the NIFOG

[ecps92]

Excellent observations, you never know where folks will pop up, looking for a quiet channel.

Always worth having them in the Scan/Search sequences.

Belated Happy Turkey Day - from another still on "mobilization orders"

Since I am stuck at work this fine Turkey Day, I feel like replying.

In my logs, I show:

-VCALL 10 observed in Alaska, Washington, California, Florida and Nevada (calling, surveillance and chat)

-VTAC 11 observed in Alaska, Washington and California (all surveillances)

-VTAC 12 observed in Washington for surveillance

-VTAC 13 observed in Washington (cross-band patch to 800mhz talkgroup for events); California (surveillance) and Florida (chat)

-VSAR16 observed in nearly every state I've ever visited (I posted in another thread about these logs)

-VFIRE 21-26 observed for fireground operations and EMS ops in multiple locations

-VMED28 still used as HEARS

-VLAW31 observed in Washington for weekly tests, EAS tests and announcements, and volcano/Tsunami alerting systems

-NC1 observed for FBI use in Seattle (P25 mode)

-IR4 observed in Montana for chat

-LEA observed in California (surveillance, P25) and Georgia (surveillance, analog)

-LE6 observed in Washington (surveillance)

-LE8 observed in California (chat) and Nevada (surveillance)

-IR16 observed in Alabama (National Guard chat)

-IR 18 observed in Washington (unknown)

-LEB observed in Washington (just radio checks prior to an exercise)

-LE13 observed in Alabama (CDP simplex)

-UCALL40 observed in Washington (chat for a state agency)

-UTAC41D observed in Florida (encrypted)

-Nearly every 7CALL, 7TAC, 7LAW and 7FIRE observed for everything from surveillance to LE training to chat, including a Fed LE agency using 7TAC55D for a raid.

-8CALL and 8TAC being used for chat, speedtraps, surveillance and assorted misc things in nearly every location I've been. A local government close to my home uses 8CALL for their simplex operations, much to the annoyance of a lot of dispatch centers.

 

[Wilrobnson]

I have a "Travel Interops" scan list with the NIFOG stuff in it, and I've duped the NIFOG stuff to another scan list "Interops" that includes state-specific freqs to where I reside.

I was due to de-mob Wednesday and be home Wednesday night...Perfect storm of coincidence will see me home either tomorrow night or Sunday- Just in time for work on Monday morning

 

[Wilrobnson]

I actually forgot one I discovered OCONUS a few years ago. I had the travel interops scan list going and heard encrypted P25 on VTAC14. I thought it was bleedover until I got ahold of one of the local PD's radios the next week. Their investigations unit uses it for ops (!).

 

[bailly2]

i have been recording vtac, utac and 8tac for 8 years. never heard surveillance on them. i think they would not be used for surveillance where they have trunked systems. did hear surveillance on interoperability talkgroups.

 

[krokus]

A local government close to my home uses 8CALL for their simplex operations, much to the annoyance of a lot of dispatch centers.

Did they have that freq licensed before the NIFOG push?

 

[ecps92]

the 800 Interops have always been Interops, even before the NIFOG and ReBanding
The exceptions to Interop [prior licenses] remain for some of the VHF/UHF Pairs

Did they have that freq licensed before the NIFOG push?

 

[krokus]

the 800 Interops have always been Interops, even before the NIFOG and ReBanding
The exceptions to Interop [prior licenses] remain for some of the VHF/UHF Pairs

Not so. The 8Tac93 freq was used by a local bus system, when rebanding took affect. It took some time to get the busses moved to their new freqs, so we avoided using that channel during that time.

 

[ecps92]

Guess YMMV as here in my Region the 866/868 and now 851/853 IO's had always been IO's

Not so. The 8Tac93 freq was used by a local bus system, when rebanding took affect. It took some time to get the busses moved to their new freqs, so we avoided using that channel during that time.

 

[Wilrobnson]

Did they have that freq licensed before the NIFOG push?

No. It someone's genius idea to give the local government entity (a City facility) one talkgroup and one conventional channel, and someone picked 8CALL90. Someone else after a few years programmed it in with the T/A as a user option; 99% of the time the users don't understand or care and end up calling each other, necessitating one of the regional dispatch centers to make a sarcastic reply.

 

[Wilrobnson]

i have been recording vtac, utac and 8tac for 8 years. never heard surveillance on them. i think they would not be used for surveillance where they have trunked systems. did hear surveillance on interoperability talkgroups.

I must have imagined the last 10 years or so in that case.

 

[bailly2]

been recording all the 700mhz conventional frequencies since i commented. not one transmission. 7call and tac and all the rest of those conventional freqencies between 769 and 775 are only licensed in a few states. i think vtac and utac and 7tac and 8tac stopped being used for surveillance when push to talk cell phones, smartphone apps like zello, and trunked systems are available. apparently these interoperability frequencies are used for surveillance still in 2020, but its rare and only in a few states.

 

[W7FDX]

I actually forgot one I discovered OCONUS a few years ago. I had the travel interops scan list going and heard encrypted P25 on VTAC14. I thought it was bleedover until I got ahold of one of the local PD's radios the next week. Their investigations unit uses it for ops (!).

I thought the V/U/8-Call and Tac channels were only supposed to be analog and in the clear? I didn't think P25 and/or encryption was allowed...

 

[Thunderknight]

I thought the V/U/8-Call and Tac channels were only supposed to be analog and in the clear? I didn't think P25 and/or encryption was allowed...

that is correct.
700 are p25, with AES encryption allowed on the 7tacs (and 7meds, 7fire, etc). No encryption on the 700 calling.
Plus if it’s a single agency using an interop, that’s not proper usage (not a multiagency or multi-jurisdictional use)

 

[mancow]

yeah during any sort of natural disaster or natural inconvienience types thing i crank up all the usual suspects. i am just about fully convinced there is little need for me to, for my area at least.

over the course of five years i have heard open mikes interspersed with spanish on a couple of occaisions on one of the fed 167mhz vtacs, which was interesting, but only 3-4 occasions in a 2 month span.

on the "heavy use" 8tacs a distant FD runs monthly comm checks and occasional random, brief key ups and unintelligible chatter. the main reason i even waste space with the 8tacs is due to NC HART training, which often uses them for A2G comms with the UH-60s during the course of rescuing the "survivors", which is very useful for finding a good vantage point for taking photos.

coincidentily, the past two weeks have seen heavy usage on the 8tacs somewhere near me. best i can tell they are either building or clearing out a dirt road in the local national forest, or something along those lines.

well thats all folks.

Yea, it's a good idea in theory but in reality nobody uses it or even knows how. You could have training 3 days a week but when the **** hits the fan it would still be , "What channel are you talking about, what is zone?"

 

[ecps92]

Keep in mind, long before many of these channels became listed for National/Regional Interops they also serve/served a purpose locally which was not taken away. Using P25 on the same freq for [when licensed] P25/DMR/Different PL/DPL does not mean this is someone using the Nationwide Interop with bad data....

Examples from here in New England
155.4750 156.7 is the standard for VLAW31
but New Hampshire has used this for years [since PL/CG etc were invented] using 136.5

Heck there are also agencies/states that have what might be referenced as the 800 Interops with PL/DPL/NAC for Local use, but the Repeaters can do 156.7 for Nationwide Mutual Aid

I thought the V/U/8-Call and Tac channels were only supposed to be analog and in the clear? I didn't think P25 and/or encryption was allowed...

 

[Thunderknight]

Keep in mind, long before many of these channels became listed for National/Regional Interops they also serve/served a purpose locally which was not taken away. Using P25 on the same freq for [when licensed] P25/DMR/Different PL/DPL does not mean this is someone using the Nationwide Interop with bad data....

Examples from here in New England
155.4750 156.7 is the standard for VLAW31
but New Hampshire has used this for years [since PL/CG etc were invented] using 136.5

VLAW31 is not an FCC designated national interoperability channel, but it is a channel listed in the NIFOG.
Since 2000, interoperability use on the VCALLs, VTACs, UCALLs, UTACs was designated by the FCC. Any legacy users are secondary since 2015 (?) and must yield their use to interoperability users, with no new non-IO licenses granted.
Back in 2000, P25 wasn't nearly as common, so it would kind of surprising if they had that emission designator on their license in 2000, even assuming it was a legacy licensee.
See: https://blog.npstc.org/2018/02/21/fcc-warns-licensees-about-use-of-interoperability-channels/
Edit: corrected date history. Edit2: added link.

 

[W7FDX]

I have used the V-Tac channels for multi jurisdictional incidents where one or more agencies were fully encrypted and the rest were not and it made interoperability much easier than trying to set up 3-4 different patches for the same incident.

 

[ecps92]

OK - since we want to nit-pick

Just because something listed in the NIFOG by Freq indicates xyz, doesn't mean it is now/or has previously been allocated/licensed/used for something else with a different PL/DPL/NAC with/without ENC, DMR or even with the same Tone as recommended in the NIFOG, but is/was licensed/used long before Ross invented the NIFOG [Happy Retirement Ross]

This include any/all of the frequencies listed.

Without having the actual radio in hand, working for that agency, or being involved in that specific Operation...as a Scannist "WE" [Global] can only ass-u-me information. Yes, some of us do have insider information from time-time, but when monitoring over a Scanner, assumptions are all that apply.

VLAW31 is not an FCC designated national interoperability channel, but it is a channel listed in the NIFOG.
Since 2000, interoperability use on the VCALLs, VTACs, UCALLs, UTACs was designated by the FCC. Any legacy users are secondary since 2015 (?) and must yield their use to interoperability users, with no new non-IO licenses granted.
Back in 2000, P25 wasn't nearly as common, so it would kind of surprising if they had that emission designator on their license in 2000, even assuming it was a legacy licensee.
See: https://blog.npstc.org/2018/02/21/fcc-warns-licensees-about-use-of-interoperability-channels/
Edit: corrected date history. Edit2: added link.

 

[Wilrobnson]

I thought the V/U/8-Call and Tac channels were only supposed to be analog and in the clear? I didn't think P25 and/or encryption was allowed...

Okay, I found the photo of it. I was wrong; it was VTAC-11 (screenshot of video attached). I was scrolling through the radio channels. Long story short, when I got a hold of the PD radio I recorded scrolling through the channels so when I later started correlating frequency finds with what I could confirm, knocking some of the items off my list would be easy. It was about the third or fourth time I watched that phone video when I realized where the encrypted traffic on the VTAC was coming from. I spoke with one of their detectives the next day who confirmed their channel 16 (VTAC-11) was their investigations unit's tac channel for surveillance, etc.

BTW, this was not in the USA.

Further, I have no idea what kind of radio that was (Kenwood maybe?) but IIRC it had been purchased from the US, so maybe they only programmed the first few channels for their stuff and left the rest of the codeplug as-is from wherever it had been surplused?

ETA- disregard. I just re-watched the video and saw that, at the end, as I moved my phone away from the radio head, it's clearly a Motorola product. Duh.

 

[Thunderknight]

That looks like a Motorola XTL series radio screen, but not sure about the buttons on the bottom.
If it's not in the USA, then all the comments in this thread about allowed uses of VTAC's don't apply

Edit: That's a Motorola M5 style control head.