Texas 155.5575 DPL 115 User?

[letarotor]

Does anyone know who might be using this frequency with this digital PL tone? I'm in the Northwest part of Tarrant County and I have been trying to confirm the user of this frequency for the last two or three weeks.

We've been having some good skip / ducting off and on lately and I've been doing a lot of searching of the VHF Hi band on the nights and mornings reception is really good. I had originally thought this frequency was just a further out agency I was receiving on the good reception nights. But tonight reception is nothing great and I'm still receiving them.

The confirmed RadioReference data doesn't show anybody meeting this criteria for this user in Texas or Oklahoma. When I search the FCC database, the two closest listings I come across are the city of Melissa in Collin County and Taylor County. I do not believe this is Taylor County, aka the Abilene area, I am receiving tonight and I'm not sure if Melissa, Texas has any frequencies that are Public Safety and not on the Collin County trunked radio systems.

From what I have heard and recorded, I do believe this is a law enforcement user. I don't know if they are just an analog user / agency not listed with the FCC or if it is one of the users at this link I'll post at the end? Houston County, the Crockett, Texas area, is another user listed but none of the confirmed information in the RadioReference database matches. Other than the frequency, the DPL does not match with Houston County. And I definitely don't think I would be picking up Houston County tonight either.

This is the FCC data and if anybody can help confirm who is using this I would sure appreciate it.

FCC Listings:

https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?stid=48&freq=155.5575&action=sf



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Brian (COMMSCAN)

 

[rattlerbb01]

When I catch skip, or even an unidentified user on a frequency in the area, I listen for names, landmarks, streets, etc. There was one time several years back when the tropo was wide open when I heard several fire toneouts on a frequency that is lost to me now. After gathering a few addresses together and getting engine/station numbers, I was able to figure out that it was the Gainesville, FL fire department coming in all the way to Navasota, TX where I was living at the time. This is typically how you sleuth out who is on a frequency, and public safety users are especially easy to figure out since addresses, unit numbers and even dispatcher callsigns are used frequently.

 

[letarotor]

This is exactly how I've done it for decades also. When I lived down in Z Houston area during the late 1970s up through the early 1990s I use to pick up a lot of the VHF Lo band skip and it was usually up from the Northeast part of the country and places like Pennsylvania. We had a really good run for about a decade and I could pick up agencies all across the state of Texas pretty regularly. Of course we didn't have the internet then and I used the different regional frequency guides, maps if I could get one, and even telephone books I would pick up whenever traveling from the hotel rooms I might be staying in. It's definitely become a lot easier today with the internet.

I remember one night in the mid-1980s when I was listening to agencies in Tennessee from Houston on the VHF Hi band. I did have a Police Call guide for that region and with the use of a Randy McNally Atlas USA map that was pretty sick and more detailed with Metro areas and I was finally able to confirm many of the agencies by the highways and freeways that we're on the map. It never failed too. No sooner would I confirm the agency by these other means and then they would say their name over the air

I just got finished looking up two addresses on Google Maps from the overnight recording I made on the frequency, 155.5575, I'm trying to confirm. The two addresses came in crystal clear and were in Glenn Heights Texas. That's not too terribly far away from me but they are definitely not listed with the frequency in the FCC database or the RadioReference database. And I don't see that digital PL tone listed with them either on RR. I'm going to have to check against their 154.4 listed frequency and see if possibly I'm receiving the same signal at the same time next time it's coming in clear.

One of the problems with the SDR radios is that they will get a crystal clear image of the frequency but it's on the wrong frequency. I don't think that's going to be the case here but I need to confirm that. In my experience, the image frequency will be within 750 kHz and definitely within 1 MHz of the actual good frequency. This really bites when you're trying to confirm new frequencies. Uniden is well aware of this issue and even the SDR dongles reportedly do the same thing and it's an issue hopefully being worked on. It throws a wrench in easily confirming something that may not be listed when you can't be one hundred percent sure the frequency you're listening to is good.

Thanks for your reply and hopefully there will be some more good skip / ducting that continues through the summer. I've been picking up a few P25 users I've been able to confirm over the last two or three months and some have been as far away as 300 miles on two different really good nights. It's kind of dropped off the last 3 or 4 days but I'm hopeful that we'll get some more good nights before the summer heat wipes them away

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[ecps92]

What about their 155.3700 Freq
ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - KNCA519 - GLENN HEIGHTS, CITY OF - Frequencies Summary

This is exactly how I've done it for decades also. When I lived down in Z Houston area during the late 1970s up through the early 1990s I use to pick up a lot of the VHF Lo band skip and it was usually up from the Northeast part of the country and places like Pennsylvania. We had a really good run for about a decade and I could pick up agencies all across the state of Texas pretty regularly. Of course we didn't have the internet then and I used the different regional frequency guides, maps if I could get one, and even telephone books I would pick up whenever traveling from the hotel rooms I might be staying in. It's definitely become a lot easier today with the internet.

I remember one night in the mid-1980s when I was listening to agencies in Tennessee from Houston on the VHF Hi band. I did have a Police Call guide for that region and with the use of a Randy McNally Atlas USA map that was pretty sick and more detailed with Metro areas and I was finally able to confirm many of the agencies by the highways and freeways that we're on the map. It never failed too. No sooner would I confirm the agency by these other means and then they would say their name over the air

I just got finished looking up two addresses on Google Maps from the overnight recording I made on the frequency, 155.5575, I'm trying to confirm. The two addresses came in crystal clear and were in Glenn Heights Texas. That's not too terribly far away from me but they are definitely not listed with the frequency in the FCC database or the RadioReference database. And I don't see that digital PL tone listed with them either on RR. I'm going to have to check against their 154.4 listed frequency and see if possibly I'm receiving the same signal at the same time next time it's coming in clear.

One of the problems with the SDR radios is that they will get a crystal clear image of the frequency but it's on the wrong frequency. I don't think that's going to be the case here but I need to confirm that. In my experience, the image frequency will be within 750 kHz and definitely within 1 MHz of the actual good frequency. This really bites when you're trying to confirm new frequencies. Uniden is well aware of this issue and even the SDR dongles reportedly do the same thing and it's an issue hopefully being worked on. It throws a wrench in easily confirming something that may not be listed when you can't be one hundred percent sure the frequency you're listening to is good.

Thanks for your reply and hopefully there will be some more good skip / ducting that continues through the summer. I've been picking up a few P25 users I've been able to confirm over the last two or three months and some have been as far away as 300 miles on two different really good nights. It's kind of dropped off the last 3 or 4 days but I'm hopeful that we'll get some more good nights before the summer heat wipes them away

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Brian (COMMSCAN)

 

[letarotor]

What about their 155.3700 Freq
ULS License - Public Safety Pool, Conventional License - KNCA519 - GLENN HEIGHTS, CITY OF - Frequencies Summary

No bet frequency is the old Intercity frequency that nobody uses as far as I know in Texas anymore. That was the frequency that VHF police departments and Sheriff's departments and really any law enforcement agency used to communicate with mobile units on 154.95 and with other departments on the same 155.37. That was a great frequency in its day but I have not heard any use on It by any agency in decades now it was the Statewide interoperability frequency up through about the mid-1990s probably. I appreciate the reply though.

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[ecps92]

OK, was just doing an FCC Search based on your comment of "Off Freq" or "Images" and just searched for "Glenn Heights"

the other issue SDR and scanners have is the Adj Freq +/- rejection if real strong, so don't rule out 155.5500 etc

No bet frequency is the old Intercity frequency that nobody uses as far as I know in Texas anymore. That was the frequency that VHF police departments and Sheriff's departments and really any law enforcement agency used to communicate with mobile units on 154.95 and with other departments on the same 155.37. That was a great frequency in its day but I have not heard any use on It by any agency in decades now it was the Statewide interoperability frequency up through about the mid-1990s probably. I appreciate the reply though.

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[nd5y]

155.37 (PL 156.7) is now TXCALL2D and is supposed to be used for flight following and air-to-ground.
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Common/Shared_(TX)

 

[letarotor]

155.37 (PL 156.7) is now TXCALL2D and is supposed to be used for flight following and air-to-ground.
https://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Common/Shared_(TX)

Yeah that frequency I definitely still is licensed but just like the majority of those Nationwide IO channels I haven't heard a peep on most of them ever since all of these various trunk radio systems started popping up across the South. They all seem to have their interoperability on their radio system and almost seem unaware that there are Statewide and Nationwide interoperability channels. Those were getting used a lot when they were new but then they disappeared in the DFW area as far as use goes. I'm not sure about the rest of Texas or even the South nowadays but with all of the interoperability out there and available I believe a lot of agencies don't even know those channels exist in the DFW area. I miss the old 154.95 / 155.37 set up because it was heavily used and nobody ever had a problem reaching each other even if they were from the opposite side of the state and visiting

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[Project25_MASTR]

Interoperability has become an interesting thing. When I moved to DFW, I thought it was kind of weird how every major jurisdiction has their own system (versus just working together for a larger system like what has been done with TXWARN and GATRRS) but unfortunately, politics are heavily involved here which is one of the reasons I've always thought an independent wide area system (open standard, co-op'd) would be a great idea. Some of it is also many agencies are next to abandoning VHF. For example, now that Waco's system is officially known has Heart of Texas Regional Radio System only a few agencies left in the county are still on VHF. DPS has also been installing mulit-band radios in their cruisers for the last five or six years now.

Anyway, back to the original post. Last time I was working with some skip identification was in Blanco County in early 2018. I was having to prepare the conventional backup system (which consists of two sites with a shotgun link) to take traffic while the trunking sites went down for major upgrades (out with the Quantars, in with the GTRs). Anyway, from that site overlooking Johnson City I was seeing all sorts of traffic pop up. I was able to reference the licensee's against my archives, and the radio reference database. Two turned out to be customers of mine and one I couldn't quite identify but believe to be coming from around Goliad. Had to listen to traffic though...which took time I didn't have. Managed to get the system working again though it still can pickup quite a bit of co-channel from around the state.

 

[letarotor]

Interoperability has become an interesting thing. When I moved to DFW, I thought it was kind of weird how every major jurisdiction has their own system (versus just working together for a larger system like what has been done with TXWARN and GATRRS) but unfortunately, politics are heavily involved here which is one of the reasons I've always thought an independent wide area system (open standard, co-op'd) would be a great idea. Some of it is also many agencies are next to abandoning VHF. For example, now that Waco's system is officially known has Heart of Texas Regional Radio System only a few agencies left in the county are still on VHF. DPS has also been installing mulit-band radios in their cruisers for the last five or six years now.

Anyway, back to the original post. Last time I was working with some skip identification was in Blanco County in early 2018. I was having to prepare the conventional backup system (which consists of two sites with a shotgun link) to take traffic while the trunking sites went down for major upgrades (out with the Quantars, in with the GTRs). Anyway, from that site overlooking Johnson City I was seeing all sorts of traffic pop up. I was able to reference the licensee's against my archives, and the radio reference database. Two turned out to be customers of mine and one I couldn't quite identify but believe to be coming from around Goliad. Had to listen to traffic though...which took time I didn't have. Managed to get the system working again though it still can pickup quite a bit of co-channel from around the state.

This is the same exact question, dealing with interoperability, that me and a lot of friends have talked about up here in the DFW area. And I know what you mean about Downing the TxWARRN area where works great. Of course a lot of agencies are now on the Fort Worth systems interoperability channels but I've noticed a lot of them are still not aware they have it and are trying to learn how to use.

Sounds like a great job that you have! I've always loved dxing and picking up those far-off stations that are new to me anyway.

I've got to run now but thank you for the reply. I think we're on the same page with what we think and wonder about up here in the DFW area!

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