STARS Update

[John]

Anything new happening with STARS? I haven't heard of any new sites coming on line in quite some time. I know they were having some quality of work issues at sites (antenna installation, etc) and also some hardware glitches with the mobile units. Is everything working now in the 2 divisions that have it? Any ideas on how they are progressing compared with their published schedule?

John

 

[tglendye]

I knew they were having some difficulties and are/ were working those out. It looks like Culpeper should be the next VSP division to go to STARS. Their talk-groups have been dead from what I have heard, and I do a search for new towers in the Harrisonburg area every week or so and haven't come up w/ anything new here.

 

[cj57548]

Culpeper STARS

I was sitting there listening last night and I suddenly realized I was listening to Culpeper VSP in stereo. Conventional channel on the left, STARS on the right. First time I've had that happen. STARS was TG 19.

I'm about 20 miles south of Culpeper. I'm starting to hear more radio tech traffic off the Fork Mountain tower. I have logged, but not actually heard Talkgroups 17 and 18 also. It looks like they are being used mainly at night and not very often.

On another STARS note, this morning TG 107 was very active. TG 82 has been busy also.

EA

 

[fmon]

I heard a conversation on TG 82 a couple of days ago. Someone was going from Gordonsville to (I think) Fork Mt.

 

[cj57548]

Tg 82

That is the same type of conversation I have been hearing on TG 82. It also seems to be used in a "CB" type fashion to pass the time when traveling.

TG 107 has been used about the same. The conversation yesterday appeared to be between two radio techs. One was in the Richmond area (the "Huge-Not" Bridge was mentioned), the other was "on the back side of the mountain" from the Fork Mountain tower. It sounded like the Fork Mountain tower is exceeding expectations.

They mentioned a specific channel name for TG 107 but I couldn't understand what they were calling it.

EA

 

[tglendye]

I was sitting there listening last night and I suddenly realized I was listening to Culpeper VSP in stereo. Conventional channel on the left, STARS on the right. First time I've had that happen. STARS was TG 19...
EA

That was a good catch. I haven't heard any activity on Culpeper's talk groups w/ the exception of radio maintenance a couple of months ago. I've gotten a few affiliations w/ TG 17 on Pro96com, but I don't remember 19 coming up. And I've never logged any activity on a Culpeper TG when I've run Win500 while scanning.

Just curious: was TG 19 linked to 159.165 or 158.985?

-Todd

 

[cj57548]

That was a good catch. I haven't heard any activity on Culpeper's talk groups w/ the exception of radio maintenance a couple of months ago. I've gotten a few affiliations w/ TG 17 on Pro96com, but I don't remember 19 coming up. And I've never logged any activity on a Culpeper TG when I've run Win500 while scanning.

Just curious: was TG 19 linked to 159.165 or 158.985?

-Todd

I think it was 159.165. It was very unexpected. I have a BCD996T that I use for logging STARS activity using ARC996 Pro. The scanner runs 24/7 (except when expecting thunderstorms). I had seen Culpeper TGs start showing up a few months ago but this was the first time I had heard it used "officially". Who knows, it may have been an accident. Hey, I wonder what this switch does? : )

EA