing some of the 33MHz channels being vacated by Los Angeles FD. He seemed dubious and of course they didn't do it. Too bad. Would have been a great system.

 

[KK6ZTE]

It's interesting that that entry is so recent. What is odd is that the listed address is in Cuyama while 27 is in New Cuyama (and is getting a new station).

I'll have to take a drive out there sometime and see what's going on.

Side note regarding the new station:

The new facility would support firefighters from the County Fire Department and associated entities, as well as from CALFire and the U.S.F.S.

Source

 

[SBSteve]

155.970 was originally going to be the input to the Command 5 simulcast repeaters. Due to a conflict with VNC at the Rincon site, 155.970 was replaced with 155.130 and 155.970 was relegated to a mobile only that became TAC 15, except at the New Cuyama site. The site is in New Cuyama at the High School. The new facility discussed is simply a new building to replace the old Fire Station 27 (which use to be designated Fire Station 41). At certain elevations/distances and within line-of-site of the New Cuyama site you will hear the dispatch channel (153.770) on 155.970. The current status of 155.970 is not aiding coverage in the Cuyama Valley and I wouldn't expect that to change until the contracted vendor completes their system analysis, which could be a year or more.

 

[KK6ZTE]

Very interesting, thank you. Is it just a repeat of the dispatch channel (using Ch 1 output as input)?

 

[SBSteve]

That’s the only thing I can figure, but what I’m not putting together is why the FX1 control station (154.250) which is the input to (153.770)? I’m guessing this is some sort of test system? It’s been many years since I payed attention to this stuff but the original plan was to put all six repeater pairs on Pelato Peak as a solution to the Eastern Cuyama Valley coverage issues. The microwave links have been licensed between Pelato and Plowshare but I never saw any frequency licensing. I’ve also never seen any microwave licensing to the High School site but maybe there’s a telco link. Even with the eventual Pelato installations, it would still make since to have a receive site at the High School for hand held radio support. And I’m still confused and now interested in what the 155.970 thing is accomplishing. I haven’t herd any discussion by SBC personnel about using it. ???