SDG&E Talkgroups

[SkipSanders]

SDG&E trunk system, recent talkgroup activity:

System:

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. Trunking System, None, California - Scanner Frequencies

SDG&E Talkgroups

Group		Use	 			        hits
16	 	Unknown	 				3
48		Center City / Metro	 		1
80	 	Eastern OM	 			1
112	 	Station Y	 			60
144	 	Distribution - Stn A	 		223
176		Transmission - Stn A	 		1
208		Electric Ops	 			1
240		Emergency Trouble South - Stn M	        609
272		Mountain Empire OM	 		72
304	 	Mission Control	 			18
336	 	Kearny - TCM	 			1
368	 	Unknown	 				3
400	 	Unknown	 				1
432	 	Unknown	 				3
464	 	Unknown	 				1
528	 	North Coast OM	 			1
560	 	Distribution - North	 		1
592	 	Unknown	 				1
624	 	Transmission North - Stn Y	 	113
656	 	Distribution North - Stn L	 	674
688	 	Outages North	 			11
720	 	Emergency - Brush Fires	 	        1
752	 	Station L	 			1650
784	 	Distribution - Ramona	 		18
816	 	Unknown	 				1
880	 	Unknown	 				1
912	 	Unknown	 				1
1040	 	Gas	 				164
1072	 	Gas	 				169
1104	 	Unknown	 				1
1136	 	Unknown	 				5
1168	 	Station Y	 			205
1200	 	Gas South	 			263
1232	 	Station Y	 			110
1264	 	Unknown	 				40
1296	 	Computer Help Desk	 		35
1328	 	Unknown	 				4
1360	 	Unknown	 				1
1392	 	Unknown	 				2
1552	 	Unknown	 				1
1584	 	Security Control	 		1
1616	 	Unknown	 				1
1648	 	Unknown	 				1
1712	 	Unknown	 				1
1744	 	Unknown	 				3
1776	 	Unknown	 				1
1808	 	Unknown	 				1
1840	 	Unknown	 				1
1872	 	Unknown	 				1
2064	 	Unknown	 				1

SDG&E uses a lot of Multicasting/Patching, apparently semi-automatic.

Several talkgroups will multicast at times, and not at others, changing minute to minute.

656 and 752, 144 and 240, 1040 and 1072 are examples.

SDG&E Radio Codes and Identifiers (As of 1980, but probably unchanged)

800 Message Received
801 Routine Assignment
802 Urgent Assignment
803 Any Assignment? (Give location)
804 Nothing For You
805 Cancel Last Assignment
806 What Is Your Location?
807 Repeat Message
809 Call By Phone
810 Stand By
811 In Service (Give location)
812 Out Of Service (Give location)
813 Job Progress
814 Too Weak To Read (Change location)
888 Emergency Code

Station A – Station A
Carlesbad – Station O
Eastern Operations – Station E
Escondido Operations – Station S
Gas Control – Station C
Kearny Mesa Electric – Station Q
Mission – Station M
Mt. Empire – Station X
Orange County Operations – Station R
Plant Construction – Construction
San Luis Rey – Station L
Trouble – Station Y

 

[SkipSanders]

Some further useful information on SDG&E:

Circuit Locations

63 SOLANA BEACH, RHO SANTA FE S, LOMAS SANTA FE
68 CARMEL VALLEY, FAIRBANKS RANCH
72 EL CAJON
83 LA MESA, SAN CARLOS
103 BAY PARK
114 HARBOR HEIGHTS
176 NORTH POWAY, SOUTH POWAY, GREEN VALLEY
177 POWAY
210 WARNER SPRINGS, AGUA CALIENTE
229 MIRA MESA
258 CHULA VISTA
291 RHO BERNARDO, LAKE HODGES S
296 SAN MARCOS
311 LAGUNA NIGUEL, MONARCH BEACH
350 LILAC, COUSERCANYON S, COUSERCANYON
358 ALPINE W, VIEJAS, VICTORIA
382 TIERRASANTA
434 SCRIPPS MIRAMAR RANCH
438 MIRA MESA, SCRIPPS MIRAMAR RANCH
443 SAN YSIDRO
452 ESCONDIDO NE
456 ESCONDIDO
463 SAN YSIDRO, CHULA VISTA S
468 CENTER CITY, DOWNTOWN
487 OCEANSIDE
500 RANCHO PENASQUITOS
512 SOLANA BEACH, DEL MAR, EDEN GARDENS
516 ESCONDIDO
517 ESCONDIDO
588 CARLSBAD
590 SUNNYSIDE, RANCHO DEL REY, EASTLAKE
703 MISSION VLY, NORTH PARK
745 SORRENTO VALLEY
774 CLAIREMONT, KEARNY MESA
775 CLAIREMONT, KEARNY MESA
797 LAGUNA NIGUEL
831 CARMEL VALLEY, MIRA MESA
850 VISTA S
944 RHO DEL REY
975 RAMONA
986 ORTEGA
988 LADERA
1117 CARLSBAD
1153 MIRA MESA
1166 DEHESA
1290 RHO BERNARDO
1768 MISSION VIEJO, LAGUNA HILLS

Not all circuits listed, these are the ones capable of being automatically shut down for rolling blackouts, plus a few I happen to know. You can watch the map below to catch and add other circuit numbers as they fail. The circuits on the rolling blackout list on the the Rotating Outage Status page available from the below page can be clicked on to get a detailed pdf map of the individual circuit's boundaries.

On the net, you can see the location of any outages here:

Outage Map

 

[inigo88]

I have been monitoring this system, and this thread is worth resurrecting.

I can confirm the following talkgroups are still multi-selected by the dispatchers when answering calls:

144 and 240, 656 and 752, 1040 and 1072. I also saw 112, 272 and a bunch of higher numbered Station Y talkgroups all multi-selected all at once.

Furthermore, all the SDG&E talkgroups I've seen so far on the San Diego-Imperial County RCS are patched to the 900 MHz system. In fact all the transmissions I've seen so far are just simulcasts of talkgroups from the SDG&E 900 MHz system. For example:

RCS 800 MHz ==> SDG&E 900 MHz

TG 28432 "SDGE Electric" (RCS) ==> TG 240 "Emergency Troublemen South/Station M" (SDGE 900)
TG 28464 "SDGE Transm Ops/Pole Const" (RCS) ==> TG 656 "Distribution North/Station L" (SDGE 900)
TG 28624 "SDGE Sunrise" (RCS) ==> TG 1392 (SDGE 900)

I'm sure there are more! Anyway, this may help shed some light on talkgroup usage.

It can get confusing, since the SDG&E dispatchers temporarily multi-select multiple talkgroups on the 900 MHz system when replying. For example workers will call dispatch on TG 144 on the 900 MHz system. Dispatch will answer on TG 240 but will patch TG 144 and TG 240 together for the duration of his reply by multi-selecting them. Worker will hear dispatch on 900 MHz TG 144 since it's multi-selected with TG 240, but dispatcher's reply will also be simulcast through the RCS on TG 28432. After transmitting the dispatcher terminates the patch and TG 144 is once again separate from TG 240 (which is permanently patched across systems to RCS TG 28432). The worker replies on 900 MHz TG 144. Throughout this exchange the dispatcher and worker hear each other, but anyone monitoring on RCS TG 28432 would only hear the dispatcher, and would never hear the worker's initial call or reply on 900 MHz TG 144.

That's a pretty weird way of doing things!

 

[WayneH]

This is more for reference but it might be of some use. It's the radio programming from the old EDACS 800 system.

1. TCC (Telecom)
2. UNIV A ("Station F" - V.M.)
3. SCRTY (Security / "Sta A")
4. UNIV B
5. UNIV C
6. EXPAN1 (Expansion/Mission Valley)
7. EXPAN2
8. KY SUB ("Kearny" Mesa Sub)
9. KY TCM (Kerny Telecom?)
10. MS (Transmission / "Sta M")
11. DS S1 (Distribution / "Sta A")
12. DS S2
13. DS S3
14. ETM S (Emergency Troublemen South / "Sta Y")

20. BC OM (Beach Cities - Operations & Maint[or Mgmt?] / "Sta B")
21. EC OM (East Cities / "Eastern")
22. ME OM (Mt Empire)
23. SY OM (South Bay)
24. NC OM (North Coast / "Sta O")
25. NE OM (Northeast? / "Sta S")
26. OC OM (Orange County? / "Sta R")

28. E-O-C (Emerg Ops Center)

30. ETM N (Emerg Troublemen North / "Sta Y")
31. DS N1 (Distribution North / "Sta L")
32. DS N2
33. DS N3
34. POWER
35. P CTR
36. PM N (Pole Maint North)
37. PM M (Pole Maint Metro)
38. PC N (Pole Const North)
39. PC M (Pole Const Metro)

43. GSVCA (Gas Svc A)
44. GSVCB
45. G OPS ("Sta C")
46. GSVCC ("Northern")
47. GSEXP (Gas Expansion)
48. MTR N (Meters North)
49. MTR M (Meters Metro)

 

[inigo88]

This is fantastic! Thanks a lot! Based on what I've been able to find elsewhere the alpha tags have pretty much stayed the same on the 900 MHz system so this is an excellent reference!

 

[WayneH]

From my old monitoring (of the 900 system) it sounds like the aliases are prefixed with the standard zone number and character channel. Like 1A, 2C, etc. I would hear them call the channels by that with no reference to channel alias name.

 

[inigo88]

From my old monitoring (of the 900 system) it sounds like the aliases are prefixed with the standard zone number and character channel. Like 1A, 2C, etc. I would hear them call the channels by that with no reference to channel alias name.

Ah you're right, for the longest time I didn't hear them reference the channel names at all. Finally I heard them identify talkgroup 624 as "2G" and talkgroup 656 as "2H." However the EDACS alpha tags are still very helpful in identifying the context (and the dispatch station names appear to be unchanged as well).

So far I think tg 656 is correctly identified as 2H - DS N1 ("Station L"). However I believe tg 240 is actually DS S1 ("Station A"). This is both because the dispatcher identifies as Station A (not M) and because of the context of the radio traffic.

 

[WayneH]

The #letter tags in the DB mostly came from me (wow, the DB hasn't been updated in a long time) so they should be accurate. But my station naming is from back in the late 90's so there's a huge chance the dispatcher has changed.

But, channels in the "1" zone appear to be South area and "2" looks like North. They don't appear to follow the groups from the old system (if you go by the gaps in channel numbers). Maybe 3 is Gas Ops. I never listened to them as they bored me so I don't know if they use them.

Ah you're right, for the longest time I didn't hear them reference the channel names at all. Finally I heard them identify talkgroup 624 as "2G" and talkgroup 656 as "2H." However the EDACS alpha tags are still very helpful in identifying the context (and the dispatch station names appear to be unchanged as well).

So far I think tg 656 is correctly identified as 2H - DS N1 ("Station L"). However I believe tg 240 is actually DS S1 ("Station A"). This is both because the dispatcher identifies as Station A (not M) and because of the context of the radio traffic.

 

[inigo88]

The Station letters have definitely changed. All the distribution south stuff is dispatched by "Station A," while the distribution north stuff is dispatched by "Station L." Earlier in this thread Skip said Station L is the San Luis Rey substation in Oceanside. I'm guessing Station A is whatever their headquarters is downtown. The only reference I could find to Station A online with regards to SDG&E (obviously SDPD is also called Station A) is that it was the name of their old headquarters building that was demolished to build PETCO Park, so presumably they held onto the name out of tradition.

My original reasoning was that the primary distribution channel was the talkgroup ID the dispatcher originated from (as the "super group" in Unitrunker speak - the talkgroup ID the other talkgroups are patched into). For instance a worker calls Station A on talkgroup 144, and Station A answers on talkgroup 240 (with 144 being patched to 240). However I realized that might just be the way the console was set up (there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way console patching is done sometimes), so that original reason was probably incorrect. I re-evaluated based on which talkgroups the field units call up on, and got this:

144 - "1H" (DS S1) - Distribution South 1 ("Station A") (Dispatch multi-selects with TG 240)
656 - "2H" (DS N1) - Distribution North 1 ("Station L") (Dispatcher multi-selects with TG 752)

Also I've had a chance to monitor more of the "Station Y" (Trouble) talkgroups. I've seen 112, 272, 624, and possibly 1040 and 1072 all multi-selected at once by the station Y dispatcher.

112 - I think this is "1G." I believe whatever channel "2G" (TG 624) is in the North zone 2, this is the corresponding talkgroup in South zone 1.

624 - "2G." Heard emergency crews working downed powerlines or some kind of power outage in Escondido, requiring traffic control and some kind of HAZMAT call out, talking to Station Y. So this could be Northeast OM (Operations & Maintenance) given the fact that it was multi-selected with the Mt Empire OM talkgroup 272, or it could just be the general "Emergency Troublemen" North talkgroup.

1040 - Gas Services South? Heard station Y dispatch a broken gas main on College Ave in San Diego.
1072 - Station Y, gas related... possibly the equivalent - Gas Services North?

Edit: This evening most of the traffic I've heard on 1040, 1072, 1200 and 1232 are just workers asking Station Y "803" (do you have any additional assignments for me?) and Station Y says nope have a good evening.

One thing is for sure, 112 and 624 are electrical trouble related while 1040 and 1072 are gas trouble related... all handled by the same "Station Y" dispatcher. Gas Ops is pretty boring (as is the rest of the system), I just like solving the mystery.

 

[WayneH]

My original reasoning was that the primary distribution channel was the talkgroup ID the dispatcher originated from (as the "super group" in Unitrunker speak - the talkgroup ID the other talkgroups are patched into). For instance a worker calls Station A on talkgroup 144, and Station A answers on talkgroup 240 (with 144 being patched to 240). However I realized that might just be the way the console was set up (there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the way console patching is done sometimes), so that original reason was probably incorrect. I re-evaluated based on which talkgroups the field units call up on, and got this:

144 - "1H" (DS S1) - Distribution South 1 ("Station A") (Dispatch multi-selects with TG 240)
656 - "2H" (DS N1) - Distribution North 1 ("Station L") (Dispatcher multi-selects with TG 752)

The dispatcher could see which TG the field unit is coming in on, click it on their display, and answer the unit there. Since you mention MSEL's, are you seeing patches too, or both?

 

[inigo88]

I am seeing both the Multi-Select status bit during the call ("MS" at the far right in Unitrunker) as well as a patch defined in the "Patches" page. Watching the patches page in real time, the patch is instated, dispatcher replies, patch is cleared and then the unit replies on the originating talkgroup. For example:

SuperID: 240, SubID: 144. The dispatchers transmission originates on tg 240 and 144 is slaves to it.
SuperID: 656, SubID: 752. This time, the unit and dispatcher both use 656, but every transmission made by the dispatcher on 656 is MSEL'd with 752.

I can take a look at the system with Trunk88 if you'd like, since Unitrunker isn't the best at displaying a lot of the system nuances in real time. I think I have a pretty good handle on the difference between an MSEL and a patch, but would you mind explaining it?

I have seen MSELs in the past where the dispatcher simulcasts on two separate talkgroups using two separate voice frequencies at once, and that's not what's happening in this case. Instead, the unit calls on tg 144. The dispatcher answers on tg 240 with a multiselect status bit and the previously mentioned 144 -> 240 patch, which is dropped at the end of his transmission. The unit then replies normally on tg 144.

Hope that was more clear.

 

[WayneH]

I can take a look at the system with Trunk88 if you'd like, since Unitrunker isn't the best at displaying a lot of the system nuances in real time. I think I have a pretty good handle on the difference between an MSEL and a patch, but would you mind explaining it?

A MSEL is meant to be one-way for the duration of the console's call. A patch is meant for two-way communication and to be long term (in terms of a day, several hours or more).

How they're created can vary based on the console. And they could be pre-defined or the console may have the ability to set them up ad hoc.

 

[inigo88]

In that case these would definitely qualify as MSELs, and I think these ones are pre-defined in random order (which is what confused me originally about whether 144 or 240 was the 1H channel).

In a related case, I think the MSELs for San Diego Fire Department on the city system are created ad hoc. Sometimes they would go out on "Admin 7A", sometimes on "Dispatch 7B" and sometimes on talkgroup 4688. This created a lot of confusion before scanner manufacturers started making scanners that could follow talkgroup patching. Of course really all three were being MSEL'd, and I think the determination of the "Super ID" was as simple as which channel the dispatcher pressed first on their radio screen.

 

[inigo88]

SDG&E system updated to reflect these findings, and some additionally discovered sites.