Staying in Key Largo soon. Plus Sanibel and some Miami-Dade. Looking for monitoring advice.

[GROL]

I will be staying in Key Largo for a while, soon. We usually stay in the Daytona area, so I am already familiar with the limitations monitoring SLERS, so I don't even monitor it while in Florida.

So far I only found this one closed thread about Key Largo. Florida Keys

I primarily monitor Law, Marine, USCG and MilAir. No Fire or EMS unless there is a major event.

I am interested in any advise beyond what can be found in the database. It appears there is one system for Public Safety for all of Monroe county. Does this also include any local Police? Is it all patrolled by SO except in Key West?

I will also be attempting to monitor military aviation and USCG. I have the USCG Land Mobile P25 channels programmed, and while I know they do encrypt in some locations, I have not usually encountered encryption elsewhere. I will be able to deploy an external antenna system dedicated to 118-174 MHz and 225-420 MHz to be distributed to a BCD396XT, PRO-164, BCT15X and BCD996P2. Portable operation with a BCD325P2 and SDS100.

I will be bringing an HF rig for Amateur radio and HF monitoring.

Also interested in Parks and Wildlife. However it looks like Fish and Wildlife is still encrypted on SLERS. I really miss monitoring the Highway Patrol on VHF. Is there anything local to the Keys regarding wildlife that can be monitored?

Any advise about monitoring in the Keys will be appreciated. We will be visiting all the Keys down to Key West. Traveling to Sanibel Island and around some areas of Miami-Dade, but mostly needing advise on the Keys. I probably will not monitor around Miami as there is just too much there and this is supposed to be a relaxing vacation, but when I am at the coast, I am most interested in what is going on at the beaches. Beach Patrol, etc. Besides, it looks like a most of Law is encrypted in Miami-Dade.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Bote]

Monroe County's trunked system covers all the Keys and slops over into the mainland up to the county line.

Here's a link to my Google Spreadsheet with my latest findings on the trunked system.

County sheriff is pretty much The Law in the Keys, but I think there are either locals or private security in certain enclaves that show up on the radio under special callsigns; I think that stuff is listed on the wiki. They use their main patrol talkgroup for all the usual traffic, channel 2 is where they run tags and talkaround to clear up the main, then a handful of tactical channels that don't get used much.

Fire is simulcast over their old UHF repeaters strung along the Keys, so you can just punch in 453.875MHz for Key Largo or 453.825 for Plantation Key. You never know.

USCG is encrypted on their VHF and UHF LMR stuff. Sometimes even operating on Marine ch.21 or 23. Otherwise lots of marine chatter to monitor, including commercial fishing and head boats who can get a bit whiny at times.

Boca Chica N.A.S. has a node on the regional U.S. Navy trunked system, but I've never been able to determine all of their talkgroups. They have a lot of airfield ops on various talkgroups if you're into that stuff, maybe while watching the jets take off and land. They are networked and at least on my old BCD996T scanner I hear their central dispatch (at Jax?) dispatching the whole region, not just Boca Chica.

You can whet your appetite for Key West with Bote's Southernmost Feed that I stream through my own Icecast host. Best to plug the listen link into WinAmp, but you can also listen right on the web page.

Safe travels.

 

[GROL]

Monroe County's trunked system covers all the Keys and slops over into the mainland up to the county line.

Here's a link to my Google Spreadsheet with my latest findings on the trunked system.

County sheriff is pretty much The Law in the Keys, but I think there are either locals or private security in certain enclaves that show up on the radio under special callsigns; I think that stuff is listed on the wiki. They use their main patrol talkgroup for all the usual traffic, channel 2 is where they run tags and talkaround to clear up the main, then a handful of tactical channels that don't get used much.

Fire is simulcast over their old UHF repeaters strung along the Keys, so you can just punch in 453.875MHz for Key Largo or 453.825 for Plantation Key. You never know.

USCG is encrypted on their VHF and UHF LMR stuff. Sometimes even operating on Marine ch.21 or 23. Otherwise lots of marine chatter to monitor, including commercial fishing and head boats who can get a bit whiny at times.

Boca Chica N.A.S. has a node on the regional U.S. Navy trunked system, but I've never been able to determine all of their talkgroups. They have a lot of airfield ops on various talkgroups if you're into that stuff, maybe while watching the jets take off and land. They are networked and at least on my old BCD996T scanner I hear their central dispatch (at Jax?) dispatching the whole region, not just Boca Chica.

You can whet your appetite for Key West with Bote's Southernmost Feed that I stream through my own Icecast host. Best to plug the listen link into WinAmp, but you can also listen right on the web page.

Safe travels.

Great! Thanks. I am very much into air operations. Former USAF Air Field Systems maintenance chief. I will be trying to catch military aircraft patrolling or training, and USCG aircraft on aviation frequencies. As well as ATC and airfield operations. I will be too far from any airfield to hear tower traffic, but will be able to hear aircraft on approach/departure and in the air over a lot of southern FL. I am not very interested in local Unicom or CTAF.

I will probably not try to monitor the DoD trunked system. If I do while in Key West, I will just enable ID search and see what comes up and note any TGs that are airfield related. Security is boring most of the time to me.

From Daytona, I have heard plenty of USCG P25 in the clear out of Sector Jacksonville. Maybe Sector Miami and Key West is way too busy with drug interdiction and too close to Cuba to be in the clear most of the time.

Info on Monroe county helps. I will probably do as you suggest and just monitor the simulcast UHF for fire.

Thanks much.

 

[Ezra]

Also keep in mind that Monroe county (which is pretty much all you need for PD/FD there) is on a multicast system not simulcast. meaning that there are sites in Key Largo, Tavernier, Islamorada, Layton, Marathon, Summerland, Sugarloaf, Stock Island, Key West. Basically a site every 10 miles going down the keys. They all transmit the same thing but they are different frequencies so if you are in Key largo listen to the Key largo site and when in Marathon, listen to the Marathon site, etc. You can punch in all the site frequencies together if you don't want to switch sites, it just takes longer to scan.

Also Fire is on UHF but it's all retransmitted on the trunked county Sheriff/fire system so you really don't need to separately monitor those.

There are no local police except for Key West
SO operates 99% off of one talkgroup for the whole county (except Key West) so it's easy to monitor
FD operates 99% off of one talkgroup for the whole county (except Key West) so it's easy to monitor
Trauma Star Helos (Marathon and Key West) are on FD dispatch and very active

 

[GROL]

Also keep in mind that Monroe county (which is pretty much all you need for PD/FD there) is on a multicast system not simulcast. meaning that there are sites in Key Largo, Tavernier, Islamorada, Layton, Marathon, Summerland, Sugarloaf, Stock Island, Key West. Basically a site every 10 miles going down the keys. They all transmit the same thing but they are different frequencies so if you are in Key largo listen to the Key largo site and when in Marathon, listen to the Marathon site, etc. You can punch in all the site frequencies together if you don't want to switch sites, it just takes longer to scan.

Also Fire is on UHF but it's all retransmitted on the trunked county Sheriff/fire system so you really don't need to separately monitor those.

There are no local police except for Key West
SO operates 99% off of one talkgroup for the whole county (except Key West) so it's easy to monitor
FD operates 99% off of one talkgroup for the whole county (except Key West) so it's easy to monitor
Trauma Star Helos (Marathon and Key West) are on FD dispatch and very active

Thanks! Sounds like it will be easy to monitor any local events. I am a passive listener and only monitor actively when I hear something of particular interest to me. Volume stays low until then.